Zooniverse 3!

I worked on galaxy zoo, another popular selection from the Zooniverse line of products. The pictures are much blurrier than you would think, so you can feel like a real scientist sorting through mountains of barely decipherable data! I can't help but feel if I had a better monitor this would be easier, but nevertheless, it is fun. The colors of the galaxies taken in infrared make them distinct enough that sorting through isn't really a chore. I also did Moon Zoo today. I really enjoy the crater survey simply because they are numerous enough that completing one picture feels like an accomplishment. Boulder wars went a lot faster, but the theory behind them is very interesting; I will admit to spending more time than usual on the about page for that simply because they are so cool.

APOD 4.8

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110528.html

This image is also photo-shopped. Astronomer Dennis Mammana has quite a sense of humor; when he looked at his odometer and found a reading of 186282 he recognized it as the number of miles light travels in a second, and he took a picture! He traveled that distance in 13 years though, not one second in his 1998 sports utility vehicle. Next, he is shooting for the moon, because the sky is the limit.

APOD 4.7

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110526.html

This image is photo-shopped (or at least I'm 99% positive). Alex Parker and Melissa Grahm are composers whom embarked on the journey to create a sonata out of a supernova, type Ia(explosions of white dwarf stars). They made use of the Canadian France Hawaii Telescope's data from a span of three years. Fainter supernova play quieter notes, and closer ones are denoted by louder ones. They also varied instruments in order to create a lovely symphony of sounds.

APOD 4.6

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110525.html

This is the launch of the Endeavor, the final launch! (you were there). We rushed outside at school to view this historic event, but could simply not get a good view, so I envy you. This majestic photograph shows the rising plume of the spacecraft, captured by a shuttle training aircraft at the exact right moment. The Endeavor was docked at the international space station, and marks a major event in human history as it will be the last of its kind for a while.

APOD 4.5

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110523.html

The crab nebula flared on April 11, 2011, and was captured by the Fermi Gamma Ray telescope (it only flares in gamma rays). This flare was five times the usual gamma ray intensity of the nebula. Suspicions are that there is a compact neutron star at the center of the galaxy rotating very fast and causing disparities in intensity and period. This is due to the variable magnetic field created in which the electrons flow differently around.

Zooniverse 2!

I went through the Milky Way project! which is very very hard to access as people always want that one. It was very interesting to see our very own galaxy from different angles and pictures, and in infared. It really gives a new perspective on something we are all very familiar with. I ended up drawing a few more green bubbles than average on the example pictures, which might be due to luck and hopefully not to my misunderstanding of the function of that marker. I also tried out solar stormwatch. Solar storms are pretty fantastic looking, and they are something fantastic to behold. Because they are so obvious, this was a bit easier than the other activities.

APOD 4.4

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110423.html

This photograph was taken with a wide-angle camera by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. 1700 pictures were collected over a period of 6 lunar days (6 earth months) of moon's south pole. The Shakelton crater is clearly in view, which is 19 km across. The south and north pols are continuously in shadow and the rest is in light; this could possibly be good for collecting solar power continuously.

Margaret Burbridge Bio

                          Elanor Margaret Burbridge was born August 12, 1919 in Davenport. Her father was a chemistry lecturer at  Manchester School of Technology, and her mother was a student there (one of only two woman chemistry students.) She was the oldest in her family, and has a younger sister. Her mother taught her to read very early on in order to empower her to do something other than be a housewife. Margaret’s favorite book when she was younger was Treasure Island. She was also very interested in numbers from an early age, and enjoyed memorizing multiplication tables. She was quite a shy child, with school being a bit of a torment at first. She attended a private school called Heysham; she was already much more advanced in reading than the other children there. She was forced into a dance class, and as consolation her mother let her ask one math question afterwards. She enjoyed pondering the largeness of numbers. She did not get to see many stars whilst living in London, but the first time she did while on a boat was marvelous for her and impacted her greatly. Her industrial chemist father died when she was seventeen. Her father’s patents provided money for the family. She went to a private girls’ high school, where she learned elementary physics and chemistry, then botany in great detail. She was still fascinated with the geometry of the stars from her independent reading, and also with Latin. Her mother wanted her to remain at home, so she attended University College after graduation from prep school in 1936, taking pure and applied mathematics, physics, and chemistry. She began a relationship with an older geology student and did not work as hard in her studies as before until a teacher intervened, and she went back to her hard work. Her sophomore year she chose to major in astronomy with a minor in applied mathematics. She was also interested in quantum theory at the time. As a graduate student she worked at the University of London Observatory. There was no spectroscopy at University College, so she travelled to Imperial College to learn it. After working with Comrie for a short time, she went to get her PHD at University College on a paid studentship; she received her PHD in 1943. During World War II she did individual work to help the war effort, but her spectroscopy work ceased temporarily. In 1945 she was turned down for a Carnegie Fellowship, as it was reserved for men only. She remained at the University of London until 1951. After, she received a grant and moved to the United States to work in the Yerkes Observatory. In 1953 she returned to England and worked with her husband Geoffrey Burbridge on B²FH theory, which analyzed in depth the synthesis of elements in nature, relative abundance of elements, and stellar nucleosynthesis. She finally gained entrance to the Mount Wilson observatory by posing as her husband’s assistant, a ruse that was eventually found out. They decided to let her stay, as long as her and her husband moved to a cottage off-grounds instead of staying in the men’s dorm’s. In 1962 she began working in the University of California, San Diego. Burbridge is an advocate of equality in astronomy, and against discrimination for or against women; she turned down the Annie Jump Cannon award to stand up for her ideology. She continues to be a physics professor at the University of California San Diego today , and is currently researching intrinsic red shift.

Margaret Burbridge Sources

Burbidge, Margaret. "Watcher of the Skies." Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 32, 1994, Pp. 1-36. Web. 11 May 2011.

Devorkin, David. "Oral History Transcript — Margaret Burbidge." Niels Bohr Library and Archives. Center for the History of Physics. Web. 11 May 2011. <http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/25487.html>.

Tenn, Joe. "The Bruce Medalists: Margaret Burbidge." SSU Department of Physics & Astronomy - Home.                                         

         

             Web. 11 May 2011. <http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/BruceMedalists/BurbidgeM/>.

Apod 4.3

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110416.html

This is my birthday APOD! Thank you NASA. So, this is the emission nebula IC 410. It is unfortunately in false color, but hey, so are many of these- colors are assigned to each part of the black and white image based on the elements producing the light, then put together to form the fantastic pictures, such as the Hubble Eagle nebula picture that is pretty prominent. NGC 1893 lies around it, producing more light from ions and gas which obscures some images of IC 410. IC 410 is near Auriga, the Charioteer.

http://nyan.cat/

Zooniverse 1!

So I've been working on a few of the projects. The first one was the Milky Way Project. It was full at first, but I refreshed enough so I got to be a part of it. One image that showed up was very interesting because there seemed to be waves in a bubble I found. I put that up on the discussion page, and I hope someone replies. While the Milky Way Project is the prettiest looking project, I also worked on PlanetHunters, which might be the favorite, and most exciting; finding a planet is probably one of the coolest things I can think of. I analyzed quite a few star and found some promising abnormalities, so I flagged those. Lastly, I worked on Old Weather for the fun of it, and also because I owe it to people- I've been making people squint to read my writing for 17 years now! I now know what the weather was like at a few Southern ports in the 1600's.

APOD 4.2

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110408.html

I was quite excited when I saw the link to a science fiction book about the journey to the center of a red star, which I would most definitely read, then sad to see it was only about Earth(classic still, but how cool would the other one be?). Asteroseismology, besides having the best name, is the study of planetary oscillations/starquakes.  The study works similar to the way seismology works on Earth, which is that quakes are used as a peak into what's actually beneath. Stellar masses and radii can be determined to a high degree of precision using this method. The Kepler spacecraft is used to take measurements; this is the same spacecraft that has located 1,235 candidate planets orbiting other suns. The oscillations are measured like sound waves (compressions) and they can indicate hydrogen and helium fusion taking place.

APOD 4.1

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110405.html

We are here, in the Milky Way. This galaxy is a spiral galaxy consisting of over 400 billion stars. We are quite a bit away from the Galactic Center(which is where the nuclear bulge is) in the Orion-Cygnus Arm. There are two other types of galaxies, elliptical and irregular(cosmic misfits). There's only one irregular galaxy documented, which is M82, The Cigar Galaxy in Ursa major. We are inside the disk of the Milky Way. This picture shows the waxing moon under the dramatic arch of the milky way.

Observations on a colorful night

            So whilst stressing about my AP Chem mock, I opened the window in my room and glory behold a mix of pink and purple. I ran outside with my dog, and only a small portion of the sky was affected by the Rayleigh scattering that had produced such a pretty mix (I would say royal purple and tropical pink, if I had to name them something that was also in my nail polish collection,). It was an odd segmentation, as the rest of the sky was the same dreary blue as today's storm. But it was very beautiful, and if I had a camera, I would have taken a shot. It's the sunsets like these that make me think about how beautiful the Florida sky is, and how sunsets at the beach are going to be something I miss at college. I feel like a lucky person tonight for seeing the sky in the midst of its change, when it looked even more like watercolor than usual.

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.

APOD 3.6

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110226.html

This photograph shows ARP 227 (name from Halton Arp Catalogue of Galaxies, published by Caltech) Shell galaxies near the edge of Pisces, the Fish. It lies around 100 million light-years away from Earth. ARP 227 is made up of two prominent galaxies, NGC 474 and NGC 470. The 'shells' in 474 formed as density waves in a dynamically cold component (thick disk) during a flyby interaction with another galaxy. The field of view is 25 arc minutes.

Willem de Sitter

de Sitter was born in the Netherlands to Lamoraal Ulbo de Sitter and Catharine Theodore Wilhelmine Bertling, whose family had a rich tradition of strictly lawful professions. de Sitter rebelled with his love of mathematics and science. He studied at the University of Groningen, earning a degree in math and studying physics at the same time.  David Gill visited Kapteyn to discuss progress on the southern sky survey, and de Sitter met with him (with the help of a translator as his grasp of the English language was complete. After he recieved his Bachelor's degree, he began study at Cape Town with Gill. He worked at the Cape Observatory in South Africa for two years taking part in photometric and heliometer programmes. He submitted his thesis Discussion of Heliometer Observations of Jupiter's Satellites to the University of Groningen in 1901. He married  Eleonora Suermondt, a schoolteacher, and had a child with her in Cape Town. In 1913 de Sitter produced an argument based on observations of double star systems which proved that the velocity of light was independent of the velocity of the source. It put to rest attempts which had been made up until this time to find emission theories of light which depended on the velocity of the source but were not in conflict with experimental evidence. De Sitter asked "If no matter exists other than the test body, does it have inertia?"- this led to Arthur Eddignton's work on gravitation effect's on photons. de Sitter also refined the fundamental constants of astronomy, most notably ones concerning the composition of the Earth. He received the Watson Gold Medal. He died from pneumonia at sixty-two years.