APOD 3.7

February 27, 2014

Venus now appears as our planet's morning star above the horizon before dawn. The lunar crescent passed in front of Venus in West Africa during the sunrise. This image was captured right before the occultation began under the skies of Yunnan Province. This is easily visible to the naked eye in the Earth's sky. This looks very awesome because it looks as if the moon looks incredibly large in comparison to Venus and the Moon covers Venus in some parts of the Earth sky.

Q3 Astronomer Sources: James H. Jeans

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/302187/Sir-James-Jeans

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Jeans.html

http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/people/jeans-sir-james-hopwood.html

http://biography.yourdictionary.com/sir-james-hopwood-jeans

APOD 3.6

The long jet of the lighthouse nebula

Lighthouse nebula was formed by the wind of a pulsar, which is a magnetized neutron star. Energetic particles generated by the pulsar are swept back into the wind's tail that trails up to the left. This image was taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Both pulsar and expanding remnant debris field are the aftermath of the core-collapse-explosion of a massive star, with the pulsar moved out by the supernova explosion. This is really cool because it shows the image through an x-ray telescope and clearly shows what is going on in the picture.

APOD 3.5

IC 1805: Light From the Heart

 

 

 

 

Emission nebula IC 1805 is a mix of interstellar gas and dark dust clouds about 7500 light years away in the Perseus spiral arm. This region's nickname is the Heart Nebula, and derives its name from its heart shape. The clouds are shaped by stellar winds and radiation from massive hot stars in the star cluster Melotte 15. This image maps the light of narrow emission lines from the atoms in the nebula. The heart shape is really cool looking and pretty coincidental that this apod was put out on Valentine's Day.

APOD 3.4

February 5, 2014
NGC 2683: Edge-On Spiral Galaxy

The spiral galaxy NGC 2683 is very like our own Milky Way Galaxy. This galaxy lies 20 million light-years in the Lynx constellation. NGC 2683 is seen from data and images combined from the Subaru telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope. Other galaxies are littered throughout the background. The galactic core is blended light from a large amount of old yellow stars. The blue glow in the galaxy are young star clusters. This is a very interesting image because it is nearly identical to our own Milky Way Galaxy and just looks super cool.

APOD 3.3

January 30, 2014
Rocket Streak and Star Trails

These images were taken as a series of short exposures over a 3 hour period on January 23rd. This was very close to the Kennedy Space Center and captured a night launch of an Atlas V rocket carrying NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite TDRS-L. The apparent motion of the stars through the sky is just a reflection of the daily rotation of planet Earth on its axis. Launching toward the east in the direction of Earth's rotation, adds rotation velocity to the rocket. Its orbital period will match Earth's rotation and the satellite will be suspended in the sky. This is such an awesome image because it's just very vivid and shows the rotation velocity of the rocket.

APOD 3.2

Bright Supernova in M82

This image is of a supernova named SN 2014J in M82. Located near the Big Dipper in the Earth's sky, M82 is also known as the Cigar Galaxy. M82 is 12 million light-years away, making SN 2014J one of the closest supernovas to be seen in recent decades. It is a Type Ia supernova caused by the explosion of a white dward accreting matter from a close star. SN 2014J is the brightest part of M82 and visible in small telescopes in the evening. I really enjoy this image because I have never seen a supernova before and everything about this photo is just pleasing.