Night Sky Observation (Moon Illusion)

On Thursday, June 7, 2012, I went outside so that I could observe the Moon.  I checked beforehand online as to when the Moon was supposed to start rising, which was at 11:11 PM.  By the time that I saw the Moon it was 11:23 PM.  It had a  coloring to it.  It took up 7 lines on the Moon ruler.  The altitude of the Moon was extremely small, roughly around 3-4 degrees.


Below is a drawing of what the Moon looked like the first time and second time that I observed it.  I'm so sorry for my drawing though, I'm a horrible artist, but at least I tried!

I then went out a few hour later repeated the observation that same night (technically on June 8, 2012, because it was after midnight, but pretty much the same thing).  I went out at around 1:47 AM.  The Moon had a  coloring to it.  It took up 8 lines on the Moon ruler.  Lastly, it had a much larger altitude at this time, being about 25-26 degrees.


Below is a drawing of what the Moon looked like the second time I observed it.

The Search for Life Beyond Earth

Another podcast that I recently listened to was about life beyond Earth.  The podcast, from Space Boffins, was simply entitled, "Podcast4".  The podcast was about the search for life on Mars, Venus, Titan, and Enceladus.  The podcast was also about why this search for life beyond Earth matters. 

I found this article both interesting and educational.  It was interesting, because everyone does wonder if there is life on other planets out there.  It was also very educational, because they discussed every planet (listed above) and talked about their conditions.

Below is a link to the podcast:

http://audioboo.fm/boos/519698-space-boffins-podcast4#t=1m51s

Concept Map on Chapter 8

So I wanted to do a concept map for the last chapter, however I couldn't find a place to make one online, so I just made handmade one.  I hope it's not too horrible!

Can Trash Convert to Energy?

After one of our discussions during class the one day about all of environmental issues that are present today, I started to look at podcasts talking about this matter.  I found a blog entitled, "Euro Trash Powers Sweden ".  This article is about how Sweden is taking all of their trash and converting it into energy and providing electricity  to thousands and thousands of households.


I found this article both interesting and educating.  Their program is too successful that they have run out of all of the trash in their country, and now have to import trash from other countries to keep the energy going.


The link for the podcast is below:


http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.html?programID=12-P13-00025

The Solar System

I looked at a couple different videos on YouTube about the Solar System, and the one that I chose to post was "The Solar System - Space School".  I really liked this video because it was short, sweet, and to the point along with it interesting and educational.  The video explains all of the planets in the Solar System, Dwarf planets, the Kaiper Belt, and most importantly why Pluto was denounced its planet title, 


Below is the link for the video.


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_RAEESmsrs

Earth Shadow and Belt of Venus

On Tuesday, June 26, 2012, I went outside around 5:13 AM and began to observe the Earth's shadow and the Belt of Venus.  The picture below shows the Earth's shadow (the blue-grey band) just before it disappeared below the horizon.  It disappeared around roughly 5:28  AM.  The Earth's shadow had a altitude of around 3-5 degrees before disappearing.

The picture below shows the Belt of Venus (the band of pink that is on top of the Earth shadow) a few minutes before it disappeared from the horizon.  The belt disappeared roughly around 6:01 AM.  In my opinion, the altitude of the belt was around approximately 7-10 degrees.

As you can see from the pictures, the atmospheric conditions during my observation were very good.  It was very clear, with little to no clouds in the sky.  It was around 54 degrees so it was a little chillier that it has been.

For what I witnessed, this phenomena lasted approximately  47 minutes.

Quiz on Chapter 1

1.  How many regions (constellations) is the sky divided into?

     A.  88

     B.  64

     C.  33

     D.  121

2.  True of False: The Earth rotates around an axis from the north pole to the south pole once a day?

3.  Why do we have seasons? (Bonus Question: How many degrees is it away from the perpendicular?)

4.  When are the two times that both days and nights are 12 hours long all over the world?

     A.  December 21 and June 21

     B.  March 21 and September 22

     C.  September 22 and June 21

     D.  December 21 and March 21

5.  How long does it take for the Moon make a complete orbit?

     A.  1 year

     B.  10 weeks

     C.  4 weeks

     D.  2 years

6.  In chronological order, list the Moon's phases.

      A.  New moon, waning crescent moon, first quarter moon, waning gibbous moon, full moon, waxing gibbous moon, third quarter moon, and waxing crescent moon.

     B.  New moon, waxing gibbous moon, first quarter moon, waxing crescent moon, full moon, waning crescent moon, third quarter moon, and waning gibbous moon.

     C.  New moon, waning gibbous moon, first quarter moon, waxing gibbous moon, full moon, waning crescent moon, third quarter moon, and waning crescent moon.

     D.  New moon, waxing crescent moon, first quarter moon, waxing gibbous moon, full moon, waning gibbous moon, third quarter moon, and waning crescent moon.

7.  What is the differences between a sidereal month and a synodic month?

8.  What is a lunar eclipse and when do they occur?

9.  What is a solar eclipse?

10.  Why isn't there an eclipse ever month?

Answers to Questions

1.  A

2.  True.

3.  Tilt. 23 1/2 degrees. 

4.  B

5.  C

6.  D

7.  A sidereal month is the amount of time it takes for the Moon to complete one full orbit of the Earth and is measured in respect to the stars.  A synodic month is the amount of time it takes the Moon to complete one cycle of phases and is measured in respect to the Sun.

8.  When the Moon passes through the Earth's shadow, and when the Moon is full.

9.  When the Earth passes through the Moon's shadow.

10.  Because the orbit is tilted and not in line.

Zooniverse Observations and Summary

When I first went into Zooniverse, I looked around at a couple different programs, until I finally decided to take part of the Galaxy Zoo program.  This program shows and helps us understand how galaxies form, and how to classify them according to their shapes.  This program helped me classify 36 different galaxies.


Overall, this program taught me that galaxies are classified based upon their shape (smooth, features or disks, or star or artifact).  After you classify what shape it is, you then have to classify the following: how round it is, if the disk is edge-on, the center bulges and how prominent they are, number of spiral arms and how tightly wound they are, if it has bars, if there is anything odd, if it has a mostly clumpy appearance and the arrangement of how many clumps there are, if one clump is brighter than the other and central to the galaxy, if the clumps are embedded with a larger object, and its symmetry.

The Big Bang Theory

I recently read an article about the Big Bang Theory.  The article, entitled, "Big Bang, Beginning of the Universe", discusses the big bang theory and how it was theorized.  The article states how the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old.  Galaxies, including our own, have been receding away from one another.

In 1929, Edwin Hubble was an American astronomer who discovered that the galaxies all around us were receding. Hubble hypothesized that the further the galaxy was, the faster its recession was from Earth. Because of him and this theory, we have the Hubble Constant (v/d), which is an equation that is used to figure out how far galaxies were from one another.

Below is a link to the article:
http://www.astronomytoday.com/cosmology/bigbang.html

End of the Universe?

I currently read an article about the end of the universe.  The article, which was entitled "The End of the Universe", was about, well...the end of the universe.  More specifically, it was about how the universe was going to end; either with a big bang, or a big crunch.  The article then goes on to state that the universe is going to keep expanding, until it begins a cold, dark, lifeless place.

The article then explains that if "The Big Crunch" never happens, then the Universe is predicted to keep expanding into a diffuse, dark nothingness.  Planets will detach from the universe and evaporate.  Protons are going to decay, all of the stars are going to run out of their fuel, and eventually all be engulfed into black holes.

Below is a link for the article:
http://www.astronomytoday.com/cosmology/universe.html

Night Sky Observations (Color of Stars)

On Saturday, June 16, 2012, I went outside and looked at the stars.  I went outside around 9:45 PM and I saw ten different stars.  For the thirty minutes that I was outside, I did not see the moon at all. I used an app on my boyfriend's phone, Google Sky Map, to classify which stars were which.

The first star that I saw was at 9:53, and it was Polaris.  Polaris was the easiest star to find, and I thought that it looked blue-white.  The second star that I saw was at 9:58, and it was Dabhe.  I thought that it looked yellow-white as well.  I saw the third star at 9:59, and it was Merak.  I thought that it looked light yellow.  Entamin was the fourth star that I saw, at 10:01, and it looked light red.  The fifth star was Aldermin.  When I saw it at 10:03, it looked light blue.

The sixth star that I saw was at 10:05, and it was Phad.  I thought that it was looking more white.  The seventh star that I saw, Caph, was at 10:07.  I thought that this star looked yellow-white.  I saw the eighth star, Capella, at 10:09.  The ninth star that I saw, Alnath, was at 10:13.  This star looked blue-white to me.  The last star that I star was at 10:16.  The last star was Alkaid, and I thought that it looked blue.

The stars that were the brightest were the yellow and white ones.  I feel like these were the brightest, because they have a lot of mass and fuel to burn.

The stars that were the hardest to see was the orange and red ones.  I feel like these were the hardest to see, because to me, all of the stars looked more on the whiteish and yellowish side.

The star that was the least brightest was the Phad.

Venus Transit

So on Tuesday, June 5, 2012, our Astronomy class took a trip to the Boyertown Planetarium to the Venus Transit.  Unfortunately for us, along with everyone else that excitedly waited to see this event, we did not get to see it.  Due to the fact that it was mostly cloudy and overcast all day, we did not get the chance to see this irregular event.  I did happen to take some pictures of the process of trying to capture this rare event.  Below, there are pictures of Dr. Detterline setting up his telescope, us waiting for the sky to clear up, and the sky on our trip back to Kutztown.  

I recently downloaded an app on my iPhone called APOD.  This is an application where you can view different pictures of space, from different locations.  APOD, which stands for Astronomy Picture of the Day, is a project from NASA, and it contains the largest collection of astronomical pictures on the internet.  I downloaded this application about a week ago, and I have at least glanced through a couple of pictures every day, just to see what the new picture of the day was going to be.  I like this application, because I think that it is interesting that no matter where you are, you can see a different picture of space at any time of the day, from any place.  


Since the pictures are all real pictures that are taken through Hubble and other satellites, this app has helped me to further understand what some galaxies, stars, constellations, and planets look like.


Also, this app was able to show me a picture of the Venus Transit, which I unfortunately was not able to see because of the weather.

Below are pictures from the application.

Quiz on Chapters 2 and 10


1.  How fast does light travel?
     A.  1,000,000 km/s
     B.  300,000 km/s
     C.  555,000 km/s
     D.  75,000 km/s


2.  What is a frequency?
   A.  The most typical kind of wavelength.
   B.  The Crests of a wave.
   C.  Total number of vibrations per unit time.
   D.  Both B and C.
   E.  None of the above.


3.  True or False: Gamma rays are the most dangerous form of radiation?


4.  What is luminosity?
    A.  How bright a star is.
    B.  The total amount of a star's energy.
    C.  The rate of electromagnetic radiation that is produced by a star.
    D.  All of the above.


5.  Which radiation is visible?
    A.  Infrared.
    B.  Ultraviolet.
    C.  Gamma.
    D.  All of the above.
    E.  None of the above.


6. True or False: When viewing through an eyepiece lens, you see things upside down?


7.  Which star is hotter, a red star or a blue star?


8.   What are spectral classes?


9.    What is the sequence of spectral classes, from hottest to coolest?
    A.  MKGFABO
    B.  ABFGKMO
    C.  OBAFGMK
    D.  OMKGFBA


10.  How can a star's distance be determined?


Key:
1.  B
2.  D
3.  True 
4.  D
5.  A
6.  True
7.  Blue star.
8.  Stars that are classified by the appearance of their spectra..  
9.  C
10.  By comparing both its brightness and luminosity.