APOD 4.8

Partial Solar Eclipse with Airplane 

The solar eclipse, photographed in Fremantle, Australia, appeared soon after dawn and is here photographed behind dark morning clouds with a small airplane in the foreground. Here, the eclipse is only partial, as the moon obscures the large piece of the sun's bottom half as viewed from earth. The eclipse would continue and become annular, leaving only a small ring of the sun appearing from behind the moon's shadow. Also visible in this photo is the earth's atmosphere's effect on our viewing of the sun, dimming its luminosity and causing the sun's edges to look shaky. 

APOD 4.7

Messier 77 

M77 is a spiral galaxy 47 million light-years from Cetus. It spans 100,000 light-years across. The core is important and widely studied for its value in learning about supermassive black holes in Seyfert galaxies. While this image was based on Hubble data, M77 is also seen at x-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, and radio portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. This picture particularly exhibits the galaxies bright core and spiral arms. Star-forming regions appear red and dust clouds trace the bright spiral arms.

APOD 4.6

Hungarian Spring Eclipse 

This image was taken over Tihany, Hungary as a partial lunar eclipse occured. The sun set and moon rose in succession and the moon touched the Earth's umbral shadow. This was the first partial lunar eclipse of the year. The lunar disk is darker near the top corner as it slips into Earth's shadow. The eclipsed phase lasted around 27 minutes. The image was compiled from exposures taken at intervals and shows the colors and shapes that the moon took on over this period. This lunar eclipse precedes an annular solar eclipse which will occur next week at the new moon. 

George O. Abell Biography

George Ogden Abell was born on March 1, 1927. He pursued his science education at California Institute of Technology and worked as a teacher and astronomer at UCLA. He is known as a prominent astronomer, scientist, and skeptic for his work discovering astronomical features and debunking common misconceptions about pseudoscience, such as the paranormal.

Abell's most premier work was cataloging galaxy clusters which he collected during the Palomar Sky Survey. Through these catalogs, he disproved the current hierarchical model to show that second-order clustering existed in the clusters' formation and evolution. He innovated current models to show cluster luminosity as a tool to measure distance. In 1966 he collated a list of 86 planetary nebulae, one of which, Abell 39, is named for him. Among his discoveries was the supposition that planetary nebulae form from evolved red giant stars.

Abell's 1958 survey of galaxy clusters, the Northern Survey, has been augmented and renamed the "Abell catalog." This catalog shows around 4,000 clusters. The final list with added clusters from southern hemisphere skies was published after Abell's death by some of his contemporaries.

He was a president of the Cosmology Commission of the IAU and a president of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. In 1970, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Abell died October 7, 1983, but his legacy remains as a great astronomer and educator of young people, as he served as a UCLA Astronomy Department professor, of which he was elected chairman, and dedicated 20 years to teaching high school summer science camps. The summer camp offers a scholarship in his honor.  Furthermore, Abell is the namesake of Asteroid 3449 Abell and The George Abell Observatory in Milton Keynes, England.

APOD 4.5

A Year on the Sun 

This photo shows 25 composite images of the sun taken in extreme ultraviolet light over the course of one year. The image shows both sides of the solar equator. The active regions show brights loops and arcs occurring along the magnetic field lines. These active regions usually appear as sunspots. 

APOD 4.4

Grand Spiral Galaxy M81 and Arp's Loop 

M81 is one of the brightest galaxies in the sky. It is 11.8 million light-years away near Ursa Major. This photo shows the bright core and the spiral arms of the galaxy. Arp's loop is the grand arc at the upper right of the galaxy. It has been found that some of this loop reaches our own galaxy. The image shows bright stars and dust clouds, along with Holmberg IX, the companion galaxy. 

APOD 4.3

Darkened City 

This photograph shows an unlikely, unlit cityscape with the bright night sky behind it. To create the apocalyptic view, the photographer combined a daytime foreground with a long-exposure night time shot of the sky, showing the milky way and many familiar constellations like Scorpius and Aquila, with bright stas Antares and Altair. In order to achieve a bright, clear view of the night sky, the photographer took the background shot at a dark area at the same latitude as the foreground city. 

APOD 4.2

M64: The Black Eye Galaxy 

This image shows Messier 64, the Black Eye Galaxy. M64 is in Coma Bernices, around 17 million light-years away. The bright red central area of the galaxy is as such because of the existence of hydrogen dust clouds which are known for being star-forming. It is thought that The Black Eye is the result of a merging of two completely different galaxies, shown by the existence of two rotating star systems which seem to have collided since they rotate in opposite directions. 

APOD 4.1

Waterfalls, Auroras, Comet: Iceland 

A truly unique photograph, this image shows fantastic terrestrial landscape along with a bright array of stars, auroras, and even the comet PANSTARRS. It was taken in southwest Iceland near the Gullfoss waterfalls. The comet is visible just about the horizon in the left, and can still be visible in the sky from the north. The bright auroras were caused by a solar flare and powerful CME which occured two days before the image was taken. 

APOD 3.8

Chelyabinsk Meteor Flash 

Photographed is the flash of the Chelyabinsk meteor which fell to Earth at 9:20am February 15. The meteor traveled around 20 km per second until making impact. It created a flash even brighter than the sun. This photograph was captured on accident as the photographer attempted to take photos of the snowy landscape. The meteor was 17 meters wide causing minor destruction in the surrounding towns, by releasing around 500 kilotons of energy. This is the greatest meteoric event since Tunguska in 1908. 

APOD 3.7

Curiosity Self-Portrait Panorama 

The Mars Curiosity Rover took an interesting and beautiful self portrait in the Gale Crater. This was the site on which Curiosity first started drilling into the rock. In the photo at the rover's feet, one can see a hole that was drilled to collect samples. The photo was pieced together with many images taken by two separate cameras which capture far or close-range images. He could photograph himself using a long arm which holds the far-range camera, which is not shown. 

Henrietta Leavitt Biography

     Henrietta Leavitt veritably revolutionized astronomy. She is one of the most influential astronomers in history, yet she is not remembered like Newton, Hubble, or Galileo, because she was lucky enough to be born female. Leavitt was born on July 4, 1868 in Lancaster, Massachusetts. She attended Oberlin College and Radcliffe College. She never took an astronomy course until her final year of college, but she was thoroughly intrigued. Following her graduation, Leavitt began working at the Harvard College Observatory. She was one of the many women hired as "computers" to catalog the brightness of stars as they appeared in the observatory's collection. At this time, women were not allowed to operate telescopes. She was instructed by her supervisor to begin cataloging variable stars, whose brightness would change over time.
     She worked hard, but was not expected to find anything, instead just hired to do work that the men didn't want. In fact, Leavitt would make a discovery that would change astronomy. In one study published in the Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, Leavitt noted that variable stars with greater luminosity had longer periods. She confirmed this by studying the Cepheid variables intensely, and realized that the relationship between period and luminosity was very concrete. The discovery is known as the "period-luminosity relationship" which says that the logarithm of the period s linearly related to the star's intrinsic luminosity. This finally allowed scientists to measure the distance to galaxies which were too far away to be computed through stellar parallax. Thanks to Leavitt's discovery, the distances to any Cepheid in the Milky Way could be determined with great accuracy. Later, Edwin Hubble used Leavitt's discovery to measure distances to Cepheids in the Andromeda Galaxy. Thus, Leavitt's discovery led to the realization that the universe is much larger than our Milky Way, and other spiral galaxies exist independently outside of our Milky Way. This discovery was one of the most revolutionary in history.
     In 1921,  Leavitt was made director of stellar photometry at Harvard. However, by the end of that year, illnesses which plagued her since graduating from college finally took their toll, causing Leavitt to die from cancer. She was buried in the Cambridge Cemetery. Other than making the most influential discovery in astronomy, she received many honors. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Association of University Women, the American Astronomical and Astrophysical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an honorary member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.

APOD 3.6

Mercury on the Horizon 

This image showcases a beautiful sky and the trail of mercury as it follows the sun, rising above the horizon and quickly disappearing. Mercury orbits very closely to the sun and therefore is only visible shortly after sunset or before sunrise for a short while.  It takes careful planning and finesse to follow Mercury during certain times of the year. Currently it will be visible in the western sky right after sunset, for the northern hemisphere. 

Henrietta Leavitt Biography: Sources

"Henrietta Leavitt." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/baleav.html>.

Johnson, George (2005). Miss Leavitt's Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

"Leavitt." CWP at Physics.UCLA.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~cwp/Phase2/Leavitt,_Henrietta_Swan@871234567.html>.

APOD 3.5

Reflected Aurora Over Alaska 

This image shows a subvisual red aurora which was only detected after an extended photographic exposure. The skyscape also shows clearly Jupiter near the horizon, the bright Pleiades cluster, and Auriga, Taurus, and Gemini. These auroras showed up over Anchorage, Alaska, due to energetic solar particles affecting our own magnetosphere. Red and green aurora are caused by excited oxygen atoms.

APOD 3.4

Herschel's Andromeda

This image shows the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest spiral galaxy to our own, in Infrared from the Herschel Space Observatory. Andromeda is 200,000 light-years across, double the size of the Milky Way.  The red light in the outskirts of the galaxy shows dust heated and glowing from starlight. The blue core shows hotter dust. Andromeda contains a huge capacity for future star development, shown by the amount of molecular gas present. 

APOD 3.3

Comet McNaught Over Chile

This photograph shows a clear dark sky, crescent moon, and city lights in Santiago. In that sky is Comet McNaught, one of the most photogenic comets which was beautiful when it passed over the northern hemisphere and even more magnificent when it reached around the southern hemisphere. By that time it had developed a long dust tail. McNaught has been the brightest comet in decades. This photo is resurfacing because 2013 is expected to bring even more brilliant comets. Comet ISON, at the end of the year, may become one of the brightest comets in history.

Lunar Atlas

Observation

Thursday January 24, 8pm
East Laurel Road Facing East
Cloudy, with a nearly full Moon

Looking up at the bright moon, I noticed a very distinct halo around it. I saw a similar, although much wider, halo 2 nights prior, so I decided to research what causes a halo of light to form around the moon. I found that lunar halos are usually caused by high thin cirrus clouds, which makes sense because the sky was fairly cloudy when I noticed this occurring. I even noticed some of the distinct colors in the layers of this neat optical phenomenon.

APOD 3.2

ISS and the Summer Milky Way 

I first chose this image because it is absolutely gorgeous. But past its initial beauty, the photo contains many familiar objects in the sky. The long streak across the sky is the track of the International Space Station over a 5-minute-long exposure. There are a few atmospheric clouds in the sky, but past that are actually starry clouds and nebulae, which appear more blue and bright. The Milky Way is clearly visible from this view in Buenos Aires, Argentina which is currently seeing the summer Milky Way sky.

APOD 3.1

NGC 1309: Spiral Galaxy and Friends 

NGC 1309 is a spiral galaxy 100 million light-years away. It is about a third of the size of our Milky Way Galaxy, but no disappointment to view. The bluish spirals are caused by small stars and lanes of dust particles. The galaxy lies near Eridanus, which is one of the constellations we studied this week. This is a stunning photograph from the Hubble Space Telescope which also shows many other galaxies which are more distant in the background.

Observation

Thursday January 3rd, 2013
12:00am

Because of inclement weather in Sarasota, the night of the Quarantid meteor shower, some of my friends and I drove south, to Fakahatchee State Park, where there was a clearer and darker sky. There were still some clouds and a last quarter moon which partially obscured our view, but between us we managed to see some 15 meteors in the few hours we watched the sky.

James South Biography

 
James South is a British astronomer, born in October 1785, to parents in Southwark, England. His father was a chemist, and first inspired South to become interested in the sciences. After becoming married to Charlotte Ellis, a wealthy daughter of statesmen, South gained the financial capital to begin pursuing astronomy. He built an observatory near his home and began his work intensely. He is most remembered for his participation and aid in finding the Astronomical Society of London in 1820, renamed in 1831 The Royal Astronomical Society. It was under his presidency of the society that they obtained a royal charter from William IV. The society was created to support astronomical research and succeeded in publishing quarterly scientific journals and papers which have greatly benefited astronomical knowledge. As a member of the Royal Society, South worked closely with John Herschel, whose father William Herschel initially found many of the known double stars, to catalogue 380 double stars from the very first observatory South built. Continuing his work alone, South observed an additional 458 double stars.
South was acknowledged with many titles and awards for his great work in astronomy, including the Copley Medal for his paper “On the Discordances between the Sun’s Observed and Computed Right Ascensions” and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1826. However, soon after he received those honors, South became involved in many disputes and conflicts within the society that led him to abandon his work and nearly leave Britain. In 1831 he was knighted, and gained the motivation to stay in Britain and continue his work.
Perhaps James South’s greatest achievement was his work on an equatorial-mount telescope. In 1826, he began his plans for a telescope that would be newer and larger than ever before. This telescope contained what would be the the largest achromatic object lens in the world, a 12-inch aperture lens which cost 1000 pounds. He planned to contain this telescope in a new observatory. The telescope was completed, then suddenly dismantled around 1838 because of a faulty mount, which led South to sue its manufacturer. South lost and the famously large lens was later put into a Grubb equatorial mount which functioned more accurately, and still remains to the current day. The stress of his last endeavor led South to give up his large work in astronomy. Continuing his work in the form of a hobby, South made small leaps such as observing Encke’s comet and Mauvais comet. He wrote more papers on his discoveries and observations, earning recognition from the Academy of Sciences in Brussels and Cambridge University. Craters on Mar and the Moon were named in his honor.
In his observatory on October 19th 1867, South passed away and his large collection of astronomical instruments were sold to collectors. His contributions to astronomy were influential and will always be remembered.

James South Biography Sources

Bitterman, Jay. "The Lake County Astronomical Society." LCAS. The Lake County Astronomical Society, Oct. 1999. Web. 9 Jan. 2013.


"James South." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 01 Dec. 2012. Web. 9 Jan. 2013.

Ranero, Karin. "Today In Astronomy." Web log post. The Portal to the Universe. European Southern Observatory, 28 Dec. 2006. Web. 10 Jan. 2011. <http://www.portaltotheuniverse.org/blogs/posts/view/53681/>.

APOD 2.8

AE Aurigae and the Flaming Star Nebula 

This image shows the flaming star AE Aurigae, surrounded by the aptly named Flaming Star Nebula. The star is not flaming, due to a lack of adequate oxygen for fire to appear, but it does appear to be surrounded in thick plumes of smoke. This is actually hydrogen which contains traces of carbon-rich dust, which appears dark and cloudy like smoke. The bright flaming star is in fact so hot it looks blue. The nebula is pictured 1500 light years away and is about 5 light years across.

APOD 2.7

Yosemite Winter Night 

What initially drew me to choose this APOD photograph was the distinctive shape of Orion, rising above the mountaintops. Orion's belt has become a familiar sight which I also notice rising every evening in the east. Although I don't have the picturesque view over Yosemite Valley as shown in this photo, it is satisfying to recognize and identify familiar constellations in the nighttime sky. The brightest part of this photo is Jupiter, which is currently shining in the constellation Taurus. Behind the moon, Jupiter has recently been the most noticeable, resplendent object in the sky. The plane of the milky way is also very visible in the sky, and further left the twin stars of Gemini are in view.