Pre-Dawn August Stargaze

Today I woke up at 5:55am and noticed these bright stars outside my window facing east. Lo and behold! I saw Orion! At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me but I know that you can see winter skies in the summer if you stay up late/early enough. But knowing and actually seeing are two different things. It felt really great to look outside. Too bad I missed the meteor shower, but I could still see Taurus' Hyades and Pleadies, Auriga's capella, Pegasis, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Perseus, Fomalhaut, and I believe that Saturn still might have been visited Gemini. I wanted to bring my telescope out, but that thing is very bulky, and as tall as I am. I suppose I have to find the best way to carry it out even if it means taking the tube off first. Next time. Good bye!

Summer Thoughts

Well its been a long time, but if any old PV buddies come to check up on this site, I have some new interesting astronomy related things. I got to see a couple of nice meteors this summer, and it was fun to remember where things are in the sky.
When summer came around it felt like a "circle was complete." It was the first time I recognized we were back where I started learning about astronomy.
My enthusiasm went so far as to make astronomy a lifetime hobby--I got my own telescope! :) It works great, and I got to see Jupiter with its moons again. I only took it out about three times though. FL skies are just too cloudy or have too much thunder to have a good day out. But I will continue to use it and learn more about how it operates.
In the mean time I congratulate the crew and personnel that made it possible for the shuttle Discovery to have its successful launch into space. May we have many more space missions to come (including one to save Hubble).
A 10th planet?? Perhaps it should be given a name like Sedna was, but it is still a Kuiper Belt object. A planetary name and Kuiper Belt designation sounds reasonable for both this "10th Planet" and even Pluto.
Enjoy the rest of summer.

APOD: Stars, Galaxies, and Comets

In a tribute to the astronomy class apod archives, I choose Stars, Galaxies, and the Comet Tempel I in the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. This is a fitting end as we can continue to gaze across the sky and remember the shining points of light--people and memories--that have lit our lives as we end this school year. Good luck to all of you!
The Comet Tempel I is a fuzzy blue patch just right of center. It has an orbit around the Sun of 5.5 years and NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft will penetrate its center on July 4 of this year! While Tempel I is 3 light minutes from Earth, the Virgo Cluster of galaxies in the background are 50 million light years away! In the upper left, NGC 4762 is an edge-on barred lenticular galaxy, disk galaxies without any structure which are believed to have old stars. NGC 4754 is an elongated elliptical galaxy.

APOD: Mira

Mira, or Omicron Ceti of Cetus the Whale (an autumn constellation), is an 11-month variable star 420 light-years away. Astronomer David Fabricus first discovered Mira as a new type of cool, pulsating, red giant. Mira A can become 100 times brighter than "normal" and is 700 times the diameter of our sun. Mira A siphons off its mass to its orbiting companion white dwarf. The White Dwarf's accretion disk is so hot it produces x-rays. The Chandra Observatory took this cool x-ray image.
Check out more about Omicron Ceti

APOD: The Eagle Nebula

This picture is the Hubble's 1995 image of the Eagle Nebula and M16, an open cluster in the background, in Serpens near an inner arm of our Spiral Milky Way. It is a tribute to the fifteenth aniversary since the Hubble was launched.
M16 is a open cluster with lots of young O stars. It is about 5.5 million years old and 7,000 light years away. M16 formed from the Eagle Nebula. Interestingly, the newly formed O stars interacts with the molecular hydrogen and gas and causes the emission nebula to shine. Evaporating Gas Globules, EGGs, are dense pockets of interstellar gas and dust emerging from the pillars. The pillars are light years in length and are rich places of star formation because the pillars are gravitationally contracting. Near the end of the pillars young stars boil away the low density ISM and expose more EGGs. See The Eagle Nebula and M16

APOD: Saturn's Rings and Moon

Cassini revealed a cool snapshot of Saturn's rings and the small moon, Enceladus. Rings are seen edge-on and in Saturn's shadow. The A ring is closest to the moon. The large Cassini gap, really small because its sideways, is in between the gray A and the B rings. The darker C ring has the Titan gap and a smaller unnamed gap. Enceladus was 1 million km away from Cassini, and is 500 km across. It is an icy planet with craters, smooth planes, and rivers.
Check out more about Saturn and Enceladus

APOD: The Crescent Moon and the Pleiades

This neat picture shows the Pleiades in Taurus, M45, next to the April Crescent Moon, just 3 days old. You can easily see the Seven Sisters and some fainter and smaller stars on the right. The bluish tint from the surrounding emission nebula is washed out by the moonlight. The best thing about this picture is seeing the rugged surface of the Moon between the boundary of lunar night and day. The terminator line shows the ruff edges of craters. We can still see features on the darker part of the moon because of the earthshine, light our planet Earth receives from the Sun and reflects on the moon. Come see The Moon and The Pleiades for more!