Q4 biography

Riccardo Giacconi was born in Genoa, Italy in 1931. He lived in Milano until the age of 24. His parents separated when he was eight years old. During the bombings of Milano during WWII, he was sent to live with his two aunts, where he discovered a love for reading. His schooling was erratic, and he was a troublemaker in his elementary days, but he eventually went directly from high school to the University of Milan and got a Phd in physics in only four years. He loved research, not lectures, and his thesis was about proton reactions in a cloud chamber. He then moved to America in 1956 to study with R.W. Thompson. After two years, he left Thompson and went to Princeton University to study mesons. After his fellowship ended, he went to American Science and Engineering to work as part of a 28 man team. At AS&E he worked on x-ray astronomy. In 1973 he decided that he loved astronomy. He became the first director of the Space Telescope Science Institute and made plans to open Hubble to amateur astronomers. He is still alive today.

APOD 4.5

This is a long exposure picture taken by a swinging camera. The swirl on the left is the alpha star in the constellation Leo, Regulus. The right one is the planet Mars. the reason Regulus' path varies in color and intensity is because atmospheric turbulence causes starlight to scintillate. This is commonly known as stars' twinkling. in the lower corners of the image, you can see the paths of two faint stars as well.

APOD 4.4

 

This picture is of an emission nebula in the constellation Auriga. The nebula is called IC 140. The nebula is 12,000 light years away. The two little squiggles in the upper left are called the Tadpoles, and the nebula is affectionately referred to as a pond.

Observation, Q4

I went outside the other night, as usual, but this particular time, I brought my star charts. I noticed that the star I actually thought was Spica wasn't Spica. It was actually Saturn. I was amazed. Now I can perfectly identify Virgo, Spica, and Saturn.

APOD 4.3

This picture is what the night sky would look like if we could see the radio waves being emitted by a black hole in the Centaurus A galaxy. The waves are invisible to the human eye, but their distribution covers a huge area of the sky. The galaxy is located in the constellation Centaurus. The dots in the background represent not stars, but rather x-ray emitting galaxies.

Zooniverse

I have been spending 2 hours a week recording the weather charts from old ships. I have also dabbled in the star classification project, but mostly I just do the weather one.

APOD 4.2

This is an image of Earth taken from the International Space Station in 2003. This is what Earth might have looked like to Yuri Gagarin, who was the first person in space almost exactly fifty years ago. On April 12, 1961 he was launched. He was a soviet hero, but unfortunately, he died in a plane crash only seven years later. The first Us launched space shuttle also launched on an April12. it launched in 1981, twenty years after Gagarin, and thirty years ago.

Zooniverse

I have been recording date from old weather reports made by British ship captains during WWII. It is fun, and I can track the ships as they travel and note important changes in the weather. I have also analyzed stars' light curves to try and identify planets.

APOD 4.1

This is a picture of Mars. The huge canyon in the center is Valles Marineris. It is 3,000 kilometers long, and up to 600 kilometers wide. It gets up to 8 kilometers deep. We're not sure what caused the canyon to form, but some people think that it formed from a huge crack in the planet's cooling surface.

Observation

I looked up and was able to see Leo, with the stars Regulus and Denebola. I can't wait for Spring, because a lot of cool constellations are in Spring. I'm particularly excited for Virgo and Libra, since I love the names of Libra's stars, and Spica is a cool name too. I was also able to see Hydra and Corvus. I also saw the Winter stars; Sirius, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Capella, Castor, Procyon, Pollux.

Observation

I went outside and looked up. I saw all my favorite constellations; Orion, Canis Major, Auriga, Taurus, Gemini. And I tried to see the Crab Nebula, but I couldn't. I guess I need a telescope. And perhaps to get farther away from the city.

APOD 3.8

This picture shows the planet Saturn. The northern hemisphere is ringed with a hazy green band that is, in fact, a storm. Affectionately known as the Serpent Storm, it originated in late 2010, and now goes around the entire planet. Gas giants are plagued by storms, spawned from the hundreds of miles of volatile gasses and huge amounts of pressure.

APOD 3.7

This picture shows two arcs of light across the sky. They are the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle Discovery. The ISS is in low Earth orbit, and it reflects sunlight back. The Shuttle had just undocked from the ISS. Both objects can be seen from Earth without much trouble. The image shows the aths that the objects traced out across the sky.

APOD 3.6

This is a picture of the full moon over Alberta, Canada. The moon appears red because the blue light is preferentially scattered. The steam is caused by oil refineries, and it causes the moon to look squished.

Observation

The other night I went observing in my yard. I saw Orion, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Taurus, Auriga, Gemini, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Leo, and Hydra. I waited until Sirius was high in the sky, then looked directly south and saw Canopus. I went out last night, but it was cloudy.

Biography: Quarter 3

My biography is about James Hopwood Jeans. He was very cool, so sit back, fasten your seat belts and get ready for one wild ride!

James Jeans was born in Ormskirk, England, a small town in Lancashire near Liverpool. He was very well educated, because he went to  Merchant Taylor's School, Wilson's Crammer School, and Cambridge University. He was a professor at Cambridge and Princeton. He lectured at Oxford and worked at the Mt. Wilson Observatory. Jeans came up with a theory about all the planets forming from solar debris that was knocked off the sun during a collision. This theory is not believed by anyone anymore, though. Jeans and another scientist, Arthur Eddington, founded British cosmology. Their theory is also not believed anymore, since the Big Bang has become accepted. Jeans was also a mathematician, and he wrote many math related books. During the first decade of the twentieth century, Jeans established his reputation as a scientist in the field of relativity. In 1907, Jeans married Charlotte Mitchell, an American poet. Jeans' theory about the creation of the solar system is called the Tidal Theory. After the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925, Jeans began to see the universe as a mental construct. Jean's most critical development in astronomy, however, was the Jeans Length.  It was used, in combination with the size and density, to determine whether an interstellar cloud would be able to condense into a star or not. In 1945, he married an Australian musician, Suzanne Hock. He died on the 16th of September, 1946, at the age of 69.

APOD 3.5

This picture is of the supernova remnant Simeis 147. Supernovae are when large-mass stars die. Remnants are what is left over after the supernova is finished. In this particular remnant, however, there is a pulsar left over within. Pulsars are very compact stars that shoot beams of radio waves from their magnetic poles. As the star spins, we see the radio light flashing, and the star seems to pulse, hence the name.

APOD 3.4

This is a picture of the constellation Orion. All the stars have been stretched out far to show their colors. All of the stars are blue besides Betelgeuse. That's because Betelgeuse is a red giant star, and all the others aren't. Rigel is the most white, because it is a blue supergiant. Red stars are the coolest, and blue stars are hotter.

APOD 3.3

In this picture, the star Zeta Ophiuchi is seen in the center. The star was flung out, possibly by a companion star that went supernova. it is rushing forward at 24 kilometers per second. The yellow and red streak of dust is being pushed forward ahead of the moving star by the solar wind. This star is an O9 III specral type, and has an absolute magnitude of -3.2, meaning it would be a very bright star, if it's light wasn't obstructed by gases.

APOD 3.2

 

This image was taken in Antarctica in 2003. Two photographers traveled to the bottom of the world to see the complete solar eclipse. The image is a composite image to recreate what the human eye would have seen. The corona extends out beyond the shadow of the moon. To the right of the other photographer is an equipment bad and a collapsible chair. Some people really like eclipses.

APOD 3.1

This image is a time exposure of the sky during the Quadrantid Meteor Shower. The cistern structure lies above the buried Persian city of Qumis, known to the ancient Greeks as Hecatompylos. There are actually only two meteors in this picture, they go against the light trails of the stars, the brightest of which is actually not a star, but the planet Saturn. Time exposures are when the film is left to capture an image for an extended amount of time, and that's why the stars appear to move.

Sol

This image of the Sun is composed of four different layers of ultraviolet light.

This is a picture of God holding the Sun shortly after it's creation. Circa 5,000,000,000 BC.

This picture is a composite image taken at ultraviolet wavelengths from 171-284 Ångstroms

This is a picture of a coronal mass ejection taken in the x-ray wavelength.

Another image of the Sun taken in the x-ray spectrum.

This gif shows a coronal mass ejection with the sun blocked out (represented by the smaller circle).

Observation (December-January)

I've been observing every night, weather allowing, and I've come to love the winter sky. I think that the Winter Hexagon (Sirius, Betelgeuse, Procyon, Castor, Pollux, Capella, and Aldebaran) is the coolest part of the sky, and I look at it all the time. The fall sky is kind of boring, but Pegasus and Aries are cool. Cassiopeia and Perseus are cool, but where I moved to is too bright at night to see Cepheus or Camelopardalis. Anyway, stars are cool, so tune in next time for more observations! :D