Horse head and Orion Nebulas APOD

Both of these nebulas, the Horsehead Nebula and the Orion Nebula lay within the extremely constilation Orion. The Horsehead Nebula is the one on the lower left corner witht the Orion Nebula in the upper right corner.

 

This picture was taken in Siville, Southern Spain on October 5th. The picture was taken within the time span of two hours using a long exposure shot. 

NGC 7841, known as the Smoke Nebula, is found in the modern constellation of Frustriaus, the frustrated astrophotographer. Only a few light-nanoseconds from planet Earth, The Smoke Nebula is not an expanding supernova remnant along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, though it does look a lot like one; instead it was created by flash photography of rising smoke. A single exposure and three external flashes were triggered to capture the not-quite-cosmic snapshot.

Observations

Date: October 18th, 2013

Time:  8:00-10:30 PM

Place: 3618 Peck St.

Sky Conditions: Kind of cloudy but some stars and other astronomical objects still visible

Instruments Used: Binoculars (7X50) 297FT at 1000 YDS coated optics Vistar/ Ipod app Sky Guide

Planets: Venus was clearly visible more in the North and set about 2 hours after Sunset which was at 7:00 PM and was seen partially in Scorpios next to Antares. Uranus was also seen by Pisces close to the moon.

Bright Stars noted: Vega, Deneb, Altair,( the summer triangle) in the western part of the sky, Antares, Polaris.

Constellations noted: Lyra, Cygnus, Aquila, Scorpius, Andromeda, and Cassiopeia.

Binary Stars: Beta Cygni, epsilon Lyrae

Deep Sky Objects: The Andromeda Galaxy

Other:

The Milky Way was seen in Scorpius, Sagittarius, Cassiopeia, Aquila, and Cygnus.

APOD The Porpoise Galaxy

A few hundred million years ago, NGC 2936, the upper of the two large galaxies shown, was likely a normal spiral galaxy; spinning, creating stars, and minding its own business. But then it got too close to the massive elliptical galaxy NGC 2937 below and took a dive. Dubbed the Porpoise Galaxy for its iconic shape, NGC 2936 is not only being deflected but also being distorted by the close gravitational interaction. A burst of young blue stars forms the nose of the porpoise toward the left of the upper galaxy, while the center of the spiral appears as an eye. Alternatively, the galaxy pair, together known as Arp 142, look to some like a penguin protecting an egg. Either way, intricate dark dust lanes and bright blue star streams trail the troubled galaxy to the lower right. The above recently-released image showing Arp 142 in unprecedented detail was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope last year. Arp 142 lies about 300 million light years away toward the constellation, coincidently, of the Water Snake (Hydra). In a billion years or so the two galaxies will likely merge into one larger galaxy.

Tycho Brahe Biography

Tycho Brahe

            Tycho Brahe, a famous Danish astronomer who was born on December 15^th, 1546 in Scania Denmark now a day Sweden- and died on October 24^th, 1601 in Prague.  Tycho Brahe was born with the name Tycho Ottesen Brahe; he was born in a noble family and was very well respected.  Tycho Brahe was born into a rather large family with a twin who died at birth.  His uncle, took him away from his biological family (well with his OTHER biological family, not his direct family but still family) and raised him as his own, in accordance to a deal that had been struck with Tycho’ s parents. He was raised to be a scholar by his foster/step parents, and was already studying law at the University of Coperhagen when he was only 12 years old, but it was astronomy and solar eclipses that had caught his eye.  As a young man Tycho Brahe lost his nose in a duel with Manderup Parsburg who aslo happened to be his 3^rd cousin, the dispute wass over a simple math problem, which led to him wearing a prosthetic fake gold nose.  Having been a man of great social standings it was known that Mr. Brahe was quite the Party animal, constantly throwing gargantuan parties and getting his PET HOUSE TRAINED MOOSE drunk.

            Tycho Brahe was the last of the Great Astronomers who worked with the naked-eye, creating the most precise instruments the world has ever known without the aid of scopes or tools that zoom in.  On November 11th 1572 Tycho Brahe discovered a super nova that had appeared in the constellation Cassiopeia, he came to the conclusion that it was much farther away from the Earth than the Moon as it lacked in a parallax unlike the Moon.  Tycho Brahe was well renown for his observations of astronomical objects in large variety, and was praised for his precise predictions and the quantity of things he observed.  Tycho's observations were so precise that they were said to be within one arcminute, while not completely true it was the reputation that inspired such tales.  While Tycho Brahe had not believed in a Heliocentric model of the universe and was not a Copernican he did propose a Geo-heliocentric model in which the the Sun and the Moon revolved around the Earth and the rest of the planets revolving around the Sun, a completely wrong model of the universe despite his incredible observations. His model of the universe was most likely  influenced by the idea that if he HAD proposed a heliocentric model then he probably would've been prosecuted and killed for saying all things didn't revolve around the Earth, which would've contradicted what the church said to be true.

               Tycho left behind more than just money and power when he passed away from kidney failure after having to "hold it in" too long at a party held by the king Prague, he also passed on his legacy. Kepler Tycho's assistant used Tycho's records on the path of Mars to create his 3 planetary laws of motion, which went on to change the world.  

SOURCES

Unknown, . N.p.. Web. 21 Oct 2013. <http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/brahe.html>.

Reynolds , Morgan. Tycho Brahe: Mapping the Heavens. 2003. Print.

APOD Iris Nebula

The Iris Nebula, Cataloged as the NGC 7023  Nebula inspires the thought of beautiful flowers from it's incredible pattern. The Nebula is about 1,300 light years away in the star fields of the Cepheus Constellation. The blue color indicates the star's impressive temperatures and it can be presumed that a fair amount of ultraviolet is also being emitted from the celestial object.

Observations

Date: October 17th, 2013

Time:  6:30-12:00 PM

Place: 3618 Peck St.

Sky Conditions: Kind of cloudy but some stars and other astronomical objects still visible

Instruments Used: Binoculars (7X50) 297FT at 1000 YDS coated optics Vistar

Planets: Venus was clearly visible more in the North and set about 2 hours after Sunset which was at 7:00 PM and was seen partially in Scorpios next to Antares. Uranus was also seen by Pisces close to the moon.

Bright Stars noted: Vega, Deneb, Altair,( the summer triangle) in the western part of the sky, Antares, Polaris.

Constellations noted: Lyra, Cygnus, Aquila, Scorpius, Cassiopeia, Piscs, and Hercules.

Binary Stars: Beta Cygni (didnt see any colors), epsilon Lyrae(any special characteristics noted)

Deep Sky Objects: M13 (globular cluster in Hercules) and the Andromada Galaxy

Other:

The Milky Way was seen in Scorpius, Sagittarius, Cassiopeia, Aquila, and Cygnus.

Star Forming Region NGC 3582

This NGC 3582 nebula, it is a breeding ground for new stars. Astronomers have found at least 33 new stars towards the end of the procces of being created.

Lunar Eclipses

THIS IS THE SCHIST!!!!!!!!!

This is a test....

The Crab Nebula from VLT