APOD 4.8

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Space Shuttle Rising, uploaded on May 25.  It is an image of the space shuttle Endeavor rising out of the clouds, and into its orbit. 


This picture was taken during the Endeavor's final launch.  This particular image has been widely circulated throughout the web, and was taken by a non-copyrighted spacecraft in training.  NASA is given credit for this image.  The picture is one of many photos of the spacecraft, many others of which were taken when the space shuttle was under the clouds.  The mission is called STS-134, and it contains six crew members.  Lift off was in the morning on May 16.  Behind the shuttle, there is a visible trail of smoke, along with a blazing flow of gases closer by the Endeavor.  If one looks closely, it is seen that part of the smoke has a shadow to it, which helps to indicate which direction the light source is coming from.  The mission is scheduled to come back next week, but in the meantime, it is docked with the International Space Station.  The space craft will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2(AMS), Experts Logistics Carrier-3(a high pressure gas tank), and other additional spare parts for the Dextre robotic helper to the International Space Station.

Observation 5/20/11

Tonight, I went out to look at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 10:00 p.m.  It is a really cloudy night, and I looked all around, but wasn't able to spot any stars.  Nor could I find the moon from where I was, but by observing its cycle, I know that it is currently in its waning gibbous phase.  And, that it should be in the southeast direction in the sky.

Biography On Edwin Hubble

Edwin Hubble

Edwin Powell Hubble was born in 1889 in Missouri, but moved to Illinois before his first birthday.  He then moved to Chicago with his family when he was nine years old, and he attended the University of Chicago when he came of age.  It was there that he earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy.  Then he went to go to Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship, and because of his father’s dying wish, he studied law, literature, and Spanish, while putting his science related studies on hold.  After completing his studies, Edwin went back to America in 1913, and spent a year teaching at a school in Indiana.  But, he then realized that he could no longer deny his proclivity to science, and he decided to enroll as a graduate student at the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin.  His work somehow drew him back to the University of Chicago.  In 1917, he received a PhD, and his thesis was titled Photographic Investigations of Faint Nebulae, which eventually became the roots for the work that changed astronomy as we knew it.  Right after finishing his studies, he was offered a position at the Yerkes Observatory.  Instead, Hubble chose to fight in World War I, but got injured and ended up heading to the Mount Wilson Observatory.  There, he got access to both the 60-inch and 100-inch Hooker reflectors, with which he used in helping to invent the 200-inch Hale telescope.  Hubble proved to be one of the greatest astronomers of the twentieth century.  It is this man of many discoveries that the Hubble Space Telescope is named after.

Hubble used the 100-inch Hooker reflector and the most powerful telescope in the world to take extremely detailed measurements of several spiral nebulae.  He pointed out many Cepheid variables in the nebulae.  After going through a series of measurements, he concluded that the nebulae couldn’t all be within the Milky Way Galaxy, and that it must lie in other galaxies.    In this way, Hubble helped to measure the size of out galaxy.

Once conquering the problem of discovering the correct extent of the universe, he moved on to the problem of the redshift.  He measured the galaxies and showed that their light was shifted toward the red end of the spectrum.  Hubble came to a conclusion that the galaxies have to be receding from the earth at high velocities.  He created a law that states that the farther away a galaxy is from us, the more quickly it is going away from us. 

Despite all of his achievements and scientific breakthroughs, Edwin was never nominated for the Nobel Prize.  It wasn’t because nobody thought anything of his achievements, it was because astronomy wasn’t thought of as important at the time.  However, Hubble tried to get this to change, but he died in 1953, which was the year that astronomy was finally named as a branch of physics.  If these changes had been made while Hubble was still alive, he most likely would’ve been the one to receive the Nobel Prize. 

Edwin Hubble left a huge legacy in his telescope.  It is his name, and his name only, that embellishes the Hubble Space Telescope, which has gone through a decade of bringing back amazing images from space back to the earth.

APOD 4.7

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called The Last Launch of Space Shuttle Endeavor, uploaded on May 18. Four days ago was the last trip into Earth's orbit for the Space Shuttle Endeavor.  This picture was taken only moments after the initial liftoff, as the six astronauts inside prepare to reach new heights, ones in which the atmosphere is so thin that it is unbreathable.


There is only one more trip for any space shuttles in the U.S., which will take off from Atlantis in mid-July.The mission that this particular shuttle is on is called STS-134.  It docked with the International Space Station on May 18, 2011. The mission taking off in mid-July will also dock with the space station.  The Endeavor will deliver many things to the International Space Station, including a detector which is named the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.  The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is at the Johnson Space Center Project Office.  Its mission is to use the unique environment of space to enhance knowledge of the universe and, hopefully, lead to the understanding of it's origin.  It is a high profile space-based particle physics experiment, which is led by Nobel Laureate Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The detector's job is to, over time, recognize a good amount of certain types of dark matter, charged antimatter, and strangelets.  Strangelets are small, unique interesting pieces of matter, which have electrons orbiting the strangelet, instead of being found within the strangelet.

Works Cited: Edwin Hubble

Works Cited

"Astronomer Edwin Hubble - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. Web. 14 May 2011. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/

"Biography of Edwin Powell Hubble (1889 - 1953)." Main Hubble Page. Web. 08 May 2011. <http://hubble.nasa.gov/overview/hubble_bio.php>.

"Edwin Hubble Biography Pt.1." Edwin Hubble. Web. 08 May 2011. <http://www.edwinhubble.com/hubble_bio_001.htm>.

"Hubble Biography." MacTutor History of Mathematics. Web. 08 May 2011. <http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Hubble.html>.

Millis, John. "Edwin Hubble Biography." Space & Astronomy at About.com. Web. 08 May 2011. <http://space.about.com/od/astronomerbiographies/a/EdwinHubble.htm>.

Observation 5/14/11

Tonight, I went outside and observed the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 11:30 p.m.  It was a really cloudy, hazy night, and I was unable to spot any stars.  But, I did find the moon in the southwest portion of the sky.  It is in its waxing gibbous phase currently, and is approximately 90% of the way illuminated.

Zooniverse Activities

This week, I continued to work on the projects on the Zooniverse website during class.  I kept working on the Milky Way Project and the Galaxy Zoo Hubble Project.  On Galaxy Zoo Hubble, I find more and more that I am stumbling upon a lot more stars, that appear to be shining brightly in their galaxies.  In the Milky Way Project, I am continuing to find it increasingly easier to pin point the parts of the Milky Way that an expert from Zooniverse might also draw a bubble around.  Overall, I find these projects interesting and I enjoy getting to see so many different objects from our galaxy.

APOD 4.6

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Enceladus Looms, uploaded on May 12, 2011.  It is a picture taken from the flyby of the Cassini Spacecraft on August 13, 2010,  and it shows a sunlit crescent of Saturn's moon.


Enceladus is one of the icy moons of the planet, that looks in a sunward direction.  The image also shows layers of Saturn's upper atmosphere, which is scattering a bunch of sunlight along Saturn's bright limb.  The distance between the spacecraft and Enceladus was shorter than the distance between Saturn and Enceladus, meaning that the spacecraft is only about 60,000 kilometers away from the moon.  The moon itself is only about 500 kilometers in diameter.  The bottom south half of it is covered in plumes, consisting of water vapor and other various icy cold particles that spray above the long fissures of the moon's surface.  The fissures have been called tiger stripes. Tiger stripes are long features that are known to be spewing ice from the Enceladus' icy interior out into space, in the process making a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon's South Pole,and creating Saturns e-ring.  The plumes themselves were also discovered by Cassini images, in 2005, when the plumes made solid evidence that liquid lies by the surface of Enceladus.  Continuing studies of the plumes on Enceladus might provide us later on with information as to whether underground oceans, which are candidates for containing life, exist in the distant world of space.

Observation 4/7/11

Tonight, I went outside and looked up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at around 10:00 p.m.  I saw the moon in the west, about 25% of the way illuminated, and it appears to be in its waxing crescent phase.  In the north, I found the Big Dipper, and from there I extended the arc to Arcterus.  Then, in the east, I found the three stars (Deneb, Vega, and Altair) of the Summer Triangle.

Zooniverse Activities

This week, I worked some more on the Zooniverse Website during class.  I am continuing to work on the Milky Way Project and the Galaxy Zoo Hubble Project.  More and more each week, I find that I am seeing new and different objects from our galaxy.  On the Galaxy Zoo activity, I saw a star that had a diamond-shaped center, with light beaming out from all sides of it.  I hadn't come across one like it yet, so I thought it was pretty interesting.  In the Milky Way project, I find that it is becoming increasingly easier to pin point the areas of interests in the pictures given of our galaxy. 

APOD 4.5

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Globular Cluster M15 From Hubble, uploaded on May 3.  It was taken by the earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, and captures an object that is 35,000 light years away.


Many stars are around the center of the cluster, about 100,000 to be more exact.  This is an old group of stars, that still orbits the center of the Milky Way.  The whole thing spans close to 120 light years, and is located toward the constellation Pegasus.  Globular clusters are gravitationally bound concentrations of stars, spread out over a long diameter.  These types of clusters can usually be found near the halo of The Milky Way Galaxy.  This is only one of the 150 globular clusters remaining, but is a very visible one at that.  One can examine it with only a pair of binoculars, as its center is known for having one of the densest groups of stars, which contains many variable stars and pulsars.  Variable stars are those that swarm the center and often fluctuate in brightness.  Pulsars are spinning neutron stars that blink on and off at a consistent frequency.  There is an easily seen increased density of stars in the center, and it is rumored that the center of M15 might in fact become a black hole someday.

Observation 4/30/11

Tonight, I went outside and looked up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 11:00 p.m.  I didn't see the moon at this time from where I was at, but I know that it would be in its waning crescent phase right now.  I did see a few stars though, including the Big Dipper right above.  The end of the Big Dipper Constellation could be extended to find Spica, and right underneath that, I could identify the Corvus Constellation, with the help of some star charts.

Zooniverse Activities

This week, I participated in more Zooniverse Activities.  I worked on the website during the class time we were given, and didn't spend extra time outside of class on the website this week.  I worked mainly in the Galaxy Zoo Hubble Project, in which I keep finding new and different galaxies to examine and classify through a series of questions.  I also worked a little bit more in the Milky Way Project, in which I am finding it getting increasingly easier to pinpoint the points of interest within the Milky Way Galaxy.

APOD 4.4

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called The Antennae, uploaded on April 29.  It is about the collision of two large galaxies, in the constellation Corvus, which was one of our class constellations this week.


Corvus is a southern constellation, and is about 60 million light-years away from us.  Although the galaxies themselves collided, the stars didn't.  NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 were the names of the stars included in this huge event, lasting many of years after.  The stars usually don't collide because galaxies are mostly empty space, and no matter how bright they are, stars can only take up a rather small portion of that space.  Moreover, stars are formed in the process.  There are large clouds of molecular dust and gas that spur energetic episodes of star formation near the heart of the collision wreckage.  The galaxy shown in the picture spans about 500 thousand light years across.  It looks like an Antennae, and is so rightly named, because of the extensions and arching structures of the galaxy.  Star clusters and other matter were thrown far from the collision scene by accidental gravitational forces.  William Herschel was first to discover the interaction of these two galaxies in 1785, and described that they were shining at around 10m4. 

Observation 4/23/11

Tonight, I went out and looked up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 11:00 p.m.  I didn't see the moon, but I would guess that it is in its waning gibbous phase right about now.  It was a pretty clear night, so I did see some stars.  In the southeast, I saw two very bright stars.  I made these out to be part of the summer triangle, with Vega and Lyra showing.  I saw a fainter star, which I don't think was Deneb, but I'm pretty sure it must have been Epsilon Lyrae, according to its position in the sky at that time.

Zooniverse Activities

Once again, this week I spent time on the Galaxy Zoo Hubble Project and the Milky Way Project.  While doing the Galaxy Zoo Hubble Project, I found lots of different types of galaxies to classify.  I am also getting better at finding the important spots of interests in the Milky Way Project.  Overall, I think these Zooniverse Activities are interesting and I like being able to see and classify so many different galaxies.

APOD 4.4

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Rio Morning Moonset.  It is a picture of the moon setting last Monday, as seen from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.


The picture was taken in a calm landscape, next to the sea.  The land is slightly reddened by the early morning sun rising.  This is what is lighting up the South Atlantic coastline, as seen in the picture.  It is clear that the image is a collection of images, rather than just one image, because the moon is seen in different points of the sky as it is setting. The moon appears to be nearly in its full moon phase.  The steady progress of the moon's track had a six and a half minute gap in between each frame.  The ocean birds appear to be flying from their nests in the last frame only.  They are flying from their nesting places on the islands, and are headed inland and to the city's seashore at this time.  In the west, the favela Vidigal is set in between the twin peaks of Morro Dois Irmaos (The Two Brothers Hill).

Observation 4/16/11

Tonight, I went out and looked up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 9:45 p.m.  Its a cloudy, damp, night and no stars could be seen from where I was.  But, I did see the moon shining brightly towards the southeast.  It appears to be in its waxing gibbous phase, and is about 95% of the way illuminated.

Zooniverse Activities

This week, I focused again mainly on the Milky Way Project and the Galaxy Zoo Hubble.  I enjoyed drawing the bubbles around the different galaxies in the Milky Way Project.  And, it was interesting to classify all the different types of galaxies that I came across in the Galaxy Zoo Hubble project.  Overall, I am learning and having fun participating in the Zooniverse Activities.

APOD 4.3

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Messier 101.  It is a picture of a big spiral galaxy M101, and it was in Charles Messier's catalog towards the end.  This image is actually a mosaic of pictures, put together by the Hubble Observatory.  Ground-based data was needed as well in order to define the red emission in the galaxy's star-forming regions.

This particular galaxy happens to be a rather huge one.  To be more exact, it spans about 170,000 light years across, and is approximately 27 light years away.  This means that it is about double the size of our Milky Way Galaxy. It can also be called the Pinwheel Galaxy 101, and is located in the boundaries of Ursa Major, which is about 25 million light years away.  The image shows dust and stars within the galaxy, along with background galaxies.   In addition to being in Messier's Catalog, this spiral galaxy was also recorded by Lord Rosse's telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown.  The galaxy is in the M101 group, which contains about nine other galaxies, with this particular galaxy being the brightest.  The visual brightness of Messier Object 101 galaxy is a 7.9 magnitude. 

Observation 4/9/11

Tonight, I went outside to observe the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 10:30 p.m.  I saw some interesting sky objects in the western portion of the sky.  In the northwest, the moon was seen in its waxing crescent phase, shining brightly in a slightly tilted, smiley-face shape.  Right above the moon, I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of stars that looked like they were in the shape of the constellation Gemini.  And, just below the moon, I think I saw the constellation Taurus, with Aldebaran shining in the southern portion of the constellation.

ZOONIVERSE Activities

On the ZOONIVERSE website last week, I tried out all of the programs that they had available, but found that I most enjoyed working in the "Galaxy Zoo Hubble" and "The Milky Way Project" ones.  These were the two that I worked in this week.  For the "Galaxy Zoo Hubble" project, I dealt with classifying objects in space.  It asked a series of questions to better identify what was being seen.  Said questions included whether the object was smooth or rounded and if it had any disks or other special objects.  Some of them turned out to be a star, in which no other further questions were asked.  If they were smooth or round, then I had to specify what shape it was, and if there was anything odd about it.  If I clicked on that it had features or disks, I would classify whether it had a clumpy appearance, if it was a disk, or if it had spiral-like features.  If it had any of these features, the details of it were specified through another set of questions specifically on the questions I had previously answered, and then if there was anything odd about what was shown in the image.  The "Milky Way Project" was another interesting activity where you would look at a picture of space, and draw bubbles around the main points of a galaxy.  Doing this helps to measure out and sort our galaxy.

APOD 4.2

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Planetary Nebula NGC 2438, uploaded on April 7, 2011. The image was taken from the Teide Observatory in Canary Islands, in Spain. In the photo, there is a halo-like ring of flowing gas surrounding the nebula, that spans about 4.5 light years long.  Other various photos have shown a halo around a planetary nebula quite like this one as well, and they are made during the early active phases of aging central stars.  In other words, planetary nebulae are a short but glorious final stage in stellar evolution, in which the gaseous shrouds are ionized by a hot central source while the core shrinks as the star runs out of energy for nuclear fusion.


This particular planetary nebula lies in the constellation Puppis, or the Stern, which is about 3,000 light years away and in the giant constellation of Argo.  NGC 2438 has a visual brightness of 10.8 magnitude, and was discovered by William Herschel in 1786.  It also appears to lie on the edge of a luminous, young, open, star cluster: M46.  NGC 2438 is not much older than M46, but it does move at a different pace than the cluster which makes them differ.  From estimations, NGC 2438 appears closer than M46, so the planetary nebula is the one that appears in the foreground in comparison to the young star cluster.

Observation 4/3/11

Tonight, I went outside and looked up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 9:30 p.m.  The moon is in its new moon phase so it was not visible.  I did see a couple of stars though.  I am pretty sure that I saw The Big Dipper constellation in the eastern sky, with Saturn shining brightly even more to the east.

APOD 4.1

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called MESSENGER at Mercury.  It is an image taken on March 17 by the MESSENGER Spacecraft.  The picture shows some of Mercury's many craters and terrains.


The MESSENGER Spacecraft was the first spacecraft to go into orbit around Mercury, which is the innermost planet in our solar system.  Although Mercury will offer good views this month due to this planet wandering away from the Sun in the Earth's sky, it is still better seen from spacecrafts in orbit around it.  The picture shown is the first image of the planet in color since the spacecraft entered the orbit.  In comparison to the Moon, Mercury is bigger, more dense, and has about twice the surface gravity.  But even with these differences, the two tend to look very similar when first examined.  The terrain areas in the photograph are almost a shade of light blue and brown.  Many craters are seen within these terrains as well.   Towards the top of the photo, one can point out long streaks of material hitting the surface.  In the center of the rays in the crater Debussy, which happens to be 80 kilometers in diameter. The rays contain impact ejecta and secondary craters.  The part of the Debussy shown here is only a portion of the whole thing. At the other bottom end of the image of Mercury, terrain is extended to it's south pole, with a region that has never before been captured from space.

Astronomy Night 3/26/11

Tonight, I attended Astronomy Night from 7-9:30 p.m. on the Pine View Service Road.  There was a clear sky and when I first got there, it was still very light out, so no stars could be seen.  But as it started getting later and darker, we could start seeing some 2nd magnitude stars.  The first star that appeared was Sirius, from the Canis Major Constellation.  Then, the three stars of Orion's Belt could be seen, and then Canopus, and then Procyon.   Then I could pick out Betelgeuse, Rigel, The Big Dipper, The Little Dipper, Gemini (with Castor and Pollux visible), Taurus (with Aldebaren visible), The Little Dipper, and Polaris.  It appeared that the stars started to slowly shift to the west throughout the course of the night.  At around 8:30 p.m. Saturn started to rise in the east.  Two telescopes were set up in which we could view Saturn, and we could see its rings through it.

Observation 3/19/11

Tonight, I went out and looked up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 9:45 p.m.  The sky was a shade of dark blue, and only a couple of stars were visible, but not enough to correctly point out major stars or constellations.  I saw the moon shining very brightly in the south east, but mostly eastern, portion of the sky.  It is in its full moon phase (100% of the way illuminated), and appeared lower and bigger than usual.  Tonight's large moon is caused by the close proximity to the earth.  It is the largest moon to appear in or about the next f20 years, and an event like this hasn't occurred since 1992.  The close proximity of our moon will not cause any danger to Earth, even though it is thought to since it appears 15% to 30% bigger than usual.

APOD 3.8

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Mercury and Jupiter At Sunset.  It is a picture of a beautiful, serene landscape occurring towards the end of a warm evening sunset.  Up above the land, both Mercury and Jupiter are seen shining brightly in the Earth's sky.  The photo was taken earlier this week from the island of Froson in Sweden, as the scene looks across Lake Storsjon, toward distant mountains and Hallen village.


This is a good viewing month for Mercury, as it is straying away from the Sun in the Earth's sky.  As spring draws near in the northern hemisphere, the ecliptic plane is going to make a steep angle with the western horizon, making it easier to be viewed. On the other hand, Jupiter is going to continue getting lower each night after sunset.  Even in this image, we see that Mercury is quite a ways above Jupiter in the orange-hue sunset.  Since Mercury is our solar system's inner-most planet now, even better pictures of the planet are able to be taken with the Messenger Spacecraft, which is currently orbiting the planet.  The Messenger Spacecraft went into orbit around Mercury on about March 17, 2011, after being through more than a dozen laps through the solar system for NASA.  This durable spacecraft will carry seven science instruments fortified against the blistering conditions by the Sun, and will become the first spacecraft to go into orbit around this planet.

Observation 3/9/11

Tonight I went out and looked up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 8:15 pm.  Once again I saw the moon in the western part of the sky, about 20 percent of the way illuminated.  It is still currently in its waxing crescent phase.  Also towards the west in the sky, I am pretty sure that I saw a couple stars from the Pleiades Constellation.

Observation 3/8/11

Tonight, I went outside to observe the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 8:00 pm.  The sky was very cloudy at this time and not quite dark enough yet, so I was not able to see more than a couple of stars. I did see the moon though, in the western portion of the sky.  It appeared to be in its waxing crescent phase, with about 15 percent of it being illuminated.

APOD 3.7

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Lunar Nearside.  It is a picture of the lunar nearside of the moon, updated on March 3, 2011.  It is compiled from 1,300 different images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft's wide angle camera.  These LRO pictures were all recorded over a two week period last December. 


The lunar nearside exists because the Moon rotates on its axis and orbits the Earth at the same rate, which would be about once every 28 days.  The rotation always appears to keep one side, called the nearside, facing towards Earth.  The Moon has this synchronous rotation because of Earth's gravitational field, which raises solid-body ties on the Moon.  It is because of all this that this high resolution compilation image of the moon, lunar maria (which are dark and smooth, and are actually lava-flooded impact basins), and rugged highlands, are so well known to astronomers and sky gazers here on Earth.  For this image, one can slide the cursor from a computer over the picture, to see all of the mares and main craters labeled. 

Observation 2/25/11

Tonight, I went outside to look up at the stars from my driveway in Sarasota at about 9:00 pm.  I could not see the moon from where I was at that time, but I know that it would be in its waning crescent phase.  I could, though, see a few stars.  Most of them were located in the western portion of the sky, and I'm pretty sure that I saw Antares and the rest of the Scorpius constellation.

APOD 3.6

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Mammatus Clouds Over Olympic Valley.  It is a picture of a different type of cloud, which were above Olympic Valley, California in August.


These clouds are different than normal clouds.  Regular clouds are flat on the bottom, which is a result of the moist warm air rising and cooling to condense into water droplets at a set temperature.  These actions typically correlate with a very specific height.  Then, the water forms and the air becomes an opaque clouds.  At other times and under certain conditions, however, clouds develop containing large droplets of water or ice that will fall into the clear air as they are evaporating.  These types of cloud pockets do not occur in regular clear air, but rather in more turbulent air like during or near a thunderstorm.  This can be seen at the top of an anvil cloud.  An anvil cloud has a flat bottom, and contains small droplets of water and ice.  It has an anvil shape from the upward air reaching a stable atmospheric layer.  The pockets that form near thunderstorms result in the making of mammatus clouds, which can look really dramatic if the sun is hitting them from one side.    Mammatus clouds, specifically, are pouch-like cloud structures and are a rarely seen type of cloud that looks as though it is sinking in air.  These clouds are not harmful, and if anything, show that the brunt of the storm has passed.  They extend from a cumolonimbus cloud, but can also be found under altocumulus, altostratus, stratocumulus, cirrus, and volcanic ash clouds.  Mammatus clouds tend to clump together in groups, which vary from a couple clouds to over hundreds of kilometers of them being organized along a line, that are usually composed of either unequal or similar-sized lobes.

Biography On Antonia Maury

Antonia Maury

Antonia Maury was born in Cold Spring, New York on March 21, 1866.  Her full name is Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Maury.  Both of her parents had connections to science.  Antonia’s dad (Mytton Maury) was a protestant minister.  He educated her until she ended up going to Vassar College, where Maria Mitchell then got her interested in astronomy.  Her mother was Virginia Draper Maury, who was Henry Draper’s sister.  Maury graduated with honors from Vassar College in 1887 and was a student of Maria Mitchell.  Maury graduated in 1887 with honors in astronomy, physics, and philosophy.  Then, her father asked Pickering to employ Antonia in her work, and she was added to his staff of women “computers.

            Pickering hired Maury in 1888 as a computer; because of the endowment to Harvard College Observatory for the Henry Draper Catalogue protect her aunt Anna Draper.  Her job was to compute, record, and catalogue stellar spectra for the stars in the northern hemisphere.  But, this job proved too monotonous for Maury because her interest leaned more towards theoretical work.  She found that stars were more complex than previously thought, and she found that OBAFGKM was too simplistic for what she was dealing with.  So, Antonia replaced it with her own system of 22 groups based on a sequence of descending temperature.  Within the groups, she noticed that two stars with the same pattern of lines and color were portraying differences in line width and sharpness.  So, Maury began to make subdivisions for the star groups with these properties.  Unfortunately, Pickering frowned upon theoretical work in his computers.  So, the relationship between the two became tense.  This, in turn, caused her intermittent employment during her years at Harvard College Observatory.  She soon proved to be one of Pickering’s most original thinkers, but he was only annoyed, instead of proud, about her independence. So, Antonia ended up leaving his group in 1892 without completing her studies because she could no longer stand having her original thinking mind enduring Pickering’s tunnel vision.

            Although Pickering might not have appreciated Antonia’s uniqueness, one person did take notice of her classification skills.  Danish astrophysicist Ejnar Hertzprung objected strongly to the omission of Maury’s classification in the completed catalog.  He thought her separation of the c and ac stars was a very important advancement in stellar classification.  So, Hertzprung went on to make the Hertzprung-Russell diagram, in which her thoughts were incorporated.  There were many star catalogs published, but only Maury’s classification provided the distinction that Hertzprung was searching for.  Pickering might have misjudged the importance of Maury’s work, but her work for spectral analysis was finally recognized in 1922.  This was when the International Astronomical Union modified its official classification system based on Antonia Maury’s system to include the prefix c-to a certain spectral type defined by narrow and sharp lines. 

            Maury continued to work on her spectral project , even after leaving Harvard Observatory.  Pickering made her choose between completing her work, or turning her work over to somebody else.  She did want to finish her project, but she wanted to be recognized for her work.  Antonia even told Pickering herself that nobody else should do her work, because they were her own ideas and she wanted to be acknowledged for them.  Maury wanted full credit for her theory of the relations of the star spectra and also for her theories in regard to Beta Lyrae.  Pickering wrote back crudely, wanting her to settle for standard acknowledgement, which Maury would not settle for.  But, in the end, she got her way.  Her catalog became the first issue to have the name of a woman on the title page, in volume 28 of the Harvard Annals in 1897.  She had 4,800 photographs of which her work was based on, with 681 northern stars classified according to her system.

            Antonia continued to study spectroscopic binary stars.  She returned to Harvard over a decade later, after the publication of her catalog.  Maury started to focus more attention onto the complex spectroscopic binary, Beta Lyrae.  She apparently examined almost 300 spectra for this star, and published her results in a treatise published in the Harvard Annals in 1933. 

            Maury taught a lot in the 1890s.  She taught in Massachusetts and New York.  She then went on to give lectures on astronomy at Cornell and other such colleges, to different groups of people.  Antonia then went back to Harvard in 1918 as an adjunct professor, and she was able to work better with Pickering’s successor, Harlow Shapley.  Up until she retired in 1948 she examine the spectra of Beta Lyrae. 

            Antonia Maury was also an accomplished ornithologist and a conservationist.  She fought to save forests and became a member of societies such as the American Astronomical Society, the Royal Astronomical Society, and the National Audubon Society.  Maury then died at a hospital in Dobbs Ferry, New York on January 8, 1952.

            After Maury passed, Cecilia Pyne-Gaposchin, who worked at the Harvard Observatory starting in 1923, talked about her and her work habits.  According to Payne-Gaposchkin, Maury enjoyed talking a lot as an outlet, and nobody would ever listen to her scientific questionings, as far as she knew.

Star Gazing Session 2/20/11

Tonight, I went to the star gazing session at 7:30 pm at Pine View.  We went through the identifications of constellations and major stars.  We were able to identify the winter constellations.  This included Orion, Taurus, Lepus, Columba, Eridanus, Lynx, Auriga, Fornax, and Canis Major.  And, we were able to pick out major stars such as Aldebaren, Rigel, Betelgeuse, Capella, Sirius, Polaris, Hyades, and Achernar.  In the western portion of the sky, Jupiter could be seen until about 8:30 pm, when it began to set.  With the telescope, we were able to see Jupiter.  Through the set of binoculars, we viewed Hyades.  We were showed where the equator line was in the sky.  Overall, it was a good experience and I learned where objects were in the sky so i can more easily identify what I see in the night time sky while I am out in my driveway making observations by myself.

APOD 3.5

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called X-Class Flare.  It is a picture of a very powerful explosion on the Sun that occurred on Valentines Day, but was updated on February 17, 2011. 


X-class flares are very large.  They are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms.  This particular flare happened to be the biggest flare so far in Solar Cycle 24.  Solar Dynamics Observatory was able to give us this extreme ultraviolet image, where they successfully captured the flare occurring.  The flare is said to have erupted from AR1158, one of the active regions in the Sun's southern hemisphere.  Active regions are areas on the Sun where groups of sunspots lie.  The flare is an intense burst of radiation, which temporarily overwhelmed pixels in the observatory's detectors, which caused the vertical streak on the lower right half of the Sun in the picture.  The flare wasn't the only thing that happened on the Sun that day.  A coronal mass ejection also occurred, which is a huge cloud of charged particles traveling outward at about 900 kilometers per second. Basically, erupting filaments are lifting off of the active solar surface and blasting enormous bubbles of magnetic plasma into space.   Aurora were said to have occurred later that night. 

Works Cited: Antonia Maury

"AMaury." The Woman Astronomer. Web. 04 Feb. 2011.

 <http://www.womanastronomer.com/amaury.htm>.

"Antonia Maury Biography, Life and Career Facts, Invented « Info." Free Articles Base. Web. 13 Feb. 2011. <http://pagerankstudio.com/Blog/2010/09/antonia-maury-biography-life-and-career-facts-invented/>.

"Antonia Maury." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2nd ed. Vol20. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 252-254. Gale Virtual Reference Library.  Web.  4 February 2011.    <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CCX3404707636&v=2.1&u=fl_sarhs&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w>.

"Antonia Maury." NNDB: Tracking the Entire World. Web. 13 Feb. 2011. <http://www.nndb.com/people/496/000170983/>.

Observation 2/13/11

Tonight, I went out and looked up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 7:30 pm.  I saw the moon shining almost directly above in about the east-west region of the sky.  It is in its waxing gibbous phase, and about 75 percent of it is illuminated.  I saw a few stars around the moon.  I think I was able to make out three stars of Orion's Belt from the Orion Constellation.

APOD 3.4

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Iridescent Clouds from the Top of the World Highway.  It is a picture of a cloud that has many different colors to it.  This particular picture of an iridescent cloud was taken last year from the Top of the World Highway, which is right outside Dawson City, in the Yukon Territory in Northern Canada.  This highway was given its name because of its length, as it is 79 miles long.  It also skirts the crests of hills, giving a great sight on the valleys below.


These types of clouds are either known to display unusual colors vividly, or to show a whole spectrum of colors at the same time.  They are made of small water droplets which all have about the same size.  What happens is, when the Sun is in the right position and mostly hidden by big clouds, these thinner iridescent clouds can diffract sunlight, with different colors being deflected by different amounts. So, observers will see the colors in different directions.  A lot of these types of clouds start with having uniform regions of iridescence, but they rapidly become too thick and/or mixed up, or they are too far from the Sun to give off striking colors.  The colors are essentially in corona fragments.  Another name for iridescence is irisation, which is derived from the Greek language as well.  The bands and colors are usually seen at the clouds' edges, or in coronal rings in the clouds.  As the clouds evolve, the colors and bands come and go.  Iridescence occurs mostly in altocumus clouds, but can also occur in cirrocumulus and lenticular clouds.  Although some iridescence is seen far away from the Sun, it is more often seen close to the Sun.  One can also find iridescence in most rocket exhaust trails.

Observing 2/4/11

Tonight, I went outside to look up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at around 9:00 p.m.  I could not see the moon from where I was, but I am guessing it would currently be a small crescent in its waxing crescent phase.  I did see quite a few stars though.  I am pretty positive that I saw the four bright stars of the Pegasus constellation once again in the southeastern portion of the sky.  And, in the western portion of the sky, I saw an object shining brightly, which appeared to be the planet Jupiter.

APOD 3.3

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Moon and Venus Over Switzerland, uploaded on February 4, 2011.  It is a beautiful picture of a chilly-looking Switzerland, with Venus and the Moon seen high above in the right corner of the picture.


This picture was taken just before sunrise on this past Sunday.  It was taken from a snow-covered slope in the eastern portion of Switzerland.  The village of Trubbach lies under a vast stretch of clouds, which appear to be a blanket over the land.  Mittlerspitz Mountain is seen, covered with ice and snow, in the upper left of the image.  Just below the sun, the Alps Mountains are seen on the right.  But, in the upper right is the subject of the image.  The moon is seen as a small crescent, and up above it is Venus.  Venus is a morning planet for the month, but probably won't be found in such a serene setting as this one.

Observing 1/30/11

Tonight, I looked up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 8:00 pm.  I didn't see the moon from where I was at this time, but it is approaching its new moon phase.  I did see a couple of bright stars though.  I could make out the four stars of the Pegasus constellation in the southeast portion of the sky.  To the left of the constellation, I think I saw the planet Jupiter, shining brightly.

APOD 3.2

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Hidden Treasures Of M78, uploaded on January 27, 2011.  It is a picture of the constellation Orion, containing the nebula called M78.  This picture of M78 was actually the winner of the Hidden Treasures 2010 astrophotography competition.  This picture is of a constellation that is 1,600 light years away, and is not hiding in planet Earth's night sky.


The Hidden Treasures competition in 2010, held by the European Southern Observatory, was when astrophotography pictures were taken of cosmic gems for a competition.  The winner was this picture of the bluish nebula surrounded by dusty, dark clouds.  At the top of the photo, there is a smaller reflection of NGC 2071.  In the lower right of the picture, the recently discovered McNeil's nebula is seen.  The whole image spans a little over 0.5 degrees in the sky, correlating to the 15 light years estimated distance of M78.

Observation 1/22/11

Tonight I went out and looked at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 10:00 pm.  I saw the moon low in the eastern sky.  It just passed its full moon phase, so it is now in its waning gibbous phase and about 90 percent of it is illuminated.  From where I was, I couldn't see very many stars, so wasn't able to make out any major constellations.

APOD 3.1

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Saturn Storm, uploaded on January 19, 2011.  It is a picture of an unusually bright storm erupting on Saturn, taken by the Cassini spacecraft with a blue filter.


The storm first erupted late last year in the gas giant's northern hemisphere.  Saturn's rings are also seen in the photo, casting shadows on the planet's southern hemisphere.  First spotted in early December, Saturn could be seen rising in our predawn sky.  While the Cassini spacecraft was orbiting Saturn, it was able to capture this up close look at the disturbance area.  It was taken on December 24, 2010, 1.8 million kilometers away from the planet.  As time went on , the storm evolved and and it has grown to stretch partway around the planet.  By January 5, 2011, it spanned more than 100 degrees of longitude.  The main part of the disturbance is half the size of earth, but with the tail included, the whole eruption is 36,000 miles long.

Observation 1/12/11

Tonight, I went out and looked up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 7:20 pm.  I didn't see any stars or planets tonight, but i saw the moon when I looked in the south western portion of the sky.  About 50% of the moon is illuminated.  It is in its first quarter phase tonight.

Sun Photos

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Quarter 2 Biography: James South

Gabrielle Pata

Period 1

10 January 2011

                       

James South

            James South was a British astronomer who was born in Southwark, London, England in October of 1785.  He died at Campden Hill, Kensington, London, on October 19, 1867.   South grew up as a son of a pharmaceutical chemist.  He originally studied surgery, and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and he acquired an extensive practice when, through marriage in 1816, he suddenly became wealthy enough to get into studies involving medicine.  James South started devoting much of his time to astronomy at this time.  He established many observatories in London and Paris, where he worked with many good telescopes.

            South worked in collaboration with another astronomer, John Herschel, during the years of 1821 to 1823.  John Herschel was lucky enough to find a collaborator like James South, who could afford the refined instruments that were necessary. Double stars, which were originally discovered by Herschel, were one of South's interests during the nineteenth century.  Together, they produced a catalogue of 380 double stars in 1824.  New ones were being found and more precise measurements were made with each improvement in telescopes.   The main purpose of their studies of double stars was to detect position changes.  They helped verify the newly discovered orbital motion of certain neighboring stars, and they went on to catalog 380 double stars.  They showed them to the Royal Society in 1824, and they were given the gold medal of the Astronomical Society and the grand prize of the Institut de France.  By doing this, they were revisiting quite a few of the double stars that William Herschel had discovered.  Over the course of the next year, South went on to discover another 458 double stars.  South was then awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society for the founding of this next group of stars. 

             South became greatly worried about the decline of science in Britain.  So, he published a criticism of the Nautical Almanac in 1822, alleging its inferiority to continental ones.  Then, in 1829, when he was in charge of the Astronomical Society committee, he publicly criticized the Royal Society.  He was trying to improve the effectiveness of the institutions, but it did no good. 

            During the late 1820s and 1830s, South did much of his astronomical work.  In 1826, James South won the Copley Medal.  Later on in that same year he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.  Due to a technicality in 1831, he left the organization.  South then became knighted in the year of 1831. He also became a part of the Royal Society of London, the Linnaean Society, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Academy of Sciences, and the Academia Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitana.  He then had craters on Mars and the Moon named after him.  Beginning in 1826, South had plans for a bigger telescope, which would be an equatorially mounted achromatic refracting lens telescope in a brand new observatory.  He got a 12 inch lens from Paris, and it was so big that it most likely was the biggest achromatic object in the world in its time.  South completed building the telescope, but it was destroyed in 1838.  The problem was the equatorial mount, which caused the telescope to become dismantled.  James helped found the Astronomical Society of London.  He was president of the society from 1831 to 1832.  Under his presidency of the group, a petition was successfully submitted to have a royal charter in 1831, upon which the society became called the Royal Astronomical Society. 

            South got involved in a famous lawsuit brought against Edward Troughton, who was the instrument maker.  The problem was over the equatorial-mount telescope that Troughton had built for him, which had been thought to be defective by South.  So, Edward sued  him and ended up winning.  James destroyed the telescope mount, while the lens was saved and given to the Dublin Observatory in 1862.  They mounted it on a Grubb equatorial, where it still stands today.  After Stephen Groombridge, James was the next owner of the Troughton made, Groombridge Transit Circle of 1806.

Observation 1/8/10

Tonight, I went out to look up at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 7:45 pm.  I saw the moon in the western portion of the sky, and the bottom fifth of it was illuminated.  The moon is in its waxing crescent phase.   A little further south from the moon in the sky was Venus, shining brightly.  I could see a couple stars, but not enough to make out any constellations.

APOD 2.8

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Sunset, Moonset, uploaded on January 7.  It is a snowy picture taken from central and northern Asia on January 4.


On this day, the New Moon and the sun set together in a partial solar eclipse.  A partial eclipse is when the Moon's penumbra strikes Earth.  Only part of the sun is in an eclipse, so the un-eclipsed part of the sun is still dangerous to look at.  More partial solar eclipses happen than total solar eclipses.  The picture was taken on the bank of Berd River, which is near Novosibirsk in Siberia, Russia.  In the photo, the eclipse is in its maximum phase, right around sunset.  It looks like the cold scene is set in the western horizon.  Aside from the sun and the New Moon setting, there seems to be smoke and an airplane trail in the sky.  This eclipse in Asia was one of the first eclipses of the new year.  The eclipse was technically visible from Europe to North Africa, and Middle East and Central Asia.

Works Cited (Astronomer Sources)

James South." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia

   Britannica, 2011. Web. 05 Jan. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/555540/James-South>.

"James South." VisWiki. VisWiki.com. Web. 5 Jan. 2011. <http://www.viswiki.com/en/James_South>.

"South, James." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 12. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. 551-552. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 Jan. 2011. <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE %7CCX2830904092&v=2.1&u=fl_sarhs&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w>