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.