Observation 2.8

Date: December 25, 2013
Time: 2:24 - 2:30 am

Observations:
Tonight, after just coming home from a Christmas party, I looked up at the sky to see what awesome things were up there for me to record and of course the first thing that I saw was the Moon! In all honesty, I was very surprised when I saw the Moon because I don't ever recall seeing just the bottom half of the Moon lit up before. Now don't worry, this does not mean the world is going to end or a start of the zombie apocalypse is beginning. This is just the way the Moon is rotating around the tilted Earth and also due to the latitude my house is located. I will also mention that the Moon was fairly close to the ground tonight. I am saying this because with the tilt of the Earth and the Moon's rotation around the Earth, the Moon would most probably be on the southern part of its orbit. Since it is in this part of its orbit, the light reaching to it from the Sun would only light up the bottom half of the Moon. This is why looking up at the sky, night or day is important because you could see something that you have never seen before or the world has never recorded! Just keep searching!

William Herschel Biography Sources

1. http://www.space.com/17432-william-herschel.html
2. http://www.nndb.com/people/661/000096373/
3. http://simostronomy.blogspot.com/2013/01/sir-william-herschel-variable-stars.html
4. http://ericfdiaz.webs.com/williamherschel.htm

Observation 2.7

Date: December 9, 2013
Time: 4:24 - 5:00

Observations:
Today I was just casually sitting outside in my backyard finishing up some homework and starting to study for the long dreadful midterms in the following week. I started to get off track as usual and I decided to just lay down on the grass. When I was scanning the empty sky, or so I thought, I saw the Moon! Now don't get me wrong, this is not the first time that I had seen the Moon out when it wasn't completely dark outside, but I was just excited that I actual had the time to take a picture of it. As the Sun began to slowly set, the Moon did seem to get brighter and brighter but I thought it was pretty awesome that you can see the surface of the Moon so clear even without a camera. I know the first picture makes the Moon seem very, very small, however, I was still able to see the creators on the Moon which I thought was awesome. That's all I have to really say about this today but don't forget to keep looking up!!! You never know what you can find in the sky!

APOD 2.7

How cold can Earth possibly get?

Or how about: how cold can it get on the coldest place on Earth?

The first place a lot of people think of when you ask that question is the Antarctica and that is right. Well, measured on July 31, 2013, the interior of Antarctica can be as low as -135.3 degrees Fahrenheit! Yes, that is very, very, very, cold. This temperature was taken near the mountain peaks in the area just because it is generally colder the higher you go.

Why?

Well, the less air pressure there is the colder something is. Take spray paint for example. When you spray paint something and then you touch the bottle, it feels cold. That is because you are releasing the pressure inside the bottle. Let's think about it in another way. Air has particles. Each particle has loads of energy. When you put a couple of particles of air near each other in a sealed compartment they begin to bounce off the walls of the compartment and with one another. When something is moving very fast then it tends to release heat because the energy is coming off as heat. Now picture yourself trying to compress millions of trillions of moving, energized air particles into a 16 ounce metal bottle. Now that is some pressurized air! You see once you press down on the nozzle and let out the air, you then relieve some of the pressure inside the bottle and because that much air is lost from the bottle then then are less air particles moving and bouncing around so there is less heat being made.

Now how is this possible in a place as big as Earth?

First off, I think we can all say that Earth has a gravitational pull on things. The closer you are to the core of the Earth, the stronger the gravitational pull. Therefore, the farther you are from it, the less the pull impacts things. Now the way that I think of it is that the gravitational pull closer to the ground pulls the air closer to the Earth which is why ground level has a higher pressure than on a mountain top. This is also why people say that the bottom of the ocean has such high pressure, because of the great gravitational pull! Now the reason why the Antarctic is colder than the highest mountain in the world is also because there is less sunlight shining down at the bottom of the Earth. Just be grateful that you are not down there right now because personally, down here in Florida, 60 degrees is cold enough for me!

Observations 2.6

Yes the Sun is behind the clouds!

That's much better!

 Date: December 8, 2013
Time: 11:00 - 11:35

Observations:
When people hear the word astronomy, they think of nighttime and of millions of stars in the sky. What many fail to realize is that we, our planet and Sun are also part of the millions and billions of stars out there in space. Many people forget that our own Sun is also a star! Today I felt like giving a little credit to our own beautiful Sun. When I first went outside, as you can see in the first picture, the Sun was some what hidden behind the clouds. After shielding my eyes and waiting outside for a few minutes, the Sun was ready for me to take some pictures (I hope pointing my camera at the Sun will not ruin it!).

Our Sun is around 4.6 billion years old (that would be considered the Sun in its middle age). The Sun was made when a Supernova (an explosion or a death from a star many times bigger than our own Sun). The debris from this explosion struck a nearby gas cloud and due to the heat and energy emitted from the explosion, the gas particles and dust began to collide and mix making a huge cloud like formation. Due to its density, the cloud collapsed in itself and the particles began to clump up enough for it to have it's own gravitational force as it began to pull and suck everything towards the center. From all this energy and heat, this center began to produce nuclear fire and began to grow in size. With its gravitational pull, all the debris surrounding it began to circle around the forming sun and like someone throwing pizza dough in a circular motion in the air, the debris fanned out into a plane circling the Sun. Confusing? Here is a picture to clarify it a bit:

So that is how our Sun came to be! Okay other cool stuff about our Sun is that it will die, but don't worry, that won't happen for another 5 billion years because it has not yet used up its chemical fuel.
You see, there are suns and stars that are many times bigger and even smaller than our Sun; however, the smaller the star the longer it lives because it does not use its fuel up as fast as a bigger, hotter star.

People should have more of an appreciation for our own solar system and our Sun because without it there would be no life whatsoever; there would be no peaceful warm or cool and breezy nights gazing up at the billions of other stars that are like our own Sun. It is just amazing to think that our Sun is also one of the billions of stars in space and that maybe somewhere out there, there is another planet with people or other life forms that are looking up at the sky as well and wondering what is really out there.

APOD 2.6

Yes, what you are looking at right now is real. This is a laser being shot up into space. I bet you are wondering that if you were in space right now, would you actually be able to see this laser, and the answer is, yes! Mindboggling isn't it. Well first off let me explain why this machine is shooting a laser beam into space.

This space machine is at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) site (yeah I know, what a creative name)located in Chile and what astronomers there are trying to do is they are trying to find and measure the distortions found in Earth's atmosphere.

What does that mean?

Well, you see, Earth has an atmosphere, although relatively thin, which contains particles such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water vapor and even dust. In the atmosphere there are also these things called air pockets and no they are not really pockets of air in the sky. What they really are, are strong currents of air blowing in a certain direction. This is why sometimes a plane ride can be a little or very bumpy. Because of this wind, it causes the atmosphere to change and shifts which results in distorting images from space. This is how some stars seem to twinkle. Although it seems dreamy and pretty, this hinders us from seeing where the star really is.

To fix this problem, astronomers are able to send a laser beam up into space which acts as an artificial star which they are able to measure the blurring on. With this information the telescope is able to minimize the blurring. This laser is just an emission of excited atoms and molecules powerful enough reach past Earth's atmosphere.

In this situation, these astronomers are trying to examine the stars in the center of the galaxy, and so to be as precise as they can, they want to measure the atmospheric blurring in this particular area. As for the aliens on a planet in the center of the galaxy, they would be able to see the laser, however, the laser's light would mix with the Sun's light and all they would see is one distant star.

Observations 2.5

Date: November 29, 2013
Time 1:30 - 1:53 am

Observations:
Happy Thanksgiving! This night I just came back from a Thanksgiving party and when I came home and looked at the sky, it was actually clear again! Today was very cold and although I did not see the Moon around this time, I know that the Moon was near Spica today as it comes closer to a new moon. Here you can see the constellations Orion and Canis Major. As you can tell, that night was a very good night considering the amount of stars visible.

Observations 2.4

Date: November 21, 2013
Time: 9:10 - 9:43 pm

Observations: Tonight, when I came outside, the weather was quite chilly. The Moon today was seen to be near the planet Jupiter, yet the sky was actually quite clear and the stars could easily be seen. Today, in the photo above I was able to point out 2 other constellations although you cannot see the whole thing. In the sky right now that you might notice from my previous observations is Orion and Eridanus. At the very top left corner is actually the bottom of the constellation Orion and you are able to see most of the constellation Eridanus (even though it is more visible in this photo than last weeks, you still cannot see the whole entire constellation!) Eridanus takes up the whole left half of the picture. Now for the other half, there are the constellations Cetus, the Seamonster and Taurus, the Bull.

It is amazing just how big these constellations are out in the sky, but when you take a picture of them or see a diagram of them they look so small! It is a wonder how big space really is and how small we are compared it. We are like a grain of sand compared to the desert and even that is insufficient in describing our relationship with space. So have some respect and do not take life for granted!

Observations 2.3

Date: November 9, 2013
Time: 10:05-10:47 pm

Observations:
As I went out today, as usual, I saw the constellation that I am most familiar with, Orion. However, today, after doing some research, I discovered 2 new constellations in the picture! I found Lepus, the hare which is to left of Orion.

As well as Eridanus which is also known as the river.

With the help of Planetarium I was able to find out my location and the constellations of the sky at the time. It was very helpful! Luckily, the sky cleared up today because throughout the week the night sky was pretty cloudy and the sky today is near the first quarter phase. Oh yeah, it's also starting to get a little chilly outside now!