APOD: A Ruptured Cometary Globule

A beautiful sight, what is the story behind it? The above picture is of a cometary globule that has ruptured. Cometary globules typically appear similarly to comets due to their dusty heads and elongated tails. The cause for the rupture in the head of this globule in unkown

APOD: Jupiter's Great Red Spot From Voyager I

In the past few years, the size of Jupiter's Red Spot seems to be accelerating, despite previous belief that the spot was shrinking. The storm that is Jupiter's red spot is bigger than Earth. This great spot was not expected and not understood when discovered. The image above is a digitally enhanced photo taken by Voyager I in 1979

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140518.html

Quarter: Bart Bok Biography

Bart Bok Biography

        

         Bart Bok was born on April 28^th 1906 in Hoorn. His family moved to The Hague because of his father's position as a sergeant for the Dutch army. The Hague was known for quality education for mathematicians and physicists. Bok first took interest in astronomy at a young age, upon realizing he could not identify a star in the sky. His interest in astronomy only grew from there. In 1924, he enrolled at the University of Leiden, there he built upon the work of Harlow Shapely.*At an International Astronomical Union meeting Bok had the opportunity to meet Shapely, there, he also met a fellow astronomer and the woman who would become his wife, Dr. Priscilla Fairfield. Bart Bok married Priscilla in 1929. In 1929, Bok also began work at Harvard, following that job Bok was appointed director of Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia, he worked there for nine years before returning to the U.S. and becoming director of Steward Observatory. Bart Bok was not considered a U.S. citizen until 1938.

*An American astronomer who discovered that we were not located in the center of the Milky Way by using Cepheid variable stars

           Bart Bok is best known for his studies that determined the shape of our galaxy and his studies on the formation of stars. The dark, nebulous globules that house star development have been named "Bok Globules", accrediting him for his contributions. Bok first took interest in the mass of swirling gases surrounding Eta Carinae. He questioned why some, smaller nebulae were strewn apart and dispersed while others appeared to be more enduring; to explain this, Bok proposed that rotating galaxies could produce gravity capable of causing waves throughout the Milky Way that could tear smaller nebulae apart. In 1947, technical assistant, Edith Reilly, asked Bok to study dark nebulae alongside of her. Bok agreed to do so because of his interest in the matter. Bok and Reilly photographed, cataloged, and analyzed dark nebulae over the next few years. From this, Bok gathered that these dark nebulae are the birthplaces of young stars, that the clouds of debris would start to swirl and collapse under their own gravity, causing stellar fusion. Bart Bok is best known for his studies that determined the shape of our galaxy and his studies on the formation of stars. The dark, nebulous globules that house star development have been named "Bok Globules", accrediting him for his contributions.

In the late 1950s, astronomers began using telescopes designed for radio waves and discovered evidence supporting Bok's thesis. The only issue was the lack in communication of discoveries between nations due to loss of trust post World War II. Bart Bok was not discouraged by this problem and formed what would later become the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Bok produced many astronomical works throughout his life, some of the most notable in his later years. In 1975 Bok coauthored the statement Objections to Astrology, this was endorsed by 186 astronomers, astrophysicists, and other scientists, including nineteen winners of the Nobel Prize and also wrote The Milky Way, with his wife, Priscilla. Bok was very well liked and well received by fellow astronomers. In 1983, the asteroid, Asteroid 1983 Bok was named in his honor, Bok died of a heart attack later that year.

Quarter 4 Biography-Bart Bok Sources

http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/history-and-heritage/dutch_americans/bart-jan-bok/

http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4518_1.html

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/71903/Bart-J-Bok

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bok-bart-jan-129

http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/bart-bok.pdf

Quarter 4 Astronomy Observations Part One

Monday April 7, 2014                                  8:00-10:00

Location: Sarasota, FL

Instruments used: Naked eye, binoculars

Weather: Good

Visibility: Fair – some low lying clouds

Moon Phase: First Quarter

Stars: Alphard, Aldebaren, Rigel, Gamma Leonis, Castor, Pollux, Betelguese

Planets: Jupiter

Constellations: Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Orion, Hydra

Observations: A pretty night, nice for observing,

Monday, April 14, 2014                   2:30 a.m. – 3:30 a.m.

Location: Sarasota, FL

Instruments used: Naked eye, binoculars

Weather: Good

Visibility: Great

Moon Phase: Full Moon, woke up to see “blood moon” eclipse

Stars:

Planets:

Constellations:

Observations: Best view 3:06 a.m. great visibility full eclipse – more red hue when viewed with the naked eye – well worth getting up for. I’m sure there were also constellations to be recorded, however I woke up to sit out and watch the blood moon, in other words this is not my most detailed observation.

Monday, April 21, 2014                               8:00-10:00

Location: Sarasota, FL

Instruments used: Naked eye, binoculars

Weather: Good

Visibility: Great

Moon Phase: Last Quarter

Stars: Regulus, Spica, Cor Caroli, Gamma Leoni, Alpha Centauri, Beta Centauri

Planets: Jupiter

Constellations: Centaurus, Gemini, Virgo, Leo, Leo Minor, Canes Ventici

Observations: Another successful observation night, studying the last of the constellations allowed me to identify Alpha Centauri

APOD: Warped Sky: Star Trails over Arches National Park

It looks to cool to be real but in its own way; it is. The photo here was created using a time-warp. The time warp occured due to digital exposure to the night sky over a span of 2.5 hours. The comings and goings of prominent stars are visible due to this concept. The panorama was captured in Utah, USA during early morning hours. The arch seen on the right is the park's Delicate Arch. Towards the center, you can see the Milky Way.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140317.html

APOD: M78 and Reflecting Dust Clouds

A very cool looking scene, M object 78 and reflecting dust clouds. A blue glow and columns of dark dust highlight M78 and other bright reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion. The filamentary dust not only absorbs light but also reflects light of recently formed blue stars. The famous M78 nebula is the image center, while NGC 2071 can be seen to its lower left.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140326.html 

APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue

A lovely contrast from each other and the trees blackened by the night sky. Mars and Spica will be spotted together for the next few months. Mars is the object on the left, shining in its usual rusty red hue. The blue object on the right, is the star, Spica. Mars can be seen like this because it is currently close to Earth. Spica always shines as the brightest blue star.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140402.html

Quarter Three: About The Astronomer

Simon Newcomb was born in Wallace, Nova Scotia in 1835. His mother was Emily Prince, daughter of a New Brunswick magistrate. His father, John Burton Newcomb, was a teacher who traveled to teach in different parts of the country. Simon received no education apart from his father but, from this, was provided foundation for his future studies. At the age of 16, Simon became apprentice to a herbalist named Dr. Forshay, but became fed up with how unscientific Forshay’s practices seemed and walked out on the apprenticeship after two years.  From there he kept walking, and was said to have walked 120 miles to the port of Calais in Maine and where he met the captain who agreed to take him to Salem Maine in return for his work as a sailor on board of the ship.  From Salem he journeyed to Maryland. In Maryland, he taught for two years and studied a variety of subjects in his spare time, mathematics and astronomy, most deeply. Newcomb began his first job for astronomy in 1857, he began a position in the American Nautical Almanac Office . His job was to produce new astronomical tables to be used for navigation at sea. While working there, he studied at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University and graduated in 1858. He then continued working at the Almanac Office but also began deeper astronomical research at Harvard. One of his first research topics was to examine the orbits of the asteroids in an attempt to learn something of their origin.

            Simon Newcomb spent the years 1861-1871 determining the positions of celestial objects using various telescopes, most favoring a 26-inch refractor telescope-the largest telescope of its kind in the United States, built under Newcomb’s supervision. He was most fascinated by the orbits of the planets and their moon and aimed to improve on the existing knowledge of their positions by calculating the changes in their orbit caused by gravitational attraction of other bodies. Newcomb discovered that the currently used tables for the moon, compiled by Hansen, were inaccurate. Hansen used data that went back to 1750, but Newcomb felt that even older data could be of value. When in Paris to observe the solar eclipse of 1870, he had found that they had kept data dating back to 1672. Newcomb used this data to discover that Hansen’s tables were preceding 1750 were badly inaccurate. For this and his work on the positions of Uranus and Neptune, Newcomb was awarded with a gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society in 1874 and offered the post of Director of Harvard College Observatory (which he declined, for he preferred computation to observation.)

            In 1877 Newcomb became director of the American Nautical Almanac Office and was given a position where the emphasis was on computation rather than observation. Newcomb also became professor of mathematics and astronomy at John Hopkins University, served as president of the American Mathematics Society from 1897-1898, founded and was first president of the American Astronomical Society. Newcomb wrote many popular astronomy books including: Popular astronomy (1878), Astronomy for schools and colleges (1880), Elements of astronomy (1890), The stars (1901), Astronomy for everyone (1903), and Spherical astronomy (1906). He completed his last book, Motion of the Moon just before he died of bladder cancer in 1908. Simon Newcomb was buried with military honors in Arlington National Cemetery, President Taft and representatives of several foreign governments attended the funeral.

                                                            

The Last of my Quarter 3 Observations

Saturday, March 22, 2014                           8:00-10:00

Location: Sarasota, FL

Instruments used: Naked eye, binoculars later

Weather: Good

Visibility: Great

Moon Phase: Waning gibbous

Stars: Aldebaren, Rigel,  Regulus, Castor, Pollux, Betelguese

Planets: Jupiter

Constellations: Orion, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Leo Minor, Sextans

Observations: The perfect night to finish off my hours. Spring constellations are easy to observe, especially once you find Orion. Most of what I saw was zodiacal, although I was pleased with myself for spotting Sextans. 

APOD: Earth, Clouds, Sky, Comet

Found by clicking the link for a random APOD, this picture was posted on April 3rd in 1997. The focus of this pretty picture is a comet. A common misconception is that comet tails follow the comet, which is true but not always. Due to the comet's rotation- they shed dust and gas equally in all directions.

                                                      http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/random_apod.html

APOD: Orion and Aurora over Iceland

 A beautiful shot, taken in Iceland by a photographer, who was described as adventurous for this photo of an aurora (sparked by energy particles from the Sun) filled sky.  That isn't the picture's only significant detail: the constellation Orion can be spotted in the background, left to the aurora. The stratovolcano Oraefajokull can also be seen in the foreground.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

APOD: Globules in the Running Chicken Nebula

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140305.html

The Running Chicken nebula is seen in this picture as a beautiful array of colors and simply a wonder. Given its name for the shape of its greater appearance, the Running Chicken Nebula was recently photographed bythe Siding Spring Observatory in Australia and presented in scientifically assigned colors. The dark molecular clouds seen in the middle are rich in obscuring cosmic dust, making these sites potential for the formation of new stars.

Astronomy Night Observations

Saturday, March 1, 2014                                                                                          7:00pm-8:00pm
Location: Osprey, Florida
Instruments Used: Telescopes, naked eye observations
Weather: Clear skies, perfect for observation
Visibility: Stellar
Planets: Jupiter (our prime focus-in Gemini)
Stars: Sirius, Castor, Pollux, Rigel, Aldebaren, Betelgeuse, Algol
Constellations:Gemini, Orion, Leo, Canis Major, Perseus, Taurus, Auriga

Qt. 3 Sources-Simon Newcomb

http://www.physics.csbsju.edu/astro/newcomb/SNewcomb.html

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Newcomb.html

http://www.nndb.com/people/473/000103164/

Qt 3 Observations (Part 1)

Finally managed to type these up...

Friday, January 17, 2014                 9:00pm – 10:00pm

Location: Sarasota, Florida  

Instrument used: Binoculars

Weather: Good

Visibility: Fair – low lying clouds

Moon Phase: Full

Stars: Polaris, Castor, Pollux, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Aldebaren

Planets: Jupiter, Venus (possibly)

Constellations: Gemini, Taurus, Orion, Ursa Minor

Observations: I first spotted Orion making Taurus and Gemini easy to find. I also managed to find Ursa Minor by first finding Polaris.

Friday, January 24, 2014                 9:00pm – 10:00pm

Location: Sarasota, Florida  

Instrument used: Binoculars

Weather: Good

Visibility: Fair – low lying clouds

Moon Phase: Last Quarter

Stars: Betelguese, Aldebaren, Rigel

Planets: Jupiter

Constellations: Taurus, Orion

Observations: It was surprising that I had trouble seeing as much given the similar weather conditions to the last time I observed. The primary stars of Orion and Taurus gave them away but I did not see anything I could make out beyond them.

Friday, February 7, 2014                 9:00pm – 10:00pm

Location: Sarasota, Florida  

Instrument used: Binoculars

Weather: Good/Cold - Windy

Visibility: Fair-Good; some clouds

Moon Phase: First Quarter

Stars: Gamma Andromeda, Mira (?), Algol, Betelguese, Rigel, Aldebaren

Planets: Jupiter

Constellations: Andromeda, Orion, Pegasus, Taurus, Cassiopeia, Perseus

Observations: A great night for observations. To begin, I believe I saw Mira but am not quite sure, I could not quite tell if I was observing Cetus. I did, however, manage to spot the worm asterism clearly.

Friday, February 14, 2014               8:00pm – 9:00pm

Location: Sarasota, Florida  

Instrument used: Binoculars

Weather: Good/Cold

Visibility: Excellent

Moon Phase: Full

Stars: Polaris, Castor, Pollux, Betelguese, Aldebaren

Planets: Jupiter and possibly Venus

Constellations: Taurus, Ursa Minor, Gemini, Orion

Observations: Another night of great weather for observations. I enjoyed stargazing on the beach, the sky was beautifully clear. Orion is always an easy find but for the first time, I definitively saw Orion’s Belt. I surprisingly spotted Gemini and used it to find Taurus instead of the other way around. 

APOD: Reflections of The Planet Earth

I find this picture from January 2nd, 2014 to be really neat.There are plenty of quality self portraits on Earth but this self portrait is probably the coolest I have ever seen. Astronaut, Micheal Fossum snapped this photo of himself while the Discovery Orbiter was docked at the International Space Station, capturing his fellow missioner, Piers Sellers, and one of the space station's gold-tinted solar powered arrays along the top and in the background, the horizon of planet Earth.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140102.html

Quarter 2: About My Astronomer- William R. Dawes

William R. Dawes was born on March 19, 1799 in West Sussex, England and grew up constantly moving, raised by relatives and friends. His mother had died when he was young and his father was, William Dawes, an astronomer who would became the governor of Sierra Leone for his success as an astronomer and was often away. Dawes originally studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and afterward worked a country practice in Berkshire. In 1826, following the death of a sister, He moved to Liverpool, and there he came under the influence of a Dissenting minister who persuaded him to take charge of a small congregation in Ormskirk. In 1830 Dawes was elected a Fellow of the RAS. He gave up his congregation in 1839 because his first wife died and it affected his already poor health. He next moved to London to take up the post of as George Bishop's assistant at his observatory there. William Lassell, a very wealthy man, became a patron of science and built an observatory in 1836 with a seven inch refractor and allowed Dawes to continue his astronomical work there until 1844.

Dawes, from a very young age, had always shown interest in astronomy, while at Liverpool he often observed the stars through an open window with a small but excellent refracting telescope. This refractor brought his focus to double stars, and at Ormskirk he constructed an observatory with a five-foot Dollond refractor that had an aperture of 3.8 inches, which he used to make careful micrometrical measurements of double stars. His measures of 121 double stars made in the period 1830–1833 were published in 1835, and those of 100 double stars in the period 1834–1839 were published in 1851. In 1842, Dawes remarried and moved to Kent, his new wife was wealthy so he was able to build his own observatory and install a 6.5 inch Merz refractor. With it, he discovered Saturn's crepe ring. W C Bond at the Harvard Observatory had also found the ring but Dawes made the claim before word of Bond’s discovery made it across the Atlantic. He became known as William "Eagle-eyed" Dawes, craters on Mars and the Moon are named after him. Dawes discovered Saturn’s Crepe ring with a 6.5 aperture telescope. He discovered more about Saturn than the crepe ring, including a white spot on Saturn and Mimas, the smallest of Saturn’s innermost moons. Dawes had an eye for details that many other astronomers missed, such as; the great Ellipse of Jupiter, white spots on Jupiter's southern hemisphere, markings on Jupiter's satellites III and IVand the companion of Sirius. His name is also used to describe an optical phenomena that he discovered; the Dawes limit, a formula to express the maximum resolving power in a microscope and/or telescope. Dawes notably won a Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1855.

In 1857 William moved to Haddenham and continued his observations. He made extensive drawings of Mars during its 1864 opposition. His health was already worsening and his second wife died shortly after the move. Dawes was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1865 and kept observing until 1867. Dawes died at Haddenham, in 1868.

Qt 2 Astronomer Essay Sources

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dawes,_William_Rutter_(DNB00)

http://www.mikeoates.org/astro-history/dawes.htm

Observations Pt 2

Friday, November 15, 2013             9:00pm – 10:00pm

Location: Sarasota, Florida  

Instrument used: Binoculars

Weather: Fair

Visibility: Partly Cloudy

Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous

Stars: Altair, Deneb, Vega

Planets: Venus

Constellations: Aquila, Cygnus, Virgo

Thursday, November 21, 2013                   9:00pm – 10:00pm

Location: Sarasota, Florida  

Instrument used: Binoculars

Weather: Fair

Visibility:  Partly cloudy

Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous

Stars: Polaris, Deneb, Gamma, Andromeda

Planets: Venus

Constellations: Cygnus, Taurus

Sunday, December 15, 2013                       9:00pm – 10:00pm

Location: Sarasota, Florida  

Instrument used: Binoculars

Weather: Fair

Visibility: Overcast

Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous

Stars: Deneb, Gamma, Andromeda, Alberio?

Planets: Venus

Constellations: n/a low visibility

Tuesday, December 24, 2013                     9:00pm – 10:00pm

Location: Sarasota, Florida  

Instrument used: Binoculars

Weather: Clear

Visibility: Good

Moon Phase: Last quarter

Stars: Deneb, Gamma, Andromeda, Alberio (verified)

Planets: Venus

Constellations: Cygnus, Taurus

Monday, December 30, 2013                      9:00pm – 10:00pm

Location: Sarasota, Florida  

Instrument used: Binoculars

Weather: Clear

Visibility: Good

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent

Stars: Deneb, Gamma, Andromeda, Alberio

Planets: Jupiter

Constellations: Cygnus, Taurus, Gemini, Orion

Wednesday, January 1, 2014                      9:00pm – 10:00pm

Location: Sarasota, Florida  

Instrument used: Binoculars

Weather: Clear

Visibility: Good

Moon Phase: New

Stars: Deneb, Gamma, Andromeda, Alberio, Rigel

Planets: Jupiter

Constellations: Cygnus, Taurus, Gemini, Orion