observation

today, at 1:33 AM me and my best friend observed the penumbra of the lunar eclipse begin to cover the full moon. we went out again later at 3:00 and saw the moon fully covered and tinted with an orange color, the full lunar eclipse

observation 2.2

Today, next to the waning crescent moon I observed Venus shining very brightly in the Southwest

Frosted Leaf and Night sky

This work of art captures both the beauty of the galaxy as well as the beauty of nature we have here on Earth. The frost on the star looks very much like the stars in the night sky. This picture was taken over Japan. In this picture, a meteor can be seen flying behind the trees on the far lower left. Next to the streak of the meteor is also the streak left behind from an airplane. Once again, capturing the similarities between Earth and the rest of our galaxy. The star with the highest magnitude, Sirius, can be seen shining brightly on the left side of the image. The constellation of Orion can be seen easily, as well as his belt of three stars in a perfectly spaced row. This belt is located benaeath the red gas giant. This gas giant is named Betelguese. To the right of the image is the star cluster of the Seven sisters, or, Pleides open star cluster.

observation

On saturday, November 20, 2010, I saw the full moon looking beautiful about 6 degrees above the horizon in the East. I was located by the bay near mote marine aquarium.

NGC 4452: An Extremely Thin Galaxy

This galaxy is so thin that it is barely visible when viewed from the side. It is a type of disk galaxy known as a lenticular galaxy. A lenticular galaxy has used up most of its stellular matter. It is made clear that NGC4452 is a lenticular galaxy due to its lack of dust surrounding it. There is very little star formation in this galaxy. It spans about 35,000 light years. There is a bulge of stars loc ated in the center of this galaxy.

Spicules: jets on the Sun

Spicules are "spikes of superheated gas" made up of plasma that are on the sun. they are 300 miles wide, and usually about 3,000 miles long. They move at a speed of 50,000 miles per hour and then vanish after about 5 minutes. this characteristic of spicules makes them very hard to study in depth.Spicules are one of many factors that generate an intense solar wind on the surface of the Sun. It is believed that the periodic regeneration of a spicule about every five minutes is caused by sound waves of a ring, much like that of a bell, being emitted  from the inside of the Sun. These sound waves form shock waves, which  make a spicule shoot out. Spicules may also contribute to the extrememly high temperature of the corona of the Sun, which is 1.8 milion degrees farenheight, much higher in temperature than the surface of the Sun. There is still  much to learn about the mysterious spicules that engulf the Sun.

Halloween and the Ghost head nebula

Today is Hallowen! Halloween is a "cross- quarter" day, or a day halfway in between the equinox and the solstice.With a span of about 50 light years, this Ghost head nebula has earned its name from it's ghostly appearance and is said to look like Casper the friendly ghost. The "eyes" of this ghost are the two bright lights in the middle of the photograph. These formations are named A1 and A2. Within  both A1 and A2 are large stars the green in the left of the picture is glowing oxygen. The glowing oxygen is produced by a strong stellar wind created by an enormous star that is not shown in the picture. The red and blue light shows the emitted hydrogen gas. It is located in the massive Megellanic cloud.

Prometheus rising through Saturn's F ring

In this picture is shown one of Saturn's 62 known moons. Saturn has 9 rings, named A,B,C,D,E,F and G(not in order from saturn) These rings are amazingly thin, being about only 100 meters thick, while they are thousands of kilometers wide. From a side view of saturn, the rings are seen as only a very thin line surrounding the planet. The F ring shown in this picture is held together by "shepard moons". Included in these mooons are Prometheus and Pandora. It is a very narrow and rather dim ring, but it has a diverse structure. This picture shows the trail of empty space created by the gravitaional force of Prometheus.

Christen Sorensen Longomontanus

Chritsen was born in the villiage of Lomborg in Jutland, Denmark. when he reached the age of eight, his father passed away. He studied at Lemvig until he was fourteen, when he then ran away to Viborg. He then started working so that he could provide for himself and started to attend the University of Copenhagen as well as grammar school. It was there that he met the well known Tycho Brahe. He became Tycho Brahe's valuable assistant. He left for three years to engage himself further in his studies, and then returned to Brahe. It was then that he assisted in developing the tychonic lunar theory. When he was done with this he went to Fraunberg and received his masters degree at Rostock. He became a professor at th University of Cophagen in 1607 and remained in this position until he died. Although Christen had his accomplishments, his beleifs were also very flawed. he saw comets as "evil" and went along with Brahe's theory regarding refraction. He also beleived that he had successfully "squared the circle."Squaring the circle was a problem that many ancient geometers tried in vain to find the solution to. This problem has been proven impossible today. He inaugrated the building of an astronomical tower. Christen was the true creator of is known as Brahe's geoheliogentric model. He created the Danish astronomy models in 1622. He also wrote a book entitled Astronomica Danica after the death of his master Tycho Brahe. In this book, Longomontanus integrated his observations and applied them to the motion of planets in the form of a "systematic treatise"

Io in true coor

This strange moon is one of Jupiter's moons, discovered by Galileo. It is Jupiter's largest moon. It's surface is covered  in continuously erupting volcanoes. Some of the lava bursting through it's surface has such a high temperature that it glows in the daark. The many volcanic eruptions on Io's surface is caused by the gravitational pull of Jupiter's surrounding moons as well as Jupiter itself, much like the tidal pull that we experience on Earth. It's surface consists of silicate rock and sulfur.

Hubble's lagoon

This is a close up picture of the lagoon nebula. This nebula spans 3 lightyears, and is also known as M8. It is located in the constellation Sagittarius. This nebula is especially interesting to me because it is one of the M objects I have been writing down on my constellation quizzes in class, but i never knew what the M object was I was writing down. In this region of the lagoon nebula, it is possible to see the high speed winds created by the formation of new stars.

Pacman and Hartley

In this picture is shown the Comet Hartley as well as the Pacman Nebula. The comet hartley can be seen on the right side of the picture, a blue-green color, and the pacman nebula can be seen on the left side. The comet Hartley was first viewed in 1968, with a magnitude of about 17. It's magnitude has grown increasingly higher since. It has been confirmed that it has a very small nucleus, with a diameter of only about .9 of a mile wide. Although it may be small, this nucleus spews gas and dust from it's surface. The comet is now closest to the Earth as it has ever been and was viewed on October 1st with a 4.4 magnitude. The comet will be the closest to Earth on October 20, with a distance of .12 astronomical units, where it can be seen South of Capella. The Pacman Nebula received its comical name from its appearance similar to that of a pacman. it is about 10,000 light years away, and has a span of about 80 light years.

Observation 9/30/10

Yesterday, as i was driving heading West, i saw Venus. I observed this at  7:45 PM and it was located fairly low in the sky, approximately 25 degrees above the horizon in the Southwest.

Venus South Polar Vortex

I learned that Venus is actually similar to Earth in many ways, and has developed the name of "Earth's sister planet." Venus and Earth contain the same amount of carbon dioxide, however on Earth it is stored in the crust, while on Venus it exsts as gas,is swirling around the atmosphere.Sulfur dioxide present in the atmosphere mixes with water vapor to form sulfuric acid droplets. These droplets make up the swirling clouds that cover the face of venus. This unusual vortex was found swirling over the south pole of Venus. The study of this vortex may tell us more about hurricanes on our planet.

Sources

Sources for Astronomer project:
1. Wikipedia. org , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christen_S%C3%B8rensen_Longomontanus
2. Dictionary of Science biography

Observation 9/24/10

Last night, the full moon was exceptionally bright and close to Earth. It was a harvest moon. The autumnal equinox occured yesterday at 3:09 universal time. Jupiter was also visible, relatively close to the moon.

An Extraordinary Spiral

In this picture, the spiral structure on the left is mysterious. One possability as to what it might be would be a  binary star that is about to enter planetary nebula phase and is ejecting its outermost atmoshphere.I learned that a binary star is characterised by two stars orbiting around a common center of focus. This spiral is 1/3 of a lightyear across. it takes the amount of time for the starts to orbit eachother as it takes another layer of the spiral to form, approximately 800 years.

Observation 9/22/10

At 10:16 PM, I observed the moon while standing in my driveway, high in the East, a full moon.

Dark Clouds of the Carina Nebula

This picture shows molecular clouds of the Carina Nebula that are made up of thick molecular gas and dust. Although these clouds are very thick I have learned that they are not as dense as the Earth's atmosphere. This nebula lies within the contstellation of Carina. The name karina means keel, and refers to the keel of the ship, the Argo Navis. The Carina Nebula lies in the southern hemisphere, and spans over 300 light years. It is 75,000 miles away from Earth. Within this nebula is one of the brightest most massive star formations, known as the Eta Carinae. it was thought to be one massive star, but was later found to be a stellular syestem. The biggest star in this system is more than 100 times the size of the sun. the brightness of the entire formation is 4 milion times that of the sun. in the future, this star is expected to explode, forming a supernova.

Observation 9/12/10

I saw the moon yesterday the earliest i have in a while, at 4:20 in the afternoon. i was driving south and i saw it faintly, high in the sky, a waxing cresent. at first glance i thought it was a cloud, and then i realised it was the moon.

Bubble Nebula

This nebula is commonly known as the bubble nebula due to its familiar bubble like shape. It is a gass shell surrounding an O-type star that is shaping it with the violent winds it produces. the star that it is shaped by is 10 to 20 times the size of our sun.The bubble nebula has a diameter of 10 light years and it is 11,300 light years away from Earth. its position in the sky is RA 23h 20m 44.40s Dec.+61degrees 11'40.80". It is close to the contellation Cassiopeia This bubble nebula may seem beautiful, however, Hubble cameras are designed so that different types and temperatures of gas show up as different colors. Sulfur hydrogen and oxygen atoms show up as blue, green, or red. Although this picture of  the bubble nebula is accurate, it is not how the human eye would see it naturally.