APOD 2.6

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101207.html

This image is computer-generated, but awesome. The program is called BHSKY. It is capable of showing relativistically accurate images of objects travelling around a non-rotating black hole. The ratio between the black hole Schwarzschild radius and the observer distance to it is 1:9. A black hole is a region in which not even light can escape due to its massive gravity. A black hole can be observed from its interaction with the objects around it. On the inside of a black hole, past the even horizon (also the point of no return) there are intense tidal forces that start ripping apart objects. No one can see inside, since light can't escape the intense gravity. 

Observations

Place: Somewhere is Sarasota
Time: Around 10ish

So I am proud to say I can pinpoint the first time this class has saved me gas money. A friend and I went to see 'Death by Chocolate', a jazz production up at Booker High School. I was quite unfamiliar with the area, as I live in Venice, and she really did not now how to get around despite attending Booker. So after going in many circles and arriving back at Booker then back on Webber then back on Fruitville, we arrived at 41 and had to make a fateful decision; left or right? We pulled into a parking lot and got out of the car. Polaris was in the sky at that moment, so with that breakthrough we knew which way was north! We took a right onto 41 and arrived home in a jiffy. Later in the night we also observed Orion, which was very bright and recognizable immediately by the belt.

APOD 2.5

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101126.html

Zeta Orionis is near the top of this nebula, one of the three stars in Orion's belt. The actual nebula contains an 8.5 magnitude star. The nebula is red because of the presence of hydrogen (This linked to a jokes, and the only one I didn't know, "A neutron walks in to the same bar. He sits down and says to the bar tender, "Hey, how much for a beer?" The bar tender looks at him and says, "For you, no charge!" was pretty funny. Hardy har. Anyway, the hydrogen atoms (ionized, so they are recombining, making them glow red) are from the Orion molecular cloud, which is a stellar nursery and contains several other nebulae  including the Horsehead Nebula which is about 1500 light-years. A young star is believed to be the source of infrared radiation powering the glow through ionization.

Observations from last weekend

Location: UCF
Time: Around 12 am

I was graced to be given a tour of the winter sky by one of your ex-astronomy students, Ron Pekarski! We started from Sirius, the brightest star of the winter sky. Even looking through stadium lights you could still clearly see the bright star clear as day (/night I guess). We walked all along the campus, so I could see the sky at various magnitudes throughout the night. The most obvious constellation was Orion in the sky, and his pretty cool dog. Orion's belt includes Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka.The most interesting information he passed on was how to tell the time of night from the moon, based on phase and season. It's so logical, but something I would have never connected! I really hope I retain as much information as he has after your class is over. It was really cool to see the information being used.

APOD 2.4

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101118.html

This image depicts the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) and space dust in the same sky.The Pleiades is known for its Blue Reflection Nebula. The 'reflection' in this nebula is caused by dust grains, which scatter light particles with short wavelengths (hence the blue!). The mythology of the Pleiades (super short version) goes as hence; The great hunter Orion saw the Pleiades walking through the countryside with their mother and wanted them, so he pursued them for seven years. They prayed to Zeus for delivery from the hunt and he turned them into birds and put them into the sky. Then when Orion was killed, he too was placed in the sky, near them so the chase would continue forever. This picture of Taurus has the Pleiades in the upper left. The photo also includes M45, LBN777, Vdb27 FSQ 106EDX,  and STL11000M. The image was created as a 5 shot combination. 

APOD 2.3

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101110.html

The Fermi gamma ray space telescope (GLAST- I <3 acronyms) has collected data recentley that indicates the previously unknown fact that our very own Milky Way Galaxy has large gamma-ray emitting bubbles in or near the galactic center (probably about 50 degrees above and below, says one astrophysics site). There are two bubbles that emit both x-rays and gamma rays. The cause of the bubbles in currently a mystery! Guesses include AGN activity or Bipolar galactic wind.

Tuesday Stargaze!

Location: Blackburn Point
Time: 6:30-8:00

First we took a gander at the moon, which was amazingly bright and in crescent form. Through the telescope the detailed rocks and craters were absolutely stunning. Right next to the moon was Sagittarius. Tonight we observed many double stars, including Polaris, which has a companion star of 7 magnitudes difference at 10:30 if it were a clock. According to the video we watched today, something like 60% of stars have companion star, which interestingly makes our own sun an anomaly. The Square of Pegasus was a good starting point to observe the other constellations in the fall sky, as pointed out by trusty green laser pointer, or TGLP. TGLP also showed us some deep sky objects, which were semi-visible with binoculars, but moreso in the telescope. We viewed M11, the wild duck cluster, which is an open cluster. I also saw M57, M27, and M13. My favorite was the ring nebula, whose distinct shape made it really cool to look at. I also observed Jupiter through the telescope; besides the four Galileon moons (which were awesome) you could see the weather bands of Jupiter. I also participated in the Great World Wide Star Count!(http://windows2universe.org/citizen_science/starcount/steps.html) We determined that tonight Cygnus had a limiting magnitude of 5, and I reported the data online. Yay data!

APOD 2.2

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101101.html

This is a shot from Réunion island, which is a French island east of Madagascar. The wikipedia says the Furcifer Padalis(Panther Chameleon) is one of the native species, so here is a picture of that. Pretty cool, right? It's a chameleon.

But back to the first picture. The volcano in the foreground is the Piton de la Fournaise (Peak of the Furnace in English). It is one of the world's most active volcanoes and a major tourist attraction on the island. Last month, it started an eruption.

Hot lava bombs, which are masses of volcanic rock, were spewed up to 10 meters in the air. Luc Perrot, who also made this really cool 3-D model (http://www.lucperrot.fr/?multimedia/eruption_volcan_vr), captured it on film whilst the Milky Way, our galaxy, was visible. The stellar disk of the milky way is 100,000 lightyears. The Pleiades is also visible, which is a famous open star cluster. Also visible is Orion the Hunter and its star Alpha Canis Majoris, or Sirius.

APOD 2.1

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap101028.html

Happy late Halloween! There is not much supernatural about Mirach's Ghost (as far as we know); it is a dwarf lenticular galaxy, which is a galaxy with a central bulge and disk, but no spiral arms, of type S0. The galaxy lies in the constellation Andromeda which is to the south of Cassiopeia. Although bright (10.1 visual magnitude), it is difficult to observe because of the glare from Mirach, one of Andromeda's 3 brightest stars and a red giant. There are a high proportion of red giants (stars with low surface temperature and tenuous surface tension) within the galaxy. Mirach's ghost is centered in the star field. Diffraction strike tends to dillute most earth-shot images.

APOD 1.8

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101020.html

This is a picture of Venus in the sky caught over 44 nights. The hilarious writers over at NASA tell us that the difference between Venus and an airplane is that an airplane will move in a few moments. From the first link I learned the totally unrelated fact that white holes exist, but not physically, only as mathematical constructs when you remove the star that created the black hole in the first place. Venus shifts its position each night, making it a bit more difficult to track. This picture was taken in Turkey. Venus is colloquially called 'the evening star' when it appears in the west. The ancient Greeks called it Hesperus. This month mars also appears near the horizon.

APOD 1.7

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101009.html

Globular Star Cluster NGC 6934

 This spherical collection of stars orbit a galactic core as satellites, bound purely by gravity, there is a high stellar density for the cluster. The clusters have different classes. It is located around the halo of the Milky Way. Globular clusters can be used as points of distance referance. Also, they are some of the oldest stars in the sky. The ages of the stars constrain the ages of the universe, so we know how old it can be. This cluster is in Delphinus.  51.2 kly away from the sun. William Herschel discovered globular cluster NGC 6934 in Delphinus on September 24, 1785 and cataloged it as H I.103.This particular cluster is estimated to be 1,000,018,176 years old.

Micheal Mastlin Biography

            Micheal Mästlin was born, the middle child to Jakob Mästlin and Dorothea Simon, on September 30, 1550 in Göppingen, Germany. His parents were very Lutheran, and thusly so was he. He was an attendee of a monastic school for his first years of education. Then he attended Tübingen University in 1568 when he had completed his basic studies. He received both his BA and MA in mathematics and astronomy at Tübingen. He studied under Professor of Mathematics Philip Apian, eventually becoming his assistant. After achieving his MA, Micheal achieved many feats; this period could be considered the height of his career. In 1571, right when he go his MA, he edited a new edition of Prutenis Tables .His 1573 essay on 1572 hena meteoroid was printed in its entirety in Tycho Brahe’s Progymnasmata. Micheal also explained Earthshine for the first time ever in print. In 1576 he became a deacon after finishing his theology studies at Tübingen. In 1577 he married Margarete Gruuninger with whom he had 6 children, Margarete dying in labor on the sixth. He then married Margarete Burkhardt, and had eight children with her. Mästlin is famous for his observations of the comet of 1577, observed while he was in Backnangas called Observatio et demonstratio cometae aetherae qui anno 1577 et 1578 constitutus in sphaera Veneris apparuit cum admirandius eius passionibus varietate scilicet motus loco orbe distantia a terro centro etc. adhibitis demonstrationibus geometricis et calculo arithmetico cuius modi de alio quoquam cometa nunquam visa est(1578). It was praised for its accuracy and detail (and most certainly not for its brevity). Mastlin was the first to compute the orbit of a comet. The method was a bit iffy, but he was the first; he used this as support of the Copernican system. He also showed the comet was further away from the moon. Micheal, a great expert on spherical trigonometry, became professor of mathematics at University of Heidelberg in 1580; there he published his intro to astronomy text, Epitome of Astronomy. Oddly enough, the textbook followed a geocentric model as opposed to a Copernican one. Mastlin taught Keplar, another famous astronomer while at the University. Four years later he returned to Tübingen for the remainder of his career/life. Mastlin lived to see the invention of the telescope and owned two in his lifetime, which he used to make observations until he was 78. Micheal died on October 20, 1631 in Tübingen, 50 km west of where he was born.

Observations

Time: 8:11
Location: Mi casa

The moon was waxing crescent, and looked very 3D. It was pretty cool. Also saw the summer triangle. Took awhile to figure out which vertex was which, but when I used the telescope was applied I could see the fainter stars around and identify which constellation was which. Saw Sagittarius, was very happy, was like 'kaboom kaboom!'. The trees blocked out a lot of the view, and it was pretty light outside, so only alpha and beta stars were visible sans the cheapie telescope.

APOD 1.6

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101003.html

Discovered by Galileo, Jupiter's moon, Io, is shown here in true color. Nasa's Galileo satellite captured the image with filters to approximate what the human eye would see. Volcanic activities cause a lot of the color variations (mostly the sulfur that comes from them). Other color variations come from molten silicate rock, which is one of two types of common minerals. The silicate mineral group have oxygen and silica as their basis. Io is covered in lava every few years and is very volcanically active. Jupiter provides a lot of tidal gravity/force, stretching Io. Some of the lava is so hot it glows in the dark.

Observations

Last night was my first Astronomy night!

We observed the crescent Venus through the telescope, which was really cool. It was the first planet I have ever seen have phases. The part that was not in the shadow was bright glowing yellow, which was similar to the sun, but more white-goldish. We also saw the Hubble satellite! It was only there for a short streak across the sky before it went into the Earth's shadow. In the telescope, I saw the moons of Jupiter in a straight line, then observed the position change over the next hour, where there was a shift and the moons looked further from the planet (they were one diameter at the start, but then moved farther away). We also observed M7 in the telescope, which was a globular cluster; it kinda looked like an octopus. Other then that, the cool green laser was used to point out many of the summer stars and constellations. I hadn't really been able to observe such a large amount at the same time since there is a bad horizon at my house because of all of the trees. We also saw Vega, Polaris, Anteres, and Altair. I'm excited for the next one!

APOD 1.5

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100927.html

The natural light displays on Saturn(♄). have been a mystery of Scooby-Doo-like proportions until recently. The composition of Saturn is a core of iron, nickel, silicon and oxygen compounds, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and an outer gaseous layer. Saturn also has 9 rings. So back to the mystery. The spacecraft Cassini-Huygens (currently 1150008km from Saturn as of now) has taken hundreds of infared images of Saturn for other purposes. The strange auroras of Saturn change not only with the angle of the Sun, but also as the planet rotates; they also change with the magnetism of the planet. The false-color image above shows blue reflected sunlight, whilst itself glows red. The purpose of these images is to maybe understand Earth's own auroras a little more.

Le Citations de Micheal Mastlin

C. Gillespie, editor. "Dictionary of Science." Charles Cribner's Son, 1981.

O'Connor, JJ and Robertson, E.F. "Micheal Mastlin." School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of St Andrews, Scotland. 2008. <http://turnbull.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Mastlin.html>

Winnecke, A. "On the Visibility of Stars in the Pleiades to the Naked Eye." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.146. <http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1878MNRAS..39..146W>

Wednesday Observations

Another night with very few clouds! At 8 pm I headed out from my 'cave' and made the journey to my driveway (Venice, FL). With the company of my dog and a few old ladies walking around in reflective vests, I started looking up. It was still a bit light out and there was no moon present. At first I attempted to use a toy telescope from elementary school, but abandoned the effort when my dog would not stop trying to knock it over. So instead, I used 8x100 binoculars. I saw Corona Borealis, which was about above me. It was crazy using the binoculars for this observation, there were so many fainter stars I could see. I saw Altair in the summer triangle, which was crazy-bright in the binoculars. I also saw one of our COTW! It was Delphinus. Snaps for you Delphinus, for being super-relevant. So the moral of this story is binoculars are awesome, and advance thank yous to Stephen Colbert.

APOD 1.4

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100923.html

September 23 was the equinox. It(the sun) crossed the celestial equator at 3:09 UT. This marks the change of seasons. The reason that the seasonal weather stays is because the oceans retain hot and cold longer than the atmosphere, so it influences it. Equinox means "equal night", which means a (roughly, but not exact)1:1 ratio of light and dark. There is apperently a myth about egg stability during the equinox that I was unaware of, but it is only an urban legend. Most eggshells have small bumps in them that enable them to be on edge at any day of the year. This image was falsely colored to show emission from highly ionized atoms. The plasma loops are from solar active fields.

APOD 1.3

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100916.html

Right Ascension	20 : 51.0 (h:m)
Declination	30 : 40 (deg:m)
Distance	2.6 (kly)
Visual brightness	5.0 (mag)
Dimension	230 x 160 (arc min)

 The veil nebula is BIG-like six diameters of the moon huge, big enough that early astronomers thought that it was many different objects instead of one . I know what you're thinking, "Mamma mia, a-that's a lot of nebula! Tell me more", so I will. The brightness is magnitude 5, but you can't see it with the naked eye unless your viewing conditions are super awesome because all of the light is distributed along the entire (huge) object.

Observation September 14

8:40
My house

Ah, a not cloudy night finally! The trees around my house are still causing a lot of blockage in my view of the sky, so I took artistic (/imaginary lumberjack) liberties in my scientific sketch below in eliminating them to better view the interaction between the first quarter moon and Venus.

Venus was so tiny, it was difficult to get the angular measurement of it using my fist.
I also viewed the summer triangle some degrees south of the moon.

APOD 1.2

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100906.html

Astronomers are using the Very Large Telescope (VLT, which google tells me also stands for Vita Lemon Tea, Venice Little Theatre, and Varrio Loco Town), which is currently the biggest telescope on Earth, with a combined aperture of 16.4 meters (it is several units combined) to shoot lasers into space. This is a good thing; our atmosphere is constantly changing (sidenote: this is what causes stars to twinkle) so astronomers have to measure distortion in whichever time and direction they want to observe. The laser creates an artificial star and the feedback allows the telescope to deform its mirror to account for this distortion. From the outside, the laser would appear only as a faint star.

Also there was a wiki link to Star Wars, so fun fact: Luke Skywalker’s original name was Luke Starkiller.

Friday Morning Observations

As I walked out of my house to go to school this morning at 6:30, I took some advice I heard somewhere and looked up. There were very few clouds and it was still dark enough to see the stars. The only constellation I could identify was Orion. His belt stood out first, then I searched for the rest and it came into view. I'm aware it's the easiest constellation to see, but hey, a victory nonetheless =)

APOD 1.1

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100822.html

Hoag's Object

Arthur Hoag, also noted for his work in photoelectric and photographic photometry (using the flux of an object to measure its properties), discovered Hoag's Object in 1950 by chance. The outside ring has newer blue stars and the inside contains older red stars. The way these ring galaxy shapes are formed is when a smaller galaxy ("intruder galaxy") passes through a larger galaxy; which I now really desire to see happening because that sounds pretty intense. Hoang's object lies near Serpens (near = 600 million light years).