APOD 4.8, the end

Zooniverse remains unaltered. Galaxy zoo Hubble continues.



Well those on the beach at Perth, Australia got a lovely show on Australia day, 2007. The expected fireworks display was joined with an impressive thunderstorm, and a very bright comet McNaught between the two of them. The comet had to be very luminous to be visible as all the other lights were active on earth. How visible it actually was is hard to say, as the digital image was processed to cut down the light and red reflection from the fireworks.

APOD 4.7

Zooniverse: more of the same, more classifying galaxies.



There appears to be a spire in the clouds, as the Space shuttle Endeavor ascends for the last time. The perspective of the rising shuttle and the clouds makes the lower mass seem solid and flat, as if something was poking out of a mattress. from the visible spec that is the shuttle itself, the scale is more easily represented, and the total area of the visible sky is vast, and the camera was on board a shuttle training aircraft. I'd still love to know what we're going to do about getting NASA personnel up to the international space station until we have a suitable replacement.

APOD 4.6 and zooniverse....ah you know the drill.

Zooniverse: continued on Galaxy zoo Hubble. Classifying galaxies. Will likely be doing this for the rest of zooniverse, however long that may be.

APOD: A long long time ago, Voyager 1 was sent off into the solar system, far away. Now 117 Astronomical units from the sun or 17 light hours away, it is now the spacecraft farthest from us after its initial send off in 1977. From its gravity sling-shooting past Jupiter, it now travels at 17 kilometers a second. It has still not reached interstellar space, and will not for some years to come. The Fifth farthest craft will reach Pluto's orbit in July. Four years from now. And that distance is 3 billion kilometers from the sun. Now pardon me while I go home and never ever ever sign up for spacecraft leaving earth, as the idea of being "lost in space" is pretty terrifying. As a small child I cried from being lost in Toys 'r' us. Mierda.

APOD 4.5 and Zooniverse progress

Zooniverse continued with Galaxy zoo Hubble. No changes there and no days missed. Haven't exactly coutned the days but I should be where I need to be on that.


I however have not worked on the moon zoo project, although the craters here at the southern pole have been given some attention.
 
The picture shows how much sunlight the different parts of the pole get in a 6 moon-day (6 earth-month) period. The mounts are almost completely white as they are in a state of eternal day, Where as the craters never get any direct light. The crater in the middle is very close to the actual southern pole, withing 9 degrees or so, and the lunar equator is very close to the ecliptic plane, the amount of light at the poles is constant. Perhaps the mountains in there area would be ideal locations for solar power arrays. Assuming they have protection from falling rocks.

APOD 4.4 and zooniverse progress

zooniverse: Continued working in Galaxy zoo Hubble, classifying galaxies. Most of which are smooth ellipses but I occasionally find an interesting spiral galaxy. No work done for zooniverse outside of class time. I may or may not switch to a different zooniverse project soon. We'll see.

Now for a view from Everest. This is probably the only APOD I've done of anything under Earth's atmosphere. Any planet-side images I've chosen are from other worlds (or artists' renditions of thereof). But to say that this view is nice is a bit of an understatement.

The clouds around the mountain look like fog from this vantage point, 8.85 Kilometers up. This altitude is about the maximum that any international aircraft will reach. The air is surely thin, but what a view of the mountains. I wouldn't hop on down so quickly though. In its country, Nepal, the mountain is referred to as Sagarmontha, or "the forehead of the sky" which sounds rather fitting.

APOD 4.3 and zooniverse progress

Zooniverse: continued working on the milky way project, drawing bubbles as I went. Unfortunately this grew old halfway through the week (since I would only find a bubble every third image, which I suppose would be an indicator of the wealth of empty space in the Milky Way.) I have now begun working on one of the galaxy zoo projects, here observing galaxies and describing their appearance.

50 years ago, Yuri Alexseyevich Gagarin was the first man sent up, and he described the image he saw before him as he orbited.

The international space station has a view that looks very much like what he described. The sky was black, the earth was bluish, and he could see clearly. Yuri survives a prototype vessel to reach orbit, but died in a crash of a Mig jet during a training flight. Ironic and unfortunate. He received a hero's funeral, ashes safely tucked away in the walls of the Kremlin. As for his achievements, the man became a legend for this journey to space. It's sad to think of it now. 50 years ago scientific achievement meant sending a man to space. Now it means building a smaller ipod.

APOD 4.2 and Zooniverse progress

As For "Zooniverse," I have been working on the milky way project and will likely continue doing so. I spy in space. Now on to the ASTRONOMY PICTURE OF THE DAAAAAY:

Raindrops are falling, on Titan. The -290 degree atmosphere on Titan allows there to be precipitation in the form of Liquid methane. The storms above Saturn's largest moon may also have lightning from the Nitrogen rich atmosphere.

This is of course an artist's illustration, but it is believed to be close to what we would see. The rain clouds were found via the Cassini spacecraft. This however is nothing compared to the ground breaking discovery in 2005 of Water on Mars. The water and the nutrient rich surface may have sustained life

......before it melted.

APOD 4.1

the Kepler Spacecraft has been working for some time to find exoplanets. (or Extrasolar planets, if you prefer) Since it's mission started in 2009, it has found 1,235 planets using the transits system.

The above image is a collection of simulated pictures. Kepler looks for the slight, regular dimming of a star as a planet passes over it. The images shown actually show the silhouette of a passing planet, rather than Kepler seeing a slightly dimmer dot. Some of the pictured stars actually have more than planet passing their star, including one with three worlds, 3rd row, fourth down. Our sun is shown for comparison under the first row of stars. What confuses me is the Blue stars among the larger crowd. I though Blue giants were at least 8 times the mass of the sun, but they don't appear that much bigger, especially the blue stars in the second column. Also, I blame no one if they say the first star in the first column looks like an upside-down Pacman. Actually, speaking of that Star, it's planet looks like it's almost as big as the sun if these are to scale. Could it be a binary companion? the mythic black dwarf if it's not giving off light? Or is it just one truly massive planet?

Astronomy Night Observation

Identified all the constellations with stars int he winter "G," as well as Ursa Major and Leo. Also saw the Orion nebula through one of the telescopes.

APOD 3.8

The Valles Marineris is the largest canyon in the solar system, 3,000 kilometers long.

Believed to have started as a crack as the planet was cooling, the massive gash in the surface is 600 kilometers across at its widest point, and stretches 8 kilometers deep. The earth's grand canyon is less than a third of its length, only 1.8 kilometers deep, and a 20th of its girth. to peer down a chasm so deep would certainly be intimidating. This mosaic was build from images taken in the 70 by the viking orbiter.

APOD 3.8

The red square nebula has a star at it's core (MWC 922) and appears, well...square.

It is suggested that during the star's development, cones were ejected at near-right angles. The cone theory has some support with the radial spokes that might run along the cone walls. It is also speculated that the cones from a different viewpoint would look akin to the rings around supernova 1987A. MWC 922 here might also go nova someday (if it's over 8 solar masses). Looks like the camera's peering into a train tunnel, or the hourglass on the underside of a widow spider's abdomen. (no people, it is NOT the most deadly spider)

Apod 3.7

A Mars panorama from the Phoenix lander.
 
Images have been spliced  together for the full 360 degree view from the Lander, showing of the solar panels and various other working of the lander, as well as the vast expanse of this martian plateau. The unit is using its own lab to analyze the area of the possibility of past life on Mars. Ice has been confirms, and Phoenix has found unexpected indications of Perchlorate Salts. It is being debated whether or not life could have evolved around these salts. Hopefully the Phoenix will have a brighter future than the Spirit rover:

APOD 3.6

Discovery Visits the International Space Station

Someone just got inspiration for a new concentration piece for their AP 2D portfolio. The machinery looks far more complex than I regularly give it credit for. It looks like Robo-Kraken is attacking the space station. That would be the space stations Dextre Robot and Canadarm2. The Japanese Kibo Experiment Module is also pictured, on the lower right. The docking discovery shuttle has brought with it six crew members and the Leonardo Multi Purpose Logistics Module to be installed. Other upgrades are to be made to the space station during this venture.

APOD 3.5

The Messenger space craft is now orbiting the sun at the same distance as Mercury. From its location, we can see the solar system from it's vantage point in this image: Solar system from Messenger


All of the planets out to Saturn are visible in the image, and the zoomed shots can even see Earth's moon and all four Galilean Satellites. Quite the impressive telescope mounted on that craft. By the looks of the image, if the cloud in the same piece of the image as Neptune's location is the Milky Way, the ecliptic is very heavily inclined to the rest of the galaxy. Almost perpendicular.

APOD 3.4

Geronimo! That's quite a long drop.
 
This is quite a bit different from the mostly liquid water...observatories? Doesn't seem like the correct term. The idea is the same: Neutrinos that have been sent from space, namely the sun, will pass right through most surfaces, but the few that ricochet off the ice can be measured by large light detectors that are strung together in that cable. These holes in the ground are in Antarctica, hardly the most hospitable place, but at least the ice isn't going anywhere until global warming kicks in.
     although on that note, fun fact: the ice caps melting lets the freshwater into the sea, messes with currents, and somewhere along the way, supposedly, this alter the weather to actually start cooling everything. Invest in a company that makes Parkas.

APOD 3.3

Oh boy! Exoplanets! When I had done my exoplanet quarter project, I had found many worlds that I declared "poor real estate." Never did I find a group like the 6 worlds around Kepler-11 where they are all closer to their star than Mercury is to ours. All terrestrial and found with the transits system to boot. We're not going to find another Gliese-581G that close to a sun-like star, though, but with the Keplar telescope having found 1200 planets in a portion of only 1/400th of the sky, we should be able to find another habitable world someday. Getting there is another story. See ya then, Vulcans.

APOD 3.1

A new quarter, and the start of a new constellation chart. Timely enough, the stars of Orion's belt: Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka are pictured here, in all their unstable blue super-giant glory. Also beneath Alnitak, one can see the star that makes the sword attached to Orion's belt. Looking just here One can see multiple nebulae, including the Horse-Head Nebula, the Flame Nebula, and of course, the Orion Nebula.

John Frederick William Herchel

            John Frederick William Herschel, born in 1792, was the only son of William Herschel. He wrote many papers on meteorology, the telescope, and physical geography. He was one of the few scientists to be motivated to enter science by his family than political events. He studied at Eton College and St. Johns College, and graduated in 1813. In 1816, he built a reflecting telescope with a mirror 18 inches in diameter, and a focal length of 20 feet. With the aid of James South, He re-examined the double stars catalogued by his father. For this work, he was presented with the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1826 (a medal he would win again in 1836).

            In 1831, his A preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy was published. The book was intended to set guidelines for scientific exploration, linking observing and theorizing. He also stated that the highest point of philosophy was taking observations and confirming their connection with a single phenomenon. This authoritative statement would later influence Charles Darwin “with a burning zeal” for his own work.

           Herschel published, in 1864, a catalog of his fathers work fused with his own. General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters was the written expansion to his father's book, Catalogue of Nebulae.

APOD 2.8

The cosmic web of the tarantula nebula is a massive star 'nursery' orbiting the milky way galaxy. Were it as close as the Orion nebula, it would appear sixty times as wide as a full moon. The nursery is a producer of very large stars, which have shorter life spans than most. As a result, the nebula is home to a fairly recent supernova.

As luck would have it I actually had a pet Chilean rose-haired tarantula (or Chilean common tarantula) for a year. Interesting creatures. But I can help being perturbed by the title of this picture. Tarantula's do produce silk like all spiders but do not spin webs. (yes I can be petty!)

images of a mass of incandecent gas

http://www.brevardastro.org/albums/UniverseScale/photo3.html I put the whole set up. Creates a very good sense of scale throughout the set. Antares is massive compared to our yellow star.

http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach/images/Solar/Educate/features.jpg Though disappointingly not labeled as such, an image I believe to have been taken in Ultraviolet. Confirm this I can not.

http://www.astronomy-pictures.net/sun_and_earth.jpg The coronal mass ejection that could kill us all, with a photoshoped in Earth for scale.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/stereo3D_press.html series of photos in false color from all wavelengths from the STEREO satellite.

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/upload/2010/08/from_the_sun_to_your_sky_in_ju/239ed_2010-06-16-sun_coronal_mass_ejection.jpeg A visual representation of how our magnetic field keeps us from being easy-bake-ovened by Coronal mass ejections. Explanation here


http://memebase.com/2010/12/01/memes-very-demotivational-sun-i-am-disappoint/ A more humorous demonstration of scale between our sun and other stars. Not counted as one of my images as it's mainly here for a humorous reason than any spectacular. Particularity amusing for those Familiar with internet culture. Potentially disappointing for others.

APOD 2.7

Looking back at an eclipsed Earth

The shadow of the moon (during a solar eclipse) projected onto the earth, with Saturn and Jupiter off in the distance. This one of the last pictures taken from the Mir space station, which was deorbited in 2001. A pretty clear idea of how small the area needed to see a solar eclipse is. I'll have to pack my bags in 2017.

Observations: all-nighter

present at the lunar eclipse meeting from 1 am to 4 am. Was Conscious from 1 am to 3 am. Hibernated remaining hour. Lasted long enough to see the eclipse reach its peak.

John Frederick William Herchel works sited

Gillispie, Charles Coulston. "Herschel, John Frederick William." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Detroit: Scribner, 2008. Print.

 "John Herschel." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 06 Jan. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org               /wiki/John_Herschel>.