Two Sources for Astronomer: Jeremiah Horrocks

"Horrocks, Jeremiah." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 6. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. 514-516.  Gale Virtual Reference Library.  Web.  28 September 2010.  http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do
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"Jeremiah Horrocks and His Opera Posthuma." Jstor.org. Ithaka Organization. Web. 28 Sept. 2010.  <http://jstor.org/pss/531137searchUrl=/action/doBasicSearchQuery=jeremiah+horrocks&wc=on&acc=off>.

"Jeremiah Horrocks - Father of British Astronomy." BBC - Homepage. Web. 28 Sept. 2010. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2769041>.


"Jeremiah Horrocks." NNDB: Tracking the Entire World. Web. 28 Sept. 2010. <http://www.nndb.com/people/305/000102996/>.

APOD 1.4

This week, I chose the picture called Equinox and the Harvest Moon, uploaded on September 24, 2010.  It is a very interesting picture of a special kind of full moon that occurred on September 22, 2010.  It looks like it was a partially cloudy night, and it appears that the moon was in a direction opposite the sun.  The setting is above a church in Hungary, and Jupiter can be seen shining opposite the sun as well.



This particular full moon is closest to the autumnal equinox, and this usually happens towards the beginning of fall.  When this occurs, it it called a Harvest Moon, another name for a full moon nearest the autumnal equinox.In the U.S., September 22nd and September 23rd are the best dates for viewing this in the sky.  For this year, the northern hemisphere autumnal equinox occurred on September 23rd.  Only six hours after the equinox, the moon appeared in full phase.  It is not bigger or brighter than the moon on regular nights.  The full moon near the autumnal equinox causes a narrow angle on the ecliptic.  As a result, there are shorter rising times between the successive moons.  The moon will rise opposite the sun, illuminating fields at harvest time during sunset.

APOD 1.3

This week, I chose to write about the picture called Northern Lights Over Prelude Lake, uploaded on September 17, 2010.  It is a picture of the Prelude Lake in Canada one night.  There are curtains of pretty green, shimmering light upon the night landscape.  These kinds of light are becoming a regular thing for this area.


The lights are called aurora borealis, which are high mesmerizing lights that occur in northern latitudes.  September 23 is upcoming, which means the equinox is on its way as well.  Meaning, nights are going to get longer and these auroras will be in season.  This picture of the night landscape was recorded on September 11, 2010, and at the time the lights spanned to approximately 180 degrees.  This type of light can be called an auroral glow, since the lights are called aurora borealis.  Through this auroral glow, bright stars can be seen.  To the left of the picture, we see a familiar northern asterism.  This would be the constellation of the Big Dipper.  And, to the far right, we see a more compact constellation, which is the Pleiades Star Cluster.

Moon Observation 9/16/10

Tonight, 9/16/10, I looked up at the moon at about 10:15 pm.  I looked from my driveway in Sarasota, Florida.  The moon appeared in the southwest of the sky.  It is about a couple days into the first quarter phase, and about seventy percent of the moon is illuminated.  To the far east of the moon, I saw Venus.  The sky was clear tonight, and I could see a couple of bright stars.  I'm pretty sure that I saw Polaris to the east of the moon.

Moon Observations 9/11/10 and 9/12/10

On September 11, 2010, I looked up at the moon.  I was in my driveway at about 9:00 pm, in Sarasota Florida.  It looks as though the moon was in almost the first quarter.  So, I think the moon was probably in the last couple of days of the waxing crescent phase.  I could see a small crescent of the moon at this time. The moon was in an eastern position on the sky. The sky was pretty clear, and i could see some stars.   But, I couldn't make out any of the constellations specifically.  I saw Venus to the southwest of the moon, and it appeared to be a really bright star.


Tonight, I looked up at the moon (September 12, 2010).  I was in my driveway at around 8:45 pm, in Sarasota, Florida.  Compared to the night before, the moon appeared to have moved slightly to the east.  There was a little bit more of the moon illuminated than the previous night it seemed like.  The moon is still in the waxing crescent phase I believe.  The sky was foggier and cloudier, but the light from the moon was still visible.  I could not see any stars at this time, so I did not see any constellations.

APOD 1.2

This week, I chose the picture called Vela Supernova Remnant.  It was posted on September 10, 2010.  This picture was photo shopped, so one would not be able to see something like this in space with a telescope.  This photo captures what happens after a massive star explodes.  When a star explodes, a huge fireball of hot gas shoots out in all directions.

This star exploded about 11,000 years ago.  When the star first exploded, a burst of light could be seen by the people on Earth.  It generated a shock wave, which is still visible today.  The outer layers of this star crashed into the interstellar medium, making this shock occur.  The shock wave is what is being seen in this picture.Almost spherical, it has become as big as twenty times the diameter of a full moon.  Gas flies away from the exploded star, and produces all of the light seen in the photograph.  Overall, the colorful substance being seen in the photo shocked parts of glowing gas.

In addition to leaving all of this gas behind, the explosions also created a dense, spinning, stellar core called the Vela Pulsar.  The Vela Pulsar is a neutron star, meaning it is about twenty kilometers in diameter, and is bigger than the sun.  It even has the density of an atomic nucleus.  And, it has amazing x-ray like rings and jets that were left over from the Crab Nebula, which was a remnant of a supernova left over from the year 1054 A.D.

APOD 1.1

Astronomy Picture of the Day published on 2010 September 1.  It is titled Earth and Moon From MESSENGER.

This week I chose the picture called Earth and Moon From MESSENGER.  It is a very interesting picture of the earth and the moon from the viewpoint of someone on Mars. The person that took the picture was not actually on Mars though, but the picture was taken from a viewpoint similar to that of Mars.

The MESSENGER took this picture, and it was the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.  It has gone by Mercury three times since it was launched out into space in 2004, but will orbit the innermost planet in 2011, in March.

In the picture, Earth is seen with the Moon to its right.  When being compared to other planets and their moons, the Earth and the Moon are comparatively close in size.  In other words, the Earth has an unusually large moon.  Neither of them will ever show their crescent phases from the viewpoint of Mercury, they will both appear as small circles of reflected light.