APOD 3.2

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110125.html

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This is a picture of supernova remnant SNR 0509-67.5, which is a catchy name, but I think I'll call it SNEER for the rest of this post. SNEER (which NASA seems very convinced looks like a holiday ornament) was imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope (launched in 1990 and continuing to orbit Earth today, at a speed of one spin every 97 minutes). This specific image has its coloring provided by a filter that allows only the Hα through. Hα is the brightest wavelegth in stellar astronomy. The exact cause of the ripples is unknown, though they have 'origin hypotheses'(SNEER is a superhero methinks?)  relating them to gas activity. I also learned a new word, 'ejecta'- pieces of an ejection, which is another part of the gas activity hypothesis. SNEER is a result of a Type Ia supernova, which is the one from a white-dwarf star, obviously. SNEER is 23 light-years ...large. It is also odd how the rings have just become visible though we should have been able to see them then..hmm... Welp, I have no answers, but pretty interesting, pretty pretty, and pretty spooooooky.

APOD 3.1

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110117.html

The above picture is obviously a digitally-altered mosaic- but that doesn't make it any less cool. The top part was taken at a promontory in Greece near the Aegean Sea. The Chapel is Saint John, and the star trails are half-an-hour on each side. Images from day in Greece make up the bottom, the sun being caught at 4-minute intervals. There are also transition shots. The image is from the last 2 days of 2010.

APOD 2.8

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110108.html

I'm pretty sure we have actually observed the Helix nebula on one of our stargazes. NGC 7293 is located within the constellation Aquarius the Water Bearer, which is 700 light-years away from Earth(though one of the other links says 450, and that the distance is very uncertain.) It is the only planetary nebula for which a parallax could be obtained by ground-based observations! Its apparent size covers an area of 16 arc minutes diameter, one of the largest known. The nebula is an emission nebula. The white dot in the center is the star undergoing the aging responsible for this nebula.

William Lassell Biography

William Lassell was born in 1799 in Bolton, Lancashire, and educated in Rochdale. Lassell was a businessman in Liverpool who made quite a sum as a brewer (Liverpool was a large exporter and had quite a market for this) and merchant, which allowed him to become an astronomer, a “grand amateur” of the time. As the professional astronomers had classes to attend to and money to make, it was a sometimes advantageous position to be an amateur.  He was a Congregationalist, meaning that his practices would be unorthodox in Victorian Britain. Lassell created the modern big reflecting telescope. At the time, the Newtonian reflector had been around for 150 years when Lassell began to cast his first mirrors in 1820- Lassell’s goal was that he wanted to improve upon the problem of long-term object tracking for planets and satellites, which was near impossible with the current technology. Lassell loved Saturn and wanted to track it. In 1839, he submitted his 9-inch reflector to the R.A.S; it has a modest aperture, it had a wholly accurate tube and cast iron mount on wheels. It was requested that Lassell publish the schematics of his design, and he did so in ‘Memoirs’ in 1842. Next, Lassell made an enlarged version of the 9-inch reflector which was 24-inces; he devised a grinding and polishing machine which used steam power to most accurately work (the original mirror was again tested in 1995 and found to be accurate to within a fraction of a wavelength of light, an impressive boast.) In 1846, Lassell discovered Triton, Neptune’s largest moon. He also introduced the fact that Neptune had a ring, like his beloved Saturn. Lassell also discovered two new moons of Uranus, Ariel and Umbriel. Lassell was the recipient of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. He became president of the society in 1870 for two years. Lassell died in 1880, leaving a crater on the moon, a crater on Mars, and a ring of Neptune named after his legacy. 

APOD 2.7

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110104.html

After doing my astronomy project on the effects of Earth's atmosphere on outside phenomena, it has been a goal of mine to witness a green flash. Reading what people seemed to think it was was odd after getting the true explanation before- after-image? Hmm. It's pretty interesting to think that our atmosphere can act so much like a prism, on such a large scale. When we play with little prism toys, it's not often though of as an act-out of something larger than itself, yet it is. A blue flash would also be amazing to see, though I have less hope of having that luck. Still, on my quest to see a green flash, it is a definite possiblility.

Friday Night Observations

Location: Marina Jacks
Time: 11 pm

I accompanied a friend who was interested in stargazing to Sarasota to view the beautiful winter sky. I used Orion as the jumping block for the constellations, as it was pretty bright and easy to pick out. From Orion, I traced down to Canis Major wherein Sirus could be seen brightly even over the city lights. I explained the story of the dog chasing the hunter and also mentioned how Sirius was -1 in magnitude, which led to a conversation and explanation of the concept of magnitude. I remembered from Friday's Sun discussion that the Sun was a -27 magnitude star, which was the very best- in my opinion- demonstration of the magnitude system. We also observed Andromeda, which I had to think for a minute if it was Pegasus or not, but I remembered! From Andromeda I could now find Cepheus. I really wish it had been dark enough to view the Pleiades, but alas, it was not. Still a very pretty clear winter sky.

Lassell Biography Sources

Baum, Richard. "William Lassell and 'the Accident of a Maid-servant's Carelessness'" BAA. British Astronomy Society. Web. 5 Jan. 2011.

 

Chapman, Allen. "William Lassell (1799-1880) and the Discovery of Triton, 1846." The Home of Amateur Astronomy in the UK. Web. 05 Jan. 2011. http://www.mikeoates.org/lassell/lassell_by_a_chapman.htm.

 

Lockyer, William J.S. "The Growth of the Telescope." JSTOR. Norman Lockyer Observatory. Web. 5 Jan. 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/7154?Search=yes&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dwilliam%2Blassel%26acc%3Doff%26wc%3Don>.

Lunar Eclipse Observations

Honestly, I did not know what to expect. I learned about eclipses in elementary school, but since they were such a rarity had not thought much about them since- I irrationally imagined maybe a new moon-type phenomena. At 2 am my friend William and I journeyed to Pine View School from the depths of Venice to view the eclipse. Stopping to get coffee for the night, we received a frantic "You're missing it!" text from a stargazer already at Pine View; surely enough, looking up there was a partially shadowed moon. After arriving, watching the shadow travel across the moon was as amazing to me as the eclipse itself. At full eclipse, I looked in the telescope; the red color was unexpected, but beautiful. The sky was not as dark at full eclipse as I expected it to be, which was probably more a result of location than anything. And that annoying streetlight that is always on at night at school. Even so, the winter sky was really beautiful. The nebula we viewed was more visible than others we had looked at during previous stargazes. Also, meteors! There were a few visible meteors which were simply spectacular. Overall, it was an experience worthy of staying up until five for.