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.