8 PM-10 PM
Tonight I got a guided tour of most of the skies at a very dim location, ignoring the nearly full moon overhead. I was able to locate the Summer Triangle (Altair in the Eagle constellation, Vega, and the dimmest of the three stars, Deneb), Scorpio, Sagittarius, The Big Dipper, The Little Dipper, Arcturus, Anterres, and many others. I also saw Venus "set", changing colors and becoming dimmer as it hit the atmosphere at a shallower angle, changing from white to yellow to orange to red, before it faded into the darkness.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Observations 9-15
8 PM-10 PM
Sitting in my backyard, I noticed Scorpio (recognized the triangular tail with three stars along the stinger's "hypotenuse"), Sagittarius (calculated where to look for Sagittarius, and recognized the teapot), and Jupiter (noticed an extremely bright "star" that was nearly at opposition to the sun and was clearly not part of any constellation). When I looked at the Moon, I noticed it was just past first quarter, and beginning to wax its way towards a full moon.
Sitting in my backyard, I noticed Scorpio (recognized the triangular tail with three stars along the stinger's "hypotenuse"), Sagittarius (calculated where to look for Sagittarius, and recognized the teapot), and Jupiter (noticed an extremely bright "star" that was nearly at opposition to the sun and was clearly not part of any constellation). When I looked at the Moon, I noticed it was just past first quarter, and beginning to wax its way towards a full moon.
APOD 1.3
Opposite the Sun
Here, the amazing phenomenon where three celestial bodies line up almost perfectly is shown on Earth, when there are planets that are half-way through their "retro-grade motion" when they get on the exact opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, making the planet become lit up like a bright star in Earth's night sky. The fact that Jupiter, the planet whose moons made Galileo realize that the Earth is located in a heliocentric solar system, is one of the two planets currently making its way to opposition is just an amazing bonus.
Here, the amazing phenomenon where three celestial bodies line up almost perfectly is shown on Earth, when there are planets that are half-way through their "retro-grade motion" when they get on the exact opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, making the planet become lit up like a bright star in Earth's night sky. The fact that Jupiter, the planet whose moons made Galileo realize that the Earth is located in a heliocentric solar system, is one of the two planets currently making its way to opposition is just an amazing bonus.
APOD 1.2
NGC 4911: Spiral Diving into a dense Cluster
NGC 4911 is, in a way, very much like our own galaxy, in that it is a spiral galaxy with many rotating arms and a bright central core. At the same time, we can see its future based on how most of 4911's neighboring galaxies have turned out.(yellowish elliptical galaxies), we can see this process happening (there are 3 faints rings extending from the galaxy where the neighboring galaxies are pulling 4911 apart), and we can see that 4911 is nothing but a very small part of the big picture (4911 is being drawn into the Coma Cluster of galaxies, which has over 1,000 galaxies inside of it).
P.S. This APOD was supposed to be for the week of September 10th.
NGC 4911 is, in a way, very much like our own galaxy, in that it is a spiral galaxy with many rotating arms and a bright central core. At the same time, we can see its future based on how most of 4911's neighboring galaxies have turned out.(yellowish elliptical galaxies), we can see this process happening (there are 3 faints rings extending from the galaxy where the neighboring galaxies are pulling 4911 apart), and we can see that 4911 is nothing but a very small part of the big picture (4911 is being drawn into the Coma Cluster of galaxies, which has over 1,000 galaxies inside of it).
P.S. This APOD was supposed to be for the week of September 10th.
APOD 1.1
Hole in the Sun
Every so often, the sun's magnetic field opens freely into interplanetary space, creating a temporary "hole" in the sun's corona. This type of phenomenon might have even been seen by early astronomers like Galileo and Copernicus, which would have made them realize that the sun had "spots of darkness", leading them to the astronomical theories we remember them for to this day. At the same time, this loss of field integrity is responsible for another well-known phenomenon here on Earth: the auroral lights, which are produced when the sun's open magnetic field releases solar radiation in our direction, which then slams into our Earth's magnetic field. It tends to focus around the North and South poles because the Earth's magnetic poles are at almost the same spot as the axis around which the Earth spins.
P.S. This APOD was supposed to be put up around September 3rd.
Every so often, the sun's magnetic field opens freely into interplanetary space, creating a temporary "hole" in the sun's corona. This type of phenomenon might have even been seen by early astronomers like Galileo and Copernicus, which would have made them realize that the sun had "spots of darkness", leading them to the astronomical theories we remember them for to this day. At the same time, this loss of field integrity is responsible for another well-known phenomenon here on Earth: the auroral lights, which are produced when the sun's open magnetic field releases solar radiation in our direction, which then slams into our Earth's magnetic field. It tends to focus around the North and South poles because the Earth's magnetic poles are at almost the same spot as the axis around which the Earth spins.
P.S. This APOD was supposed to be put up around September 3rd.
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