Biographical References

"Gregory (More Correctly Gregorie), James." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. Print.

Simpson. "James Gregory and the Reflecting Telescope." Journal for the History of Astronomy (1992): n. pag. Web.

APOD 1.5

I was recently looking at the APOD titled The Lagoon Nebula in Stars Dust and Gas. This is a nebula that is so big that it can actually be seen without a telescope near the constellation Sagittarius. This nebula is M8 and spans a distance of 100 light years across. This is cool because M8 was the first nebula that we learned about in our constellation quizzes. In the center of the nebula is a knot of gas which is known as the hourglass nebula.

Observation 1.1

     Lately I have been looking up at the sky more often attempting to label the phase of the moon and the constellations that I could see above. From September 12th I took note that the moon was a waning gibbous that slightly seemed to get smaller and smaller as the days went on. September 16th was the day that the moon reached its third quarter phase and Today September 19th the moon is at its waning crescent phase. I also noticed that the moon seemed to be shifting a little bit to the east every day getting closer to the sun.

APOD 1.4

     Today I was looking at the APOD from September 14th 2014. This is M27 also known as The Dumbbell Nebula. This APOD stood out to me in particular because we just had a constellation quiz and M27 was near the constellation of Vulpecula (fox). I was surprised to learn that this Nebula is a representation of what our Sun will look like in about five billion years. The Dumbbell Nebula is known as a planetary Nebula and is the outcome of what happens when a star stops undergoing nuclear fission in its core. I was also impressed that the colors shown above were from a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.

APOD 1.3

   

  Today i was looking at the APOD titled Super Nova Remnant Puppis A. It is incredible that the explosion is now over a light year in diameter which is a huge distance. The x ray imaging of the super nova shows an array of colors which looks absolutely beautiful in the picture. It is amazing how the light from the super nova should have reached Earth 3,700 years ago yet it is still appearing bright in the x ray imaging today. This shows how powerful these super novas are when a star's core collapses. These super novas are only one example of how this universe actually works. 

APOD 1.2

     Today I looked at the APOD from September 3. It was called M6: The Butterfly Cluster. This is a nebula that seems to resemble a butterfly. It is near the constellation of Scorpius and can actually be seen with binoculars of a clear dark night. Like most clusters it is composed of mostly blue stars however this cluster's brightest star is an orange star that is over 100 million years old! M6 is an important cluster because it is used by many astrologists to calibrate the distance scale of the universe. It is amazing how such things can naturally exist outside of our world. 

APOD 1.1

     Recently I was looking at the APOD titled Venus and Jupiter at Dawn from August 21 2014. It blows my mind that we can see both Venus and Jupiter from here on Earth. It surprised me at first when I realized that Venus seemed to be bigger and brighter in the sky but I later came to the conclusion that it was this way because Venus is closer to Earth than Jupiter. The planets were at their closest conjunction since 2000.  I never expected to be able to see Jupiter from Earth. Im surprised that Jupiter looked so big even though it is so far away from Earth. It blows my mind how big Jupiter must be in order to appear that size from Earth.