Astronomy and the Fine Arts

One poem by Brian F. Kirkham reaches out to me in an interesting way.  The poem, "Life of a Star" discusses how the light burning from a distant star comes and passes by and we observe, hoping to see it again the next day.  I find this poem interesting because the stars we see in the sky are as they were when the light was emitted, and that could be millions of years ago (depending on the object, obviously).  This poem just makes me think more and more about how much we don't know about in space.  Just the fact that the information we have of some things is pretty much outdated bewilders me.  The poem can be found at:
http://allpoetry.com/poem/11204905-Life-of-a-Star-by-InkdropK

Astronomy Apps

The Messier List app, downloadable at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/messier-list/id364899443?mt=8,
contains the famous catalog of Messier objects.  The app has images and descriptions of the Messier objects listed in numerical order.  The app is free as well, and can be downloaded on Apple iPhones, iPads or iPods.
With the simplicity of the app makes it appealing for those who have an interest in the Messier objects, but people with a deeper interest may not be impressed.  With some of the images, the app will show portions and not the whole image.  Also there is a lack of maps and charts, which is a bit disappointing. Overall, despite some spelling errors, it is a good and easy to use app.

UFOs

http://cufos.org/Roswell_fs1.html

In July of 1947, a rancher came upon a strange metal in his field and contacted authorities due to its strange characteristics.  Upon arrival, Colonel Blanchard ordered that the ranch be cordoned off.  When initial statements were made that it was a UFO, they were soon repealed and the Army claimed that it was a downed weather balloon.  Public interest faded, but after 20 years, people accused the government of covering up the incident with the story of it being a weather balloon.  No one knows what the true results of the situation was.

With this discovery, no more follow up was done, only speculations about the conspiracy.

My definition of a UFO is an unidentified flying object that we don't know the origins of.  A foreign plane can be considered a UFO, but I take the term to mean something of extraterrestrial origination.

I don't believe in UFOs because by now, I think there'd be concrete evidence that the government couldn't hide even if it wanted to.  There are many possibilities, but to this day I have no reason to believe in UFOs.

Astronomy Blogs

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/12031700-the-new-horizons-science.html

The Planetary Society: The New Horizons science mission to the Pluto-Charon System is about to begin 12/04/2014

After nearly a decade of travel, satellite New Horizons approaches the outer solar system to get images of Pluto and its moons.  It is the smallest satellite sent to the outer solar system, weighing only 30.4 kg.  Although the camera won't get high resolution images, they'll still be the highest resolution pictures of Pluto.  As it makes it's approach and rotates, the satellite will capture images of some different things and record data based on it's distance from Pluto.  It will take nearly two years for the job to be complete.

"Deep Thoughts" In Astronomy

"Astronomy taught us our insignificance in nature" --Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.seasky.org/quotes/space-quotes-astronomy.html

I really like this particular quote because whenever I think about space/astronomy, I'm conflicted with how important the Earth is to us and humans' actions, but in the big picture, we are very insignificant.  There is activity going on millions of lightyears away without bounds, things happening that we as humans cannot even fathom. 

Astronomy Magazines

The sky map toward the middle of the magazines was easier to understand and had more information in the Astronomy magazine.  I believe the Astronomy magazine also covered more news topics in the first few pages.  In the Sky and Telescope magazine, there were more advertisements, which could be good or bad depending on what your preferences are.  The Astronomy magazine also had a larger reader gallery with more pictures from various readers, and the quality and ease of readability of the writings and illustrations was better.  I felt that with the two editions I read, the feature articles in the Astronomy magazine were better, but Sky and Telescope beat out Astronomy with their regular monthly columns.  I think it's pretty clear that of the two competing magazines, I liked Astronomy more, simply because of the more interesting content, creative layout and overall a higher appeal.

Spectra Scavenger Hunt

Neutral metals like Na or even some molecules like TiO produce the precise absorption lines in cool red stars.  In hot blue stars, Hydrogen is most responsible. 

Ionized Oxygen gives planetary nebulae strong green light.

Hydrogen atoms are ionized by nearby ultraviolet radiation to produce emission nebulae's red color. 

In the sky, clouds appear white because their droplets are larger than visible wavelengths, and when reflectors are larger than the wavelengths being reflected the efficiency is nearly independent of the wavelength. Since all colors are uniformly reflected, clouds appear white.  

Broad emission lines in a quasar appear because of a thin gas that is strongly heated as it falls toward the black hole.

Emission lines in a comet appear as broad bands because molecule fragments are excited by sunlight and emit radiation as they return to lower energy levels, the broad bands being characteristic of molecules. 

How do we get sunburned?

http://www.physics.sjsu.edu/tomley/objectspectra/spectralforms.html