APOD 3.8

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110317.html

Above is a storm in Saturn's Northern Hemisphere, called a 'white storm' and nicknamed 'The Serpent Storm'.  The storm is perfectly placed for the Cassini space craft to view. The contrast is so stark that the storm can be seen from Earth! The storm is currently being monitored by amateur astronomers. The storm was first spotted in December of last year.

APOD 3.7

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110312.html

Above is the Mare Orientale, a lunar feature. It is also known as 'The Eastern Sea', though it is actually on the western edge now due to a change in our terminology. It formed around 3.8 billion years ago. Though it is difficult to see at most times from Earth, it will be visible temporarily later this month. Julius Heinreich Georg Franz discovered the feature. It is the youngest lunar basin, multiringed in character.  It is called a sea because astronomers once thought the basins might actually be seas.

Spring Break Observations- Astronomy night practice

Time: 9 p.m.
Location: Venice, FL
Listening to: Dr. Fountain's Magical Licorice Stick Remedy for the Blues

         I finally put together the telescope I got for Christmas! It came with two lenses, one where F=6mm and the other F=12mm. After much finagling in the dark with my red light, the 6mm was on and I was ready to observe the winter sky. After waiting for some ill-timed clouds to pass, Orion stood clearest as the way to start. I moved southwest and saw Canis Major, with Sirius definitely not being "heart" to see (see what I did there?). I was using my starchart this time, so the sky became much easier to navigate. I moved north and found the void of Monoceros, then north to Canis Minor, with Procyon a-twinkling. An odd fact is that my sister assumed all constellations that followed a major-minor notations looked the same, like siblings of different ages. Canis Major and Minor clearly make that invalid. North ho and Gemini appears; using the telescope, I think I can see the open cluster that is M35! maybe. Either way, I can definitely pick out Castor and Pollux. Going back to Orion and south, I see the area of Lepus, which is quite parsimonious with stars because of the stray clouds. I did not see Hind's Crimson Star, which was highly disappointing.

Astrocast

Episode 215 was about the echoing of light. Light can echo in the same way sound can echo, though the angles are more particular. The reason we can hear sound echo is because of sound's slower speed. This is something that seems pretty obvious, but I never really considered it. Like sound, pulses are easier to hear than a constant stream (you'd never hear the echo if the sound was still drowning it out). Supernovas from stars are the best source of light pulses, though it is quite difficult to pin when they started through the pulses themselves. I also listened to episode 213, which was about supermassive black holes. The difference between a supermassive black hole and a regular ol' hole is simply the supermassive black hole is more massive; about a hundred million solar mass objects at least. They form at the center of galaxies, and we're not totally sure how they formed, but since detector technology is getting better, hopefully the newer information will shed more light. What I found most interesting was that from current models, black holes did not exist in the beginning of the universe- the distribution of mass was much too even for anything but microscopic holes to exist. This means that they are something progressive, and just pretty damn cool.