APOD 3.7

Today's APOD is from February 23rd and is VERY cool.

This is an image of Saturn but notice how it is missing its rings? The blue line you see is actually the rings. This image was taken by the robot Cassini. In reality, those rings are only as thick as a razor blade. This was first noticed by Galileo in 1612 and he was really worried and confused by the phenomenon. The robot that took the picture is actually in Saturn's orbit and this photo was archived by Fernando Garcia Navarro. I chose this photo because I never had any idea that the rings were THIS thin and it is truly amazing.

Observational Study 2/8 - 2/21

The first of the two weeks were very poor viewing conditions as the moon was in its waxing gibbous, full, then waning gibbous into the second week. One cool thing is that I saw the moon was very orange color which was very cool but other than that, not much happened. The second week was a little better but not much. Even still, I used my app on my phone to figure out where various nebulae we learned about were located. All in all, a pretty boring two weeks that involved little to no actual star viewing.

APOD 3.6

Todays APOD is from February 17th and is very cool and relevant to the topic we are discussing in class.

This is a picture of the tarantula nebula and it is the most complex and largest star forming region in our galaxy. If you look closely, one can see spider-like legs protruding from all around this, thus giving it the name. This is actually orbiting our galaxy as a smaller galaxy despite the fact it is 1000 light years across. A cool way to imagine it, is that if it were 1500 light years away from us, it would take up the same amount of space as 60 moons in our night sky. I chose this image because it is not only amazing but also relevant to the topic we are discussing in class.

Biography Links

My person of interest this quarter is Ejnar Hertzsprung and here are the 2 links that I need

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/263944/Ejnar-Hertzsprung

http://www.rundetaarn.dk/engelsk/observatorium/hertz.html

APOD 3.5

Today's APOD is actually a video not a picture and it is from February 10th.
The video is located here http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140210.html
This video shows the full story of the Felix Baumgartner jump from 39 kilometers above the ground. He was so high up, he needed a space suit and special breathers!  This jump broke the previous world record of 32 kilometes and was sponsored by Red Bull. Felix fell for over four minutes in free fall and the footage is amazing. I chose this video becuase it is something different and it shows astronomy in an action based way instead of a observer point of view.

Observational Study 1/31 to 2/7

This has been yet another very dull and uneventful week, half the time, it was either raining or very cloudy and the other half, nothing happened. It is cooler out and the stars are even brighter than ever, but it isn't anything I haven't already explained and observed. All in all, a simple week of absolutely nothing changing or going on in the space above us.

APOD 3.4

Today's APOD is from February 5th and quite a sight to behold.

This is a photo of a spiral galaxy that is not unlike our own milky way galaxy 20 million light years away from us. This is called spiral galaxy NGC 2683 and it is located in our Lynx constellation. This is a very unique and beautiful view of the galaxy from its edge to give it an even more disk-like effect. This picture is made from combined data from the Subaru telescope and the Hubble space telescope. I really like this picture since one can actually see several detailed images of galaxies even further behind the spiral. I chose this photo since it really helps give perspective to just how small we and our problems are. In the grand scheme of things, we are just, as Kansas says, Dust in the Wind.