Zooniverse

This week, I classified clouds in the "Cloud" activity for a total of 4 hours in class.

APOD 4.5

April 24 2013 Wringing a Wet Towel in Orbit

    Aboard Expedition 35, CHris Hadfield performed an experiment to see what would happen if he attempted to wring out a towel in space.  Of course, there is no gravity aboard the space craft so the water does not simply fall to the floor as it would on Earth.  Rather, the high surface tension on the towel causes the water to coagulate on the surface and form a sort of bubble around both the towel and Hadfield's hands.  The gravity aboard the mission is not actually zero but is very small and is referred to as microgravity.  The phenomena which causes the water to stay on the surface of the towel is similar to that which creates raindrops on Earth.

APOD 4.4

April 22nd 2013 The Horsehead Nebula in Infrared from Hubble

    Stellar winds in space have coagulated dust into a cloud recognizable as a horse's head.  The Horsehead Nebula is located in the constellation Orion and contains M42, the Orion Nebula, within in.  The Horsehead Nebula is a dark emission nebula and was discovered in 1888 by Williamina Fleming at Harvard University.  It is about 1500 light years away from us and the pink visible in the nebula is the result of hydrogen gas from the close-by star Sigma Orionis.  This image uses the infrared and was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.  In the far future, this nebula will be destroyed by the starlight which contains high amounts of energy.

    

Observation from Astronomy Night

    At Astronomy Night on March 30th, we observed many constellations in addition to satellites and M objects.  The easiest constellation to identify was Orion which was clearly visible even early in the evening. We also looked at Ursa Major, Gemini, Taurus, Canis Major and Minor, and Leo among others.

    During the night, we saw the International Space Station pass overhead.  I was able to locate it through binoculars and watch its movement as well as with the naked eye.  It appeared as a bright point moving across the sky.
    I helped to operate one of the large telescopes and pointed it at M 36, M 37, and M 38 in the constellation Auriga. All three of these appear to be open clusters.  We also attempted to view the Pleiades through the telescope but were not able to in its entirety because of the magnification of the telescope.
    We located the planet Jupiter and were able to see surface features through each telescope.

    Luckily, it was a pretty clear night in terms of clouds but there was a lot of light pollution from Sarasota and some constellations were hard to see because of the lack of darkness in that area of the sky.

These observations total 4 hours.

APOD 4.3

NGC 3132: The Southern Ring Nebula

NGC 3132 is a planetary nebula also called the Eight-Burst Nebula.  It is located in the constellation Vela.  It is about 2,000 light-years away.  The gas pictured originated in a star similar to the sun.  This nebula is intriguing to astronomers because it is asymmetrical.  The differences in structure which are clearly visible are not understood by scientists.  It has dust lanes which are cool filaments.  This is part of a binary system and the gas is remnants from the outer layer of a star.   

    

APOD 4.2

Flying Over Earth at Night: March 31 2013

    This APOD posting is a video taken using the International Space Station (ISS).  Music credit goes to the Freedom Fighters, whose song "Two Steps from Hell" is featured in the video.  Clouds, land masses, and oceans can clearly be seen, dotted with city lights and frequent lightning flashes.  It is interesting to note that the W coast of Florida is particularly bright compared to other areas with the highest concentration of light pollution seen from the Tampa and Sarasota area.  The atmosphere is seen as a "golden haze" along the top of the Earth.  Also, green and red auroras can be seen throughout the film.  The ending of the video features the increasing sunlight at dawn.