APOD 4.8 : The Last APOD

This is unfortunately the last APOD ....but it is by fa my favorite. This was a picture taken on top of mount Mauna Kea. Towards the bottom horizon of the picture is the clouds. Rocks and plants are at the bottom of the picture showing the beauty of Hawaii. Mauna Loa is off in the distance. A green glow from excited molecules from the volcano can be seen in the distance. The milky way also is shown horizontally. 

APOD 4.7

This is a photograph of the moon rising through the shadow of a volcano. The volcano is named Mauna Kea and is located in Hawaii. This is a popular spot for photographers since they encounter beautiful moon rises like this. This is a wonderful photo that exemplifies the beauty on earth combined with the beauty in the heavens. 

APOD 4.6

This picture is of the international space station orbiting in front of the moon. The picture was photographed from Madrid, Spain. This is an interesting photo and must have been timed perfectly since it only took half a second for the ISS to orbit the moon. The rough terrain visible in the picture is called the Highlands and the smooth terrain is called the maria. The space stattion is not causing the shadow across the moon it just happens to be right in the middle of the light and dark line. The line is called the terminator. This picture shows how small the ISS is compared to our moon.  


 

APOD 4.5

In Nangan, Taiwan, there is luminescent blue water glowing around the rocks. This blue water is not from the stars or moon but from little plankton called Noctiluca scintillans. The blue glow around the rocks is also called blue tears. Seeing the milky way above the glowing blue tears makes it almost seem unrealistic.

APOD 4.4

This is a photo of the Carina nebula. Newly formed stars are spreading the interstellar dust from energetic light and winds that are formed when the stars are formed. These pillars of dust are known as the Mystic Mountain.They are about 7500 light years away and the photo was taken by the Hubble space telescope.  They are composed mainly of hydrogen gas. Despite their appearance these mountains are thinner than air. Within a few million years the dusty mountains will be spread once again.

APOD 4.3

This photo was taken on the April 4 total lunar eclipse above the San Francisco's golden gate bridge. This is the third lunar eclipse in the tetrad the final eclipse of this tetrad will be on September 28 2015. A tetrad is four consecutive lunar eclipses that occur within six months of each other. This is a unique picture because it symbolizes mankind's progress and accomplishments while still showing the beauty and mysteriousness of nature.

APOD 4.2

Hooray! Scientists have finally been able to make a suit and containment unit to feed the colonists on mars. These containment units will allow cows to live on mars and live there instead of having to consistently send cows via  Russian rockets. The Russians began complaining that the rockets were turning into a pigsty and something needed to be done. April Fools! There is no containment unit for pigs nor are there colonists on mars. But hopefully one day there could be. Below is an image of "Mooooonwalk".

  

APOD 4.1

This is a picture of the constellation Orion setting in the sky. Spring is approaching the northern hemisphere and this constellation is a winter constellation so it will set earlier and earlier. The frame at the bottom of the picture shows trees which fit in with the constellation. The constellation Orion in English is "Hunter". So the trees add very nicely to the hunter persona of Orion. In the middle of the three diagonal stars is the stellar nursery and the star Beetelgeuse is the golden star at the very top inside the branches. Orion is a very recognizable constellation and one of the most popular during the  winter. 

APOD 3.8

Around 1,500 light years away is the Great Orion Nebula. This picture is able to capture the entire span of this fascinating constellation. To the left of the center is the Horsehead nebula. The three stars in a diagonal row makeup Orions belt. Betelgeuse is located at the hunters right shoulder is is a gold looking star in the photo. Rigel is the bright blue star located at the foot. Interstellar gas and dust block the view of the unaided eye for most stars. A hydrogen alpha filter was used with broadband telescopic images. Orion is one of the most well known constellations and is also one of my favorites.

APOD 3.7

      This is a picture of the pelican Nebula which is located in the constellation Cygnus. Stars are newly formed in this nebula but hard to see because of all the interstellar dust. Instellar dust floats around everywhere and are scattered by stellar winds and explosions. On the star on the right is a Herbig-Haro Jet which is helping to destroy a dust pillar. Small amounts of ionizednitrogen, oxygen , and sulfur can be found in the light from the nebula. This nebula is about 2000 light years away and is northeast of the star Deneb. 

Nathaniel Everett Green Biography

Nathaniel Everett Green was born in Bristol, England on August 21 1823. He was the third son of Benjamin Green and Elizabeth Everett. In the mid 1830’s England was experiencing industrial growth especially in its railroad industry and Nathaniel was going to try to benefit from the growth. He was educated for a short while by his Uncle Reverend Everett, but then decided to work in a merchant’s office. However, the busy and unpredictable life of a merchant wasn’t for him so he decided to attend the Royal Academy in London. At the Royal Academy in London Nathaniel was able to tap into his artistic talent and meet other artists that were interested in the same topics as himself. He met other famous artists there such as John Millais and Dante Rossetti. In 1847, Nathaniel married Elizabeth Gould of Ireland. They settled in London to where they would live for the next 49 happy years together, and where Nathaniel focused on his Art and Astronomical studies.

            In 1859 Nathaniel Green constructed a telescope by himself and discovered that Astronomy was his passion. He purchased a much finer French telescope later on and observed planetary landscapes.  He had met a friend named Mr. Banks of Ealing who he acknowledged as being the one that attracted to astronomy. And whom later on in Nathaniel’s life he named part of Mars after Mr. Banks called “Cape Banks”. The two wrote a joint paper of their observation of Mars during its opposition in 1862 as well as in 1864. These papers were sent to the Astronomical Register for publication. In 1879 Nathaniel Green wrote a book about Mars and its opposition that occurred in 1877. Nathaniel was one of the first members of the Selenographical society. He also met the Royal Astronomy Secretary and corresponded with him as well.

            Green was called to Balmoral in 1880 to paint for Queen Victoria of England which was a great honor. He was very adept at watercolor painting and it happened that Queen Victoria’s favorite form of art was water color painting. So he was able to present water colored drawings of his astronomical observations and terrestrial landscapes to Queen Victoria, Princess of Wales, and other members of the royal family. His work was also featured in the Royal Astronomy Society and also the Royal Academy. When painting these astronomical pictures Green had a certain way that he liked to draw them. He first placed the subject in an elliptical vignette. He also liked to put together complementary colors instead of using contrasting colors. Finally, Nathaniel liked to achieve the “Unity of effect” which is when the same scene is sketched with two different effects.

            After several years of his observations Green finally asked to join the Royal Astronomical Society in December of 1874. He was permitted to join in February of 1875 and met Edward Maunder in the society. Maunder and Green would later work very closely together. Nathaniel only served on the RAS council during the 1888-1889 session. In 1882 Nathaniel Green built an 18 inch reflecting telescope at his house in London. The telescope was used to aid Nathaniel in his watercolor paintings and then was loaned out to the Royal Astronomy Society to make observations.  

            Nathaniel Green traveled to Madeira where he hoped to observe the perihelic opposition. In the hills of Funchal Green began observing Mars. He made 41 pastels of Mars, 12 of which were lithiographed. In 1888 Green was able to submit a map of Mars. His map contained very fine detail of the planet. It included dust clouds and “supposed to be water” markings. This began the great Canal debate of which Green was an avid enthusiast for. Green also enjoyed observing Jupiter. He submitted a paper to The Astronomical Register which was about the changes that occurred from 1859 to 1887, and he was one of the first astronomers to recognize the global changes occurring there. From 1896 to 1898 Green served as President of the BAA.

Green died on November 10 1899. He was buried in St Marks Churchyard and in 1901 the clock in the church tower was made as a memorial to him.  A crater on Mars was also named in his honor.

                          Picture of his drawing of mars   

Example of his mars map on a sphere

          

Picture of Nathaniel Everett Green

Planetary Nebulae Research

 This is the Butterfly Nebula, It has a wingspan that is 3 light years long, it is about 3800 light years away. It is located in the constellation scorpius. Name given because the Nebula looks like a butterfly.

 This is the Owl Nebula, name given because the nebula looks much like an owls eye. It is located about 2,030 light years away. It is located in Ursa Major. The owl eye is about 1820 light years long.

This is the cats eye Nebula (NGC 6543) . It is located within the constellation of Draco, about 3300 light years away, it has a radius of 910,000 km.

 This is NGC2467, located in the constellation of puppis, it is about 17000 light years away.

 This is NGC 7027 it is located about 3000 light years away , and located in the constellation Cygnus. it has a size of .1 by .2 light years which makes it unusually small.

 This is NGC 6326 , is located in Ara , it is about 11000 light years away. 


 This is NGC 6369 aka the little Ghost Nebula, it is located in ophiucus, about 2000 light years away. 

  This is NGC 6210 it is located about 6,500 light years away. It is located in the constellation Hercules. 

 This is the Egg nebula, located in cygnus. It is about 3000 light years away. 

This is the Bug Nebula located in scorpius, about 1500 light years away, it is about 1/3 lightyear across 

APOD 3.6

In Scorpius there is a bright star named Antares ( which appears yellow) also seen in the picture below is the Pipe Nebula. At the bottom left corner of the picture winding its way around the star is a dark cloud that got the nickname " The dark river". Inside the cloud as we have learned in class are mainly hydrogen molecules and a few other molecules. Above Antares is Rho Ophiuchi which is a double star. The dark river is about 500 light years away.  Space can lead to all kinds of imagination.

Nathaniel Everett Green research links

McKim, R.J. "Nathaniel Everett Green: Artist and Astronomer." Journal of the British Astronomical Association 1st ser. 114.1 (2004): 13-23. Journal of the British Astronomical Association. Web. 20 Feb. 2015.


Sheehan, William. "The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery." The Planet Mars. University of Arizona, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2015.

APOD 3.5

 Ever thought the sun could look like a flower? Capturing red light from the suns chromosphere, and then inverting the color astronomers were able to make this rosy picture. The  petal shaped areas are called fibrils while the larger shapes are called spicules. This was taken in October 2014 when the sun was experiencing high peaks in electromagnetic activity. Some of these fibrils span past the diameter of earth which is amazing.

APOD 3.4

This photo was taken on Jokulsaron  beach in Iceland. The Ice at the bottom of picture shows how fitting the name is. The full moon reflects off the ice which gives a glowing, sparkling image at the bottom of the picture. The halo around the moon is caused by ice particles refracting the moon light. Jupiter can be seen to the left. A restless magnetosphere and solar winds cause the aurora in the top of the photo. A very calm picture that reflects the beauty of earth and space. 

Star Formation Links

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB-XPJe6DEg

       This is a video about the star forming region Sh2-106 , this was featured on Hubblecast and gives a great visual 

https://ay201b.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/170619main_image_feature_770_ys_full.jpg

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011477/s1-1024.jpg

http://d38zt8ehae1tnt.cloudfront.net/Celestial_Snow_Angel_Starforming_Region_Sharpless_2106__170261.jpg?v=1395982869

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/stellar-nursery-gives-birth-quadruplets 

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_643.html

http://sese.asu.edu/sites/default/files/image/v838-mon-04feb.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS1XqTgu8zgZLbaOzR3971_P2qa2XJoaKIWsyUBTHcSP-ihcldL3w

http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/Huge-Stellar-Nursery-Seen-in-the-30-Doradus-Nebula-2.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQfpZKO0DFBF911KV323zYMUwbGYQxEbpBDPumxoj8-zwlKAvE74ImCIV5p

http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/baby-stars-are-ripping-their-stellar-nursery-to-shreds-140702.htm

APOD 3.3

Pictured above is the M104 galaxy. The galaxy is appropriately named the Sombrero galaxy for its appearance. The galaxy is made up of cosmic dust, and has a broad ring and then dust lanes which make it seem like a sombrero. This image was processed from the Hubble space telescope and the ground based Subaru data to create this image. The galaxy is believed to hold a black hole. The galaxy is 50,000 light years across and 28 million light years from earth. It resides in the Virgo galaxy cluster and is one of the largest inside of the cluster.  Its quite fascinating how the galaxy resembles a sombrero. 

APOD 3.2

Ever wonder what one of the workstations look like from inside the International Space Station? On January 4 this Picture was taken inside the Earth facing cupola of the International Space station. This station comes with  a Computer with a camera, flashy buttons , and a spectacular view of earth. This workstation has Canadarm2 which is used for grappling cargo vehicles. The robotic arm can be seen outside the window to the right. It also assists astronauts while spacewalking. That is one dangerous job but the view is totally worth it! 

APOD 3.1

I am going to start off this new quarter and new semester talking about the end of the world. This is quite an attention grabbing topic for many people and has caused many shows and movies to become popular. Shows such as the Walking Dead that play at themes of an apocalyptic world where zombies have taken over is one example. An apocalyptic view seen in this photograph is of two stars combining and then creating a large explosion known as a supernova. Fortunately this only happens in a cataclysmic variable binary star system. In this case gas is falling onto an accretion disk. If that disk heats up to a certain temperature then the gas falls on to the white dwarf star.If the gas passes the white dwarf stars Chandrasekhar limit then a supernova will occur. At this point hiding under a desk will no do much because the supernova is a huge explosion. 

Observation Post 6 and 7 Qtr 2

January 9 and 10
 I attempted to observe the comet Lovejoy but was unable to find it. I observed Orion again and looked at the star Rigel. Each day was about an hour. Clear skies. I also observed Camelopardis and Perseus.

Observation Post 4 and 5 Qtr 2

January 7 2015
    I received a celestial alert notification on My Facebook from My astronomy teacher so I decided to take heed. Around 6pm I grabbed my binoculars and headed outside. I observe the stars in the road ( don't try this at home) because there are too many trees in my yard. It was amazing being able to see Venus and Mercury. Its weird to know they are so far away yet look so close when viewing them. Almost like they are touching. But in reality that is just due to parallax.  I was also able to observe the Iridium flare for a bit.

January 8 2015

I was able to observe Jupiter and the constellation Orion. I went out around 830 and stayed for an hour. The sky was slightly cloudy

Observation Post 3 Qtr 2

December 22 2014
This was the beginning of the Ursid meteor shower. My family went out to try and observe all the different meteors that flew by. I saw 6 meteors. Whats funny is how we all saw different amounts of meteors because we were all looking different directions and they disappear so quickly.

Observation Post 2 Qtr 2

December 20 2014

We had taken a road trip on the Way to New Jersey for winter break and I figured that while on the road it would be fun to observe the stars. I also noticed that it was the first day of winter and was getting colder as we were driving further up north so I was limited to my car window to observe out of. I saw the moon , I saw one meteor that flew by. Unfortunately it was getting cloudy as we were driving up so there wasn't much else to see and I fell asleep.

Observation Post 1 Qtr 2

December 13
     Sky Conditions were nice and clear in Venice. I was able to observe the Geminid Meteor Shower. That was around 930 to 1030. An airplane and I think a satellite flew by. It was a nice temperature outside too which made the observing so much better.

APOD 2.8

Blue is my favorite color, how about you? Imaged here are cosmic dust clouds that are very energetic. They are around 500 light years away from Corona Australis. Corona Australis means southern Crown and happens to be one of my favorite constellations. Unfortunately these dust clouds block the light of other stars. The blue is created from the refection of the young hot stars light off the dust clouds. Towards the left a smaller yellow nebula is near a young variable star. Just underneath that glowing arcs are shocked from newborn stars creating Herbig-Haro objects. It spans approx 9 light years. 

John Herschel Biography

John Herschel was born in Slough, Berkshire. John’s parents were Mary Baldwin and the infamous William Herschel. John briefly studied at Eton College, then attended St. Johns College in Cambridge. He graduated from St. Johns College as senior wrangler in 1813. During his time in St. Johns he befriended some famous astronomers such as Charles Babbage and George Peacock. In 1816, John Herschel became interested in astronomy. He built a reflecting telescope that included a mirror. The telescope was Eighteen inches in diameter and a twenty foot diameter. This is a very large telescope to be built singlehandedly. From 1821 till 1823, John Herschel worked with James South to re-examine the double stars that his father William Herschel had catalogued. This was his first large undertaking and he was very fortunate to have James South to assist him. South was able to afford all the expensive equipment needed for the observations. Being able to observe and record these double stars, one can find out more about gravitational forces working within the universe. The published their findings in the Philosophical Transactions. After publishing their findings, James South and John Herschel earned them a gold Medal in 1824 from the Royal Astronomical Society. And in 1825 they won the Lelande Prize from the Paris academy of Sciences.

            In 1823 he designed a practical concept for contact lenses. Then he wrote a book titled A preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy which was published in the beginning of 1831, which was part of Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet encyclopedia. The purpose behind Dionysus cabinet encyclopedia was to show methods of scientific investigation with a relationship between observation and theorizing. In his book he described that nature was governed by laws that were able to be figured out mathematically. Instead he proposed to use inductive reasoning to find the natural philosophy of nature. Being able to use inductive reasoning would hopefully provide a single unifying explanation for the phenomenon. This theory was widely popularized and inspired Charles Darwin to study the works of nature. In 1864 John Herschel put together his observations into a book called “General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters”. This was an added part to his father William Herschel book called “Catalogue of Nebulae”. He added his own observations and finished that of his fathers.

            In November 1833 John Herschel and his wif e boarded the S.S. Mountstuart Elphinstone headed to South Africa. The objective of the trip was to catalogue stars, nebulas, and much more. This was meant to build on the skies that were observed and mapped by his father. He wanted to complete what his father had started. He set up a 21 ft telescope in Cape Town. He consulted and made his observations with Thomas Maclear, since they stayed and ate together the two families became very good friends. They were able to catalogue 68,948 stars along with many nebulae and double stars. He was able to observe the passage of Halley’s Comet. And the satellites orbiting around Saturn.  He was able to describe in detail, the Magellanic cloud and the constellation Orion. He was able to take basic solar radiation reading from a device he invented. He also described sunspot activities in great detail. These things inspired people to make the sun an important element of Astrophysics.

            John Herschel was born into a family that already had a legacy with the stars. His father William Herschel was a well-known astronomer and John wanted to fill in his shoes. John wanted to complete the work of his father by cataloguing stars and making new scientific discoveries. John Herschel finished writing a book in 1849 named Outlines of Astronomy. This book was very popular and was even translated to Arabic and Chinese.. In 1824-1827 John served as the secretary of the Royal Society. In 1831 he was knighted. He was made Baronet in 1838. In 1850 John Herschel was appointed master of the mint. The stress however casued a nervous breakdown and he needed to resign in 1856. He sent the remainder of his days observing and cataloguing stars.  In 2000 an asteroid was named after him and his father. The asteroid was called Herschel. 

  1867 Photograph of John Herschel