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>.