2.7 Apod Entry

The photo for this week is of the Eagle Nebula taken on December 9, 2007. The dark cloud-like figures are apparently evaporating. The light emitted by close and distant stars are eating away at these cosmic clouds. This particular cloud is known as the the gigantic alien fairy. The fairy is just one of many dust pillars that are in the Eagle Nebula or M16. The height is a staggering 10 light years and the radiation emitted by the Fairy is more hotter than radiation emitted by a fire. An open cluster is currently forming inside the cavity of this nebula.

Observation 12/6

Date: 12/6/07
Time:8:15-9:00pm
Location: Church off of Hawkins Road

Tools Used: Naked eye, laser pointer, binoculars, and two telescopes.
Light Pollution: Minimal, only a few lights visible in the northern direction.
Cloud Coverage: 5%-8%
Temperature: 58-65 degrees
Moon: The moon was not visible and it was at apogee, so it was the farthest from Earth in its orbit-406,235km

Constellations: Andromeda, Ursa Minor (Little Dipper), Lyra, Delphinus, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Pegasus (Great Square), Persus, Pisces, Cetus, Cygnus (Northern Cross), and Aquarius.
Planets: Mars and Uranus
Stars: Polaris (and faint star at 1 o'clock), Vega, Gemini Twins, Deneb.
Miscellaneous: Gamma, Andromeda, M42 (Orion Nebula), and a shooting star in the northwest direction.

2.6 Apod Entry

The entry for this week is of the Double Cluster in the constellation of Persus or the Hero. This star field is not too far from the Comet Holmes which astronomers have been following closely.The Double Cluster is 7,000 light years and is visible with the naked eye on dark nights.Hipparchus was the first astronomer to identified this cluster in 130 BC.The cluster on the left is cataloged in as NGC 869 and the cluster on the right is NGC884.Inside the cluster are stars that are estimated to have temperatures that far exceed that of the Sun. These two clusters have a distance between them of about acouple hundred light years.

2.5 Apod Entry

The photo for these week encompasses the constellation of Persus. Centered in the 4 degree span of the sky is the nebula NGC 1333 which reflects a blue aura around the nebula and is about 1,000 light-years from Earth. The span of this photo is about 70 light years across. Stars, dust, and gas clouds are scattered throughout Persus. The red hydrogen gas is very prominent throughout the photo as it consumes most of the sky. The molecular cloud borders the dust clouds and gas clouds.

Observation

Date: November 19, 2007
Time: 8:00 to 8:40
Location: Backyard
Light Pollution: There was little pollution preventing celestial objects closer to the horizon from being seen. Most of the light was in the direction of downtown Sarasota and Lido.
Cloud Coverage: There were few clouds in the sky, mainly in the North which did not hinder me observing celestial objects.
Moon: The moon is in the waxing gibbous phase with about 75% of its surface visible .
Instruments: Naked eye and binoculars.

Constellations: The most easily spotted object was the Great Square of Pegasus. The Summer Triangle was clearly visible consisting of the constellations of Cygnus, Lyra, and Aquila. Ursa Minor was off in the northern direction with Polaris easily seen with binoculars. Toward the south and southwest were Aquarius as well as Capricorn. Delphinus was to the West of Pegasus and Andromeda to the north/northeast.
Stars: Altair, Vega, Deneb, and Polaris.
Misc: The Milky Way spanned across the sky from East to West.

2.4 Apod Entry

This week's photo is of M13: The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. This nebula contains a mass of stars numbering in the hundreds of thousands. It is easy visible with the naked eye in the northern sky given that it is one of the star clusters in that region. The Great Globular Cluster is about 25,000 light years from Earth with a massive diameter of 150 light years. Also, located in the background is the small galaxy NGC 6207 which is of great interest to amateur astronomers because of its relative distance to M13. The Great Globular Cluster also is in Hercule's asterism, keystone.

2.3 Apod Entry

The photo for this week is Comet Holmes Grows a Tail. Take on November 5, of the impressive comet Holmes which appears to be slightly diminishing in brightness. Its angular extent is calculated to be larger than nearby stars and planets. The comet's coma, or center, appears to be glowing green and turquoise. The photo was captured by a Spain astronomer who used three exposures to show the extent of its magnificent tail. The solar wind creates the tail to glow blue because the impact on the coma.

Apod Entry 2.2

The photo for this week is of Three Nebulae in Narrow Band taken on November 2, 2007. Spanned across the Milky Way are three nebula's which are approximately 5,000 light years away from Sagittarius. The two nebula's M8 and M20 which are the two at the top of this band and the third located at the bottom is the NGC 6559. M8 is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. The filters collected sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms .

Apod Entry 2.1

The photo taken on October 22 is of Victoria Crater on Mars. This crater is recorded as the largest one ever taken by a rover sent by NASA. The journey to this crater has been a 2 year goal for the roller expeditions. The Endurance Crater took around 6 months to fully explore; however, the Victoria Crater is around 5 times in diameter larger than Endurance. Opportunity reached Victoria one year ago and has been conducting research on it ever since. Large dust storms have been hindering the exploration. It took quite awhile to find a safe route into the crater.

Observation #2

Thursday, October 18
Time: 8:45pm to 9:20pm
Location: Midnight Pass Road

Light Pollution: A few street lights lightened a portion of the western horizon.
Cloud Coverage: A few scattered clouds here and there.
Instruments: Naked eye and binoculars.

Moon: The moon is currently in its First Quarter Phase, about 47% of a Full Moon. It was located in the Southwestern part of the sky.

Planets: The moon has clearly distanced itself from Jupiter within the last couple of days. Jupiter is one of the brighter celestial objects in the sky.

Stars: The bright star in Aquila, Altair was easily seen with the naked eye as well as the other two first magnitude stars that comprise the Summer Triangle. The North Pole Star, Polaris was visible in the North.

Constellations: The Little Dipper in the constellation of Ursa Minor (Little Bear) was barely visible with the light pollution coming from the streets. The three constellations that make up the Summer Triangle- Aquila, Lyra, and Cygnus, were all in the visible in the nighttime sky. Some other constellations consist of Pegasus, Delphinus, Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and Hercules.

Observation

Thursday, October 11
Location: Hawkins Road off of Clark
Time: 8:15 to 9:30pm

Cloud coverage: None
Light pollution: The only light that caused pollution came from a telephone pole northwest of the observing grounds.

The moon was not visible during the time; however, it was in the new moon phase.

Instruments: Binoculars, naked eye, a green laser pointer, red flash lights, and a rotating-optical telescope.
Constellations: Scutum, Ursa Minor, Aquila, Delphinus, Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, Hercules, Cepheus, Lyra, Scorpius, and Cygnus.
Planets: Saturn and Jupiter (moons visible w/ telescope).
First Magnitude Stars: Deneb, Antares, Altair (Summer Triangle), and Polaris.
Nebula's:M31, M8, M13, M39, M11, M57, and M27.
The nearest galaxy to Earth, M31 or Andromeda, was visible by use of binoculars looking North.

An almost perfect square known as The Great Square of Pegasus, stretched across the Northeastern portion of the sky.

The stars that made up the night time cross, which lays in the center of the Summer Triangle, could be clearly made out with the naked eye.

Christoph Clavius

Cameron Johnson Johnson 1
Mr. Percival
Astronomy
12 Oct. 2007
Christoph Clavius
Born on March 25, 1538, Christoph Clavius quickly became a prominent figure in the field of astronomy. He was born in a small town known as Bamberg in the region where Germany is currently located. Little is recorded of his early upbringing; however, he promptly joined the Jesuit order at a young age, which is the Christian religious order in the Roman Catholic Church. He developed into a very religious individual who drew curiosity from the sky. He traveled to Portugal so he could attend the University of Coimbra. Every aspect of math fascinated him, leading to his mathematical degree and renowned title as one of the most astute mathematicians of his time. The study of theology drew him to Italy where he enrolled into a Jesuit college centered in Rome. In 1570, Clavius wrote his first book, Spheres of Sacrobosco, which would be the most influential text books in the astronomical community in the 1500s and 1600s.
One of his most profound achievements came in 1579, when Clavius would create a calendar still in existence. He was assigned to the task of inventing a calendar that would fix the Church’s problem with its assigned holidays moving irregular because of the seasons of the year. He proposed the


Johnson 2
Gregorian calendar which brought him national fame. His proposal brought him admiration as well as respect because it fixed the vernal equinox from traveling back in the annual calendar as well as fixed an issue with Easter creating a marginal error as the years passed.
Clavius held strong to the belief that the universe can be explained by the Ptolemiac system or Geocentric model, which presented the Earth as the center of the universe and every astronomical object following a path around its globe-like shape. He strongly disagreed with the heliocentric model that Copernicus came up with because of how unrealistic its theory was to him as well as the religious disapproval of the model. Clavius went on to become a head professor in the astronomy department at Jesuit's Collegio Roman, where he had previously studied theology. Galileo highly respected Clavius’s work and talent in the field of astronomy, so he brought him the observations from which he recorded with his self-built telescope that viewed the moon. Christoph was quite intrigued by the discovery that the moon had craters and mountains, but questioned whether they really existed. He would soon become an avid proponent that the moon could not contain mountains. Also, when verifications that Venus had moons orbiting itself, it put the Ptolemaic model in jeopardy. Clavius interpreted that the moons orbited Venus, while Venus revolved around the Sun which revolved around the Earth. Christoph remained at the college in Rome as a professor until his death in February of 1612. He was later given the honor of having one of the largest craters on the moon named after him.

Apod Entry 1.7

The photo for this week is Bright Planets, Crescent Moon taken on October 11. The location of Venus during this time of year allows for it to be visible in the early morning sky. Venus is located above the morning star at the top right corner of this photograph. The moon is shown as a crescent with Saturn and it's biggest moon, Titan, somewhat visible. The photo contains about a five degree viewing area. The moon's detailed characteristics are made possible for viewing because of the sunlight being reflected off the Earth. Regulus, the alpha star above the crescent moon helps make up the tight triangle which shares formation with Saturn and Venus.

Apod Entry 1.6

The photo is of a portion of the Milky Way band. This panorama is of a northern portion of the Milky Way's band. This portion of the Milky Way contains numerous objects. Scattered throughout the photo are various bright stars which some can be seen with the naked eye. The dark clouds seen throughout resemble clusters of smoke that are caused by absorption of background starlight by dust. The red clouds are caused by ionizing the hydrogen gas by certain stars with refraction and absorption taking place. The dust on the top and bottom of the photo is reflected light blue light causing the color of blue to show prominently. Also, star clusters are spread out throughtout the northern portion of the Milky Way.

Apod Entry 1.5

The photo taken on September 27, is of a whole on Mars. This picture was captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which has been surveying Mars for quite some time. The hole is located on the side of the volcano Arsia Mons, which is in the northern territory of the planet. This volcano is quite different from volcanoes on Earth in the aspect that it does not have raised rims that project from the ground and is classified as inactive. Volcanoes such as this one across Mars were earlier identified by visible light and infrared images from shuttles and orbiters. The hole is estimated at 150 meters in diameter and is said to lead to underground tunnels that are partially visible by the sunlight.

1.4 Astro Blog

The photo this week is of Northern Cygnus. A long exposure camera is utilized to capture this magnificent sight that contains billions of stars as well as various gas clouds. Throughout the Northern Cygnus, the nebula of Northern Coal Sack can clearly be seen. The other nebula's such as the North America, NGC 7000, IC 5070, and the Pelican are visible by the light gas cloud in the northern corner. The bright star in the center of the photo is part of the summer triangle. The only part of this photo that can actually be seen with the naked eye is the bright cloud to the left of Deneb.

Apod Entry 1.3

The photo this week is A Scorpius Sky Spectacular taken on September 11. This photo of Scorpius was taken during a long duration. A high resolution camera took this photo of Scorpius that would have been impossible to see such detail with just the naked eye. The Milky Way galaxy is visible on the left side of this particular photo. The red gas surrounding Scorpius would be a massive cloud of hydrogen gas. The Dark River is traveling diagonally across Scorpius which is visible by dark dust bands. The Dark River connects various bright stars, one being Antares. Jupiter can be seen above Antares. Scorpius can mostly be seen in the southern skies during mid-year.

Apod Entry 1.2

The Apod picture for this week was the Time Tunnel taken on September 6. Johannes Schedler's, an amateur astronomy in Germany, took the photo which is a project of his to look at a quasar, which are objects that radiate more energy than a thousand plus galaxies. This particular quasar is around 12.7 billion light-years away. This quasar is supposedly known as the farthest object in space known to astronomers. The photo contains numerous galaxies surrounding the quasar. The quasar's appearance has not changed over the span of 12.7 billion years ago when it's light first reached the Earth.

The Trifid Nebula in Stars and Dust. 8/13/07

This photo is a picture of the M20 Nebula. It is located near the Sagittarius constelation. A combination of hydrogen gas combined with a collision of of starlightcauses this aura of red gas. It has been estimated that the M20 Nebula is 3,000 light-years from the Earth. The dark lines that spread throughout the M20 are formed by supernovas exploding which interact with the cooler temperatures of the surrounding giant stars.