APOD 4.6

This weeks photo was taken in Chile last October and shows a faint glow which is the gegenschein. Gegenschein is a faint brightening of the night sky in the region of the ecliptic directly opposite the Sun. The gegenschein is so faint that it cannot be seen if there is any moonlight or light pollution, or if it falls in the vicinity of the Milky Way. The orientation of the ecliptic at this time of year makes it a favorable time for trying to view optical phenomena associated with dust in the plane of the planets. The zodiacal light and the gegenschein which is German for counter-glow, often easily viewed in the tropics, are seen in the morning sky for our latitude in September and October. Also visible in the background is the Andromeda galaxy in the lower left as well as the Pleiades. During the day, a phenomenon similar to the gegenschein called the glory can be seen in reflecting air or clouds opposite the Sun from an airplane.

APOD 4.5

This is a photo of specifically Messier 86 which is one of the brightest galaxies of the Virgo Cluster Galaxies, and is situated close to the cluster's center. With well over a thousand members, the Virgo Cluster is the closest large cluster of galaxies. On average the cluster galaxies are measured to be about 50 million light-years away. M86 was discovered and cataloged by Charles Messier on March 18, 1781 when he also cataloged 7 more nebulous objects in the same region of the sky. This bright giant galaxy is either an elliptical of type E3 or a lenticular galaxy of type S01. M86 is the galaxy which has the fastest approaching velocity, and thus the highest blue shift, of all Messier galaxies.

APOD 3.4

Stickney crater is the largest crater on Phobos, which is a satellite of Mars. It is located at 5°S 55°W on Phobos and is 9 km in diameter, taking up a substantial proportion of the moon's surface. It is named after Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, wife of Phobos's discoverer, Asaph Hall. It has a smaller, unnamed crater within it, resulting from a later impact. Grooves and crater chains appear to radiate from Stickney, and had led to theories that the impact that formed it nearly destroyed the moon. It is possible that Stickney is large enough to be seen with the naked eye from the surface of Mars. It is located at the middle of the left edge of Phobos's face, on the Mars-facing side. This incredible picture of Stickney was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it passed within six thousand kilometers of Phobos last month.

APOD 4.3

This week's astronomy picture is of Jules Verne European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle. It was used for the first time on April 25th to raise the orbit of the International Space Station. A 740-second burn of the Automated Transfer Vehicle's main engines successfully lifted the altitude of the 280 ton station by around 4.5 km to a height of 342 km above the Earth's surface. The ATV was named after Jules a French author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days. Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before navigable aircraft and practical submarines were invented, and before any means of space travel had been devised. Using a laser guided rendezvous system, the Jules Verne docked smoothly and safely with the orbiting station on Thursday, delivering 7,500 pounds of equipment, supplies, and fuel.

APOD 4.2

This weeks APOD is titled Across the Universe (aka best movie ever!) and is a picture of a cosmic explosion classified as GRB080319B and detected by the Swift satellite. The source of the flash is estimated to be over 7.5 billion light years away, an unfathomable distance, and is 2.5 million times more luminous than the brightest supernova we know of. Obviously this is incredibly important discovery, and by observing the optical emission during the gamma ray burst, which usually last less than 2 minutes, we c an begin to understand the mechanism releasing enormous amount of energy. It is commonly believed that in the case of GRB longer than 2 s the phenomenon is caused by a collape of a massive star ending with a formation of a black hole. However, the details of the process still remain uncertain.

APOD 4.1

This weeks APOD is a reprocessed picture of the Cat's Eye Nebula taken by the Hubble Space Craft. It is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Draco. Structurally, it is one of the most complex nebulae known, with observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope revealing remarkable structures such as knots, jets and sinewy arc-like features. It is a sun like planet and scientiists believe our sun to follow the same phases in about 5 billion years. It was discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786, and was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by the English amateur astronomer William Huggins in 1864. The intricacy of the structure may be caused in part by material ejected from a binary central star, but as yet, there is no direct evidence that the central star has a companion. The remake image focuses on sharpening the visiblility of details in light and dark areas of the nebula.

Observation 3.2

Date: March 7, 2008
Time: 8:45-10:40
Place: Near the Sarasota square mall
Sky conditions: Pretty clear, only a few clouds

Bright Stars: Betelgeuse, Rigel, Sirius, Castor, Pollux, Capella

Constellations: Orion, Ursa Major, Gemini, Auriga

Planets: Saturn was a yellowish looking star in Leo and Mars was an orangish color and looked like a star above the constellation Orion.

Other: The Big Dipper was visible in Ursa Major. The moon however was no visible. Orion's Belt was also easily spotted in the constellation of Orion.