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.