apod 3.8

This photo shows a double eclipse of the sun.  Last Friday was noteworthy because part of the Earth was treated to a rare total eclipse of the Sun. But also on Friday, from a part of the Earth that only saw part of the Sun eclipsed, a second object appeared simultaneously in front of the Sun (International Space Station). Which only occured for .6 seconds. It looks at if the moon has some sort of cool tattoo.

apod 3.7

This weeks APOD is titled The Heart and Soul Nebulas. There are two bright emission nebulas known as Heart and Soul. Both of these bright nebulas shine in the red light from the hydrogen. Light takes roughly 6,000 years to reach the nebulas. Stars and clusters such as these nebulas have been studied by their size and form. These nebulas also affect their environment. The heart nebulas specifically has a heart shape if you look close enough. 

apod 3.6

This weeks APOD is titled The Cosmic Web of the Tarantula Nebula. This star forming region is known as the largest in all of the galactic neighborhood. This can be found in the Large Magellanic Cloud. As you can see from the picture, it has a spidery image which is how it got the name of the Tarantula Nebula. It is roughly 1,000 light-years across and it's arms are actually surrounded by NGC 2070. This is a star cluster that has large stars that are extremely bright.

Asaph Hall Biography

Asaph Hall Biography

          Asaph Hall was born in Goshen, Connecticut. His family was poor and Hall attended local schools and was partly educated by his father. He seems to have enrolled in College in 1853 to study geometry and algebra, but is it unclear whether he completed his degree. He taught in a Wisconsin school for several years before entering Michigan University, where he only completed one trimester. After a brief teaching post in Ohio, Hall became a student at Harvard.

Hall married Angeline Stickney in 1656 and, one year later he took up the post of an assistant astronomer at Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hall made a name for himself as an expert in working out orbits. In 1862 he made the move to the US Naval Observatory at Foggy Bottom, on the banks of the Potomac River, near Washington D.C. Although he started as an assistant astronomer he was made a full professor within twelve months. He was awarded the rank of captain and taught mathematics at the Naval College.

         Hall led many astronomical expeditions over the next twelve years. He was based in the Bering Sea (1869) and in Sicily (1870) for the solar eclipses. He observed the transits of Venus from Vladivostok (1874) and San Antonio, Texas (1882). Back at the Naval Observatory, he was in charge of the largest refracting telescope in the World at the time. He noticed a “spot” on Saturn that allowed him to work out the planet’s rotation time. He also studied the orbit of Saturn’s moon, Hyperion, and recognised that it was a retrograde orbit.
          In 1877, Hall had been looking for satellites orbiting Mars for some time and he was ready to give up his quest. It was his wife who convinced him to keep looking. The very same night he saw what could have been taken to be a faint star near Mars. Hall realized that this was, in fact, a moon. One week later he discovered a second moon, closer to Mars but brighter than the other moonusing what was then the world's largest refracting telescope. At the suggestion of Henry Madan, the science master at Eton College in England, Hall named these moons Phobos and Demos (meaning literally, fear and terror), each about 18 miles in diameter. Hall received accolades from Nature and Scientific American, the Royal Astronomical Society's Gold Medal, and he was named the Naval Observatory's Professor of Mathematics by President Abraham Lincoln. He also traveled to Vladivostok, Russia in 1874 and San Antonio, Texas in 1882 to observe two transits of Venus. Though often asked, Hall refused to ever write a book.

Planetary Nebulae

the dumbell nebula m27, in the Vulpecula constellation.

this is the Saturn nebula located in the constellation Aquarius 

this is the stingray nebula located 18,000 light years away and is the youngest known nebula.

this is ring nebula m57 located in the constellation lyra.

this is the egg nebula located 3,000 light years away in the Cygnus nebula.


here we have the Cat's eye nebula located in the constellation Draco.


This is the planetary nebula NGC 6326 in the constellation Ara


Here we have the Eskimo Nebula located 2,870 light years away in the Gemini Constellation.


This is the Helix nebula located in the constellation Aquiarius. It is ~ 694.7 light years away.


This is the IC 289 planetary nebula located in the constellation Cassiopeia.

Asaph Hall Biography Sources

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/252601/Asaph-Hall

http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/onlinebks/MARS/CHAP05.HTM

apod 3.5

This week's APOD is titled Mobius Arch Moonrise. February moons shine through the clouds in this picture. A night skyscape is visible towards the left of the sky. Orion is visible at the right of this picture, which is known as a famous northern constellation. Jupiter is towards to center at the top of this picture as well. Jupiter is also known as the solar system's top notch gas giant. Under Jupiter is Big Dog, Sirius, which is the alpha star in this constellation.