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.