Micro-observatory Image 4.10

This Micro-observatory image is of Jupiter and it's moons. All I did to process the image was reduce the noise so that you can distinguish the moons better. My recent images of galaxies have been distorted by cloud cover so they are not worthy to post, sadly.

APOD 4.8

This beautiful, barred spiral galaxy is known as M61 or NGC 4303. It's bright spiral arms, immense dust lanes, and short central bar remind us of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. It is located about 55 million light-years away, nearby the Virgo Super Cluster of Galaxies. When it was first discovered by Barnabus Oriani in 1779, it was mistaken for a comet. I selected this image as today's APOD because we are nearing the end of the school year so our astronomy final exam is coming up and one of the topics on the exam is going to be galaxies.

APOD 4.7

A Live View from the International Space Station

This is another different APOD post. The above link will take you to the APOD website where you can get a live view of Earth from the International Space Station (ISS). The cameras that are supplying the incredible view were recently installed and are part of a project where they will be assessing the effects of high energy radiation, which cameras work best, and which camera angles are the most popular.. In total, there are four cameras each pointing in a different direction. With the ISS completing an orbit every 90 minutes, you can see the alternating light and dark side of the Earth every 45 minutes. Although this live feed will be terminated eventually, there may be more projects like this for everyone to take part in.

APOD 4.6

This APOD is an image of NGC 3628 (the Hamburger Galaxy) in the constellation Leo. This galaxy is about 100,000 light years across and has a faint tail that extends from the left part of the galaxy. The tail itself is 300,000 light years in length, extending off of the above image. The tail's presence may be due to gravity and tidal forces from it's neighbors M65 and M66. These three galaxies are known as the Leo Triplet. I chose this APOD because we have recently started doing citizen science and have been classifying galaxies on the site.

APOD 4.5

This APOD is a total lunar eclipse sequence of multiple different images layered over each other. The very scenic view is from Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada on the 15th of April. Each of the images of the Moon are separated by 10 minutes of movement. You can clearly see when the Moon is completely in the shadow of the Earth by how red the lunar surface appears. Also in the image, you can see the progression of Mars (above the Moon) and Spica (below the Moon).

Margaret Geller Biography

Margaret Joan Geller is an American astrophysicist born December 8, 1947 in Ithaca, New York. She was encouraged by her mother, Sarah Levine Geller, to study science and mathematics. Geller did not receive any specialized education until she was in college. In 1970, Geller received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. The second university she would attend would be Princeton, where she would spend four years until she received her Ph.D. in Physics. After graduating she moved to Cambridge, England to study at the Institute of Astronomy. In 1980, she moved back to the United States of America to become an assistant professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. It was at this time where she and John P. Huchra, a coworker, began carrying out a red-shift survey for the Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The survey's purpose was to map all galaxies above a certain brightness at a maximum distance of 650 million light years in a particular part of the sky. According to the Big Bang Theory the sky should be homogeneous and uniform in the distribution of galaxies, but that is not what Geller observed. She first observed this in the constellation Bootes in 1981. There was a 100 million light year gap between galaxies in the area. After being an assistant professor for two years, she joined the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory as a permanent scientific staff. In 1988, she became the head professor for Astronomy at Harvard University. Up until the 1990s, she continued her survey of galaxies with Huchra. Their first published observations of a 135 degree slice of the sky showed a thin layer of galaxies that appeared to line the walls of a "bubble-like" empty space. They would later call this the "Great Wall." This wall of galaxies is five times denser than the average density of galaxies spread out across the sky. What blew the minds of Geller and Huchra was the fact that the wall was only 15 million light years thick compared to it's 500 million light years in length. Even though they discovered this phenomena, they were not able to explain it. One theory is that areas in space before the Big Bang were "clumpy," so when the the Big Bang occurred they were distributed unevenly. Another theory is that unusually high amounts of dark matter hold the galaxies in place. Even though they continue to survey the sky, they still do not know how to explain this phenomena.

In 1990, she won the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Newcomb-Cleveland Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; two of her most important awards. Her most recent and notable award is the 2014 Karl Schwarzchild Medal of the German Astronomical Society. To this day she continues to study galaxies and their evolution and she has taken up an interest in X-ray astronomy.

Micro-observatory Image 4.9

This processed Micro-observatory image is of the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16) located in the constellation Serpens. At the center of the nebula is a young, open cluster of stars. Around the stars are clouds of dust from which the stars are "born" from. In the image you can sort of see the dust clouds and their pillar-like shape. When processing, I did not reduce the noise of any of the RGB pictures so it is minimally adjusted. This attempt at processing an image of the Eagle Nebula was much more successful than my last attempt. The images I received last time were distorted by clouds so they were blurry.

Micro-observatory Image 4.8

This Micro-Observatory image is of the Crab Nebula (Messier 1). You are not able to see the distinctive filaments of the object, but you can make-out it's prolate spheroid shape. The Crab Nebula eminates more blues and greens in the visible spectra, so those are the colors that dominate the image. All I did in terms of processing it are automatically adjusting all three parts of the image via log and reducing the noise of them. In the lower right corner of the image you can still see some noise so there may have been a cloud there at the time the pictures were taken.

Micro-observatory Image 4.7

This Micro-Observatory image is of the sun. All I did to is was sharpen it so you can see a clearer outline of the sunspots on the photosphere.

APOD 4.4

This brilliant image of the Milky Way Galaxy was taken March 27th by the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert. The clear, dry sky of the area provides optimal conditions for observations. At the top of the image you can see a very bright moon paired with the "morning star," Venus. In the plane of the galaxy you can see the bulge, halo, arms, and the very distinct dust clouds. I selected this APOD, not only because of it's magnificence, but also because we are currently studying galaxies.

APOD 4.3

This APOD was taken on April 3rd when Mars was near opposition. This means when Mars was opposite the Sun in the sky. At this time it appears to be very bright and is at the best time to be viewed by telescopes from Earth. On the Martian planet you can see the north polar ice cap and the clouds of water vapor forming around it's towering mountains and volcanoes. For a picture of Mars at opposition, but seen from the naked eye, look at the post "APOD 4.2."

Micro-observatory Image 4.6

As you can tell, this is the Moon. The picture was taken by the Micro-observatory telescopes on the 17th of April during its waning gibbous phase. The only thing I did to it was sharpen it so you can see more definition of the lunar surface.

Micro-observatory Image 4.5

This processed image is of Messier 8 (the Lagoon Nebula). I was able to get very clear red, green, and blue images so a stacked them to produce this single picture. A good amount of shifting had to be done as you can see at the bottom of the image where the green is. I did not reduce the noise or sharpen it so it is minimally processed. This emission nebula can be found in the constellation Sagittarius and is one of only two star-forming nebulae visible to the naked eye. The other is Messier 42 (the Orion Nebula).

Micro-observatory Image 4.4

This is a processed image of Messier 13 (the Hercules Cluster). On the Observing With NASA site, you could not request a color image so there was not much to be done with it. What I did do however is reduce the noise, sharpen it, and change the color way to "fire." You can find this object in the constellation Hercules. It composed of nearly 200 galaxies and is about 500 million light-years from the Earth.

Citizen Science #2

Today on zooniverse.com, I studied lunar surface images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. In the activity, you are to mark out craters, mounds, and other objects. Usually in one image there are hundreds of things to mark out so it is very tedious. Also, this is one of the more simple activities on the site so I did not find it too intriguing.

Citizen Science #1

I spent today's Astronomy period searching star forming regions of the Milky Way Galaxy for active star formation on zooniverse.org. I was really interested in this activity so it is the only one I did. What you did in the activity was mark out empty "bubbles" in nebulae to show where star formation is occurring. You also marked out EGOs, star clusters, galaxies, and other objects. Next time, I will try one of the other activities that are on the site.

Margaret Geller Biography Sources

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~mjg/

http://cosmology.carnegiescience.edu/timeline/1989

http://realtruth.org/articles/147-mtu.html

Micro-observatory Image 4.3

This is a Micro-observatory processed image of Messier 20 (the Trifid Nebula). I requested images of the nebula in red, green, and blue color wavelengths. I changed the color table of each of the pictures to their appropriate color and shifted them so they stacked properly. Even though I reduced the noise of the images before I altered them, there is still some significant noise left. The noise explains the speckled look of the darker parts of the image.

Micro-observatory Image 4.2

This is a picture of the Milky Way. You can clearly see the milky band of the galaxy span across the sky in this picture. All I did was adjust the image and sharpen it. There was not too much to be done because I was not able get pictures in color.

APOD 4.2

This is a photograph of two of the brightest objects in the sky at the time. Mars, with its rusty red hue, and Spica, with its vibrant blue hue. Mars appears so bright because it is nearly at its closest to earth for 2014. It will not appear as bright until 2016. I selected this APOD because last night I viewed and made some observations of this. If you are wanting to view this as well, follow the arc of the "big dipper" to Arcturus and then speed on to Spica. It should be in the southeast.

APOD 4.1

The above image is an artists conception of a black hole. A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping. They are often created by the collapse of high-mass stars, but some may have been made right after the "Big Bang." We know that black holes exist because we can see how they bend the light that passes near them. For example, when we look to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy in infrared light, we can see how the light acts differently and is misplaced compared to where the stars surrounding it actually are. The supermassive black hole that is at the center of our galaxy has a mass of 4.3 million solar mass. This is minuscule in comparison to other black holes we have found at the center of other galaxies with masses upwards of one billion solar masses. I selected this image as an APOD because we just finished learning about black holes and neutron stars.

Nature and Structure of the Milky Way Galaxy

Galileo:

• Interested in "invisible" stars
• Thought the milky luster in the sky was made up of small stars clustered together
• He proved this assertion by sketching "nebulae" that were actually stars
• 

Harlow Shapley:

• First to realize that the galaxy was much larger than previously believed
• Found that the Sun's location in the galaxy is in a nondescrpit location
• supports the Copernican Principle
• Participated in the "Great Debate" against Heber D. Curtis on the nature of nebulae, galaxies, and the Universe
• argued that spiral nebulae (now called galaxies) are inside our Milky Way
• opposed Curtis and Hubble, but was terribly wrong

Micro-observatory Image 4.1

This image is a processed image Centaurus A. I sharpened the image to give it a clearer picture. I also set the color table to "fire" to make you feel a sense of temperature difference between the dust cloud and stars. This is the only quality image I have received from Observing From NASA so I am not able to layer it with other photographs yet.

1 Mar. 2014 - Astronomy Night Observations

I arrived at Pine View at around five o'clock. I was one of the first people there, to help Mr. Percival set up. We set up four telescopes and one binocular station. While setting up, Mr. Percival showed us the many different parts and pieces of the telescopes. From the first telescope that Pine View purchased all the way up to "Big Bertha." My friend Nick Hernandez and I manned Pine View's first telescope which was aimed at the Horse head Nebula in the constellation Orion. The only other telescope that I remember what it was aimed at was "Big Bertha," which was aimed at Jupiter and its Moons. As the sky darkened, the brighter objects in the sky began to show themselves. Light pollution was not a problem at all, there were no clouds to be seen, and the Moon was in it's new phase so conditions could not have been better. The first objects we were able to see were Jupiter, Sirius, and Rigel. By seven o'clock, the sky had gotten dark enough so we could make-out many of the winter constellations. Orion, Canis Major, Gemini, Auriga, Canis Minor, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, and Taurus. By 7:30pm, about 25 people (not including Astronomy students) had shown-up to enjoy the night sky. Mr. Percival used his high powered laser to help the people orient themselves and learn about the stars. He identified many of the other winter constellations, such as Leo, Monoceros, Colomba, Lepus, Eridanus, Fornax, and Lynx. I shared many conversations with people and younger Pine View students, answering questions and teaching what I know. It was a very successful Astronomy Night and I will definitely be attending next year.

Hours spent observing: 3.5x2=7

25 Jan. 2014 - Observations

Because I was not able to make it to the Stargaze, I did my own observations. I did them with my girlfriend at her grandmother's house which is out in the more wooded area of North Port, so light pollution was not a problem. The first object that was easily noticeable and almost right over head was Orion. From there I utilized the winter star chart and star-hopping technique to locate Lepus, Columba, Canis Major, Monoceros, Canis Minor, Gemini, Auriga, and Taurus. Constellations that I located without star-hopping were Ursa Major and Eridanus. The brightest stars that I was able to correctly identify were Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Saiph, Rigel, Sirius, Procyon, Capella, Castor, Pollux, Polaris and Aldebaren. Jupiter, located in Gemini, out shined all of these stars combined. From what I remember, the Moon was a waning crescent. Other notable things I identified were the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the Horse head Nebula. I attempted to teach my significant other all of the other miscellaneous items in each of the constellations but the only thing she seemed to remember well was that Orion "fights" Taurus.

Hours spent observing: 1.5

2 Jan. 2014 - Observations

Tonight's stargaze did not go as planned. The weather was awful and no observations were able to be made. When you looked up, all you were able to see was the under belly of clouds. We waited to see if the skies would clear up, but that did not happen. One astonishing thing that did happen, however, was we saw a single meteor light up the clouds. The meteor was part of the Quadrantids meteor shower that we were there to observe.

Hours spent observing: .5x2=1

APOD 3.8

From base to summit, El Capitan is just about 3,000 feet tall. This famous granite mountain is located in Yosemite National Park, a place that I long to visit one day. In the background you can see the trails of circumpolar stars, airplane navigation, and a climbing team. The climbing team reaching the summit is ascending along a climbing route known as The Nose. This route is apparently known for its rigor and danger. Being the adrenaline junkie that I am, maybe one day I will tackle The Nose myself.

APOD 3.7

The Rosette Nebula, pictured above, is on of the most beautiful celestial objects I have ever seen. This image of it was taken using multiple long exposures of very specific colors of Sulfur (red), Hydrogen (green), and Oxygen (blue). The combination of the pictures gives us a magnificent blend of purples, oranges, and yellows. The Rosette Nebula is relatively young, being only a few million years old. It is measured to be over 50 light years across and about 4,500 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros (Unicorn). This APOD stuck out to me, not only because of its beauty, but on today's Constellation Quiz, Monoceros was one of the constellations we had to know.

APOD 3.6

For today's APOD we have a picture of Saturn. If this is Saturn, you may ask, where are the rings? Well, the thin blue line that runs horizontally across the picture is the rings. The Cassini spacecraft that is orbiting the ringed planet crosses the ring plane frequently, so these kinds of photographs are not too rare. A photograph of this same thing that may be rare, is one where the Earth crosses the Saturn's ring plane. In 1612, when this happened, the planet's "appendages" just appeared to just disappear. Even the great astronomer Galileo had no idea what happened to the peculiar protrusions we now know are rings. The rings are so thin (besides the moons that appear as blue bumps in the rings in the picture) that when they are seen edge on, they can not be seen. They are confined to a plane much thinner that of a razor blade, which is in part why I chose this photograph. It amazes me how thin the rings of Saturn actually are. I first thought that the rings were made up much larger material, maybe the size of baseballs. But it turns out that I was very wrong.

APOD 3.5

This odd looking dust cloud formation lies 1,500 light years away in the Orion B molecular cloud complex. This Young Stellar Object (YSO), otherwise known as a protostar, is forming a particle beam containing electrons and protons that are being jetted out of the protostar at hundreds of kilometers a second. This occurrence happens frequently, but is rarely viewed by astronomers because this stage in star formation only lasts a few thousand years. Since star formation was a topic which we just concluded in class, I figured I should use this as a benchmark for the end of the chapter.

James Keeler Biography

James Edward Keeler was an American astronomer born September 10, 1857 in La Salle, Illinois. As a child he attended public school until him and his family moved to Mayport, Florida in 1869 where he continued schooling at home. Before moving, he viewed a solar eclipse that swept across the nation. This astronomical phenomena had a substantial influence on James and his interests. When he moved to Florida he began surveying the night sky with his father and even built his own telescope which only made his interest in astronomy grow. When it came time to apply to university, Keeler was not accepted to either Harvard or Yale but he was accepted to Johns Hopkins University. There he majored in physics and German, but only minored in astronomy. He immediately jumped into the astronomy world after graduating, working at Lick Observatory in San Jose, California in 1888. While there, Keeler made observations of the corona of the sun and how animals react to the sudden darkness. His most important observation was that of the gap in Saturn's rings. He was actually the first to observe this gap, even before Johann Encke whom the gap is currently named after. The second major gap in the A Ring, discovered by Voyager, was named the Keeler Gap in his honor. Keller left San Jose for Pittsburgh because he was appointed as the director of Allegheny Observatory in 1891. It was there that he furthered his study of Saturn's rings, discovering that different parts of the rings reflect light with different Doppler shifts, due to their varied rates of orbit around the planet. This supported the belief that the rings are made up of many small objects, each orbiting at its own speed. Keeler returned to Lick Observatory as its director in 1898. From 1898 to 1900 he took many photographs of nebulae and clusters using the observatories 36-inch reflector telescope, discovered two asteroids, was awarded the Henry Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, and was elected president of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. James Edward Keeler died at the age of 42 on August 12, 1900 in San Francisco, California after suffering from two strokes. He left a widow, a daughter, and a son who followed in his footsteps.

After his untimely death, his colleagues compiled all of his photographs of nebulae and published them. Also, one of the asteroids that he discovered was named after him (asteroid 2261 Keeler) along with craters on Mars and the Moon. His Astrophysical Journal which he founded with George Hale remains a major journal of astronomy today, containing information regarding almost every discovered object in space. Now, his ashes rest in a crypt at the base of the Keeler Memorial telescope at the Allegheny Observatory where he is immortalized.

James Keeler Biography Sources

http://astronomycompendium.wikispaces.com/Keeler,+James+Edward

http://www.lcas-astronomy.org/articles/display.php?filename=james_e_keeler&category=biographies

http://johnbrashear.tripod.com/bio/KeelerJ.htm

APOD 3.4

The Scale of the Universe - Interactive

For today's APOD, I decided to change it up a bit. If you click on the link above, it will take you to a very cool interactive flash animation that lets you see how things scale in size compared to the known universe. At the beginning of your virtual journey, you start at a ten meter scale either increasing or decreasing by powers of ten. Some of you may have seen the classic Powers of Ten video, which is very similar to this. The animation takes you all the down to 10 to the negative 35th power (one Plancke Length) and all the way up to 10 to the 27th power (the size of the observable universe). On the journey you will see things in space that you may know of such as Halley's Comet, Io, Vega, the Horsehead Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy, and other such interstellar objects. I thought I should select this because it puts everything in perspective for how immense the universe is and how we as humans scale to it.

APOD 3.3

The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous and photographic nebulae in the sky. As you can see it is named the "Horsehead" Nebula because of the shape of a horse's head which is visible in the dark dust cloud at the center of the photo. It is located in the constellation Orion (the Hunter). The emission nebula's red color is caused by electrons recombining with protons to form hydrogen atoms. Also visible at the bottom left of the picture is a greenish reflection nebulae that reflects the blue light from nearby stars. This APOD is pertinent to the chapter we just finished which was focused on nebulae and the birthing of stars and we also just added Orion to the list of constellations we know.

APOD 3.2

This cosmic bubble is located toward the constellation Canis Major (the Big Dog), surrounds a Wolf-Rayet star. A Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are evolved, massive stars that lose mass rapidly by means of releasing very strong solar wind. This solar wind that is released is making this cosmic bubble, labeled Sharpless 308, expand. It is already larger than the full moon to a viewer, which corresponds to being 60 light-years in diameter. Emission lines captured from this massive image are dominated by ionized oxygen. This photo pertains to the chapters we are currently studying, chapters 17 and 18, which have to do with stars and identifying their stellar spectra.

APOD 3.1

This multi-wavelength photo of the sun was taken on December 21 of 2013 from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). It spans from visible to ultraviolet wavelengths (farthest left pink portion). You can see the many different parts of the photosphere, the "surface of the sun", in the photo. You can also see multiple sunspots, prominences, and even the whisp of the corona around the edge. I selected this picture because we just finished studying the Sun in astronomy so it only seemed appropriate to pay homage to the "mass of incandescent gas" that heats our Earth.

APOD 2.7

This beautiful, circular nebula is the Helix Nebula in the constellation Aquaris. This nebula is produced by a dying star, which is the faint white dot in the center. This image took just about 28.5 hours of exposure to compose, combining the emissions lines of hydrogen and oxygen. The Helix Nebula is 700 light years away and is only a mere 6 light years across. On one of the constellation quizzes that we had, one of the constellations was Aquaris. I knew everything about it, except for the fact that it has the Helix Nebula in it. Now that I know so much about the nebula, I do not think I will forget it again.

3 Jan. 2014 - Astronomy Night Observations

Weather conditions were not optimal because there was a sheath of clouds covering the entire sky. We were still able to see Venus and Jupiter through the cloud cover because of their immense magnitude. Right before everyone was about to leave, a couple of us did see a meteor shoot over the clouds. This meteor was part of the Quadrantids Meteor Shower, which we were hoping to see more of.

Hours spent observing: .5x2=1

22 Dec. 2013 - Observations

Waning Gibbous Moon near Orion. Three of the brightest stars of the night, Vega, Deneb, and Altair (the Summer Triangle) were visible near the western horizon. More along the horizon to my left was Piscis Austrinus and what I thought was the zodiac constellation Capricornus. I could not make out any more constellations along the horizon until Orion and Gemini. At zenith was Perseus and Cassiopeia. Zodiac constellations that I used to figure out where the ecliptic was, along with Gemini and Capricornus, were Taurus and Aquaris. Polaris and Thuban were visible to the north. Light pollution was at a minimum because the street lights did not turn on for some reason.

Hours spent observing: 2

14 Dec. 2013 - Observations

There was a very bright, non-twinkling star that ascended the night sky with the waxing gibbous Moon. I tracked this motion throughout the time observing, and the two celestial bodies never stayed more than three "fists" away from each other. I later found out that the star that was holding hands with out moon was not actually a star but the biggest planet in our solar system, Jupiter. Straight above I could see the King (Cepheus) and the Queen (Cassiopeia) domineering the night sky. Just south was the Great Square of Pegasus, but I could not make out the legs/head of Pegasus nor Andromeda. Marching along the horizon were the strongest of the constellations, Orion, Taurus, and Gemini. To the north I could see Polaris in Ursa Minor with the body of Draco wrapped around it. As time went on I was able to see what I think was Canis Minor. The bands of the Milky Way Galaxy were always apparent, running from east to west across the sky. The brightest stars that I know the names of the night that I know by memory were Rigel, Betelgeuse, Polaris, Algol, and  Fomalhaut.

Hours spent observing: 2.5

APOD 2.6

Sunspots that are visible to the naked eye? Yes, it is true. On January 5th in the Swiss skies during a sunset, viewers were able to see massive sunspots. This solar active region produced a substantial solar flare and a coronal mass ejection (CME), which was forecasted to reach Earth yesterday. This CME caused geomagnetic storms and aurora near Earth's poles. I selected this APOD because we are discussing the Sun in class now and there could not be a better photo.

APOD 2.5

Seeing yourself in a car window or a shiny piece of scrap metal may cause a laughable moment or maybe even an inspirational one such as this one. Astronaut Michael Fossum took this self-portrait with fellow space-walker Piers Sellers on July 8, 2009. You can see a blue Earth and one of the gold-tinted solar arrays in the background. In a generation where "selfies" are ever growing in popularity and use, it seemed like an appropriate post.

APOD 2.4

This cap cloud, as they are called, appeared in Grenada, Spain last January. It may not be an astronomical phenomena but it is one that does have importance. They are formed by air forced upwards by mountain peaks, with the air then cooling, saturating with moisture, and finally having its molecular water condense into cloud droplets. I chose this photo because when I visited Washington state a few years ago, I saw such a cloud formation. It was not to this size and magnitude, but it was still amusing to look at.