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  When initial statements were made that it was a UFO, they were soon repealed and the Army claimed that it was a downed weather balloon.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

The Great Worldwide Star Count

On October 22nd at 10:00 p.m, I went into my backyard and participated in the Great Worldwide Star Count. Where I viewed Cygnus from was about 60 yards from the nearest street light and the constellation was still high enough above the trees to see. My latitude was 42.33049, longitude -82.887559. Based on the maps online at http://www.windows2universe.org/citizen_science/starcount , I determined the light pollution estimate to be Magnitude 4.
Last year for the Great Worldwide Star Count, 2427 worldwide observations were submitted from 31 different countries.
I feel that this annual event is a good estimate of where the world is at in terms of light pollution, and shows us how much of the night sky we miss out on because of it. However, I'm not really sure about what the results will do, because light pollution in today's world is hard to fight.

The Future of Earth

Let's face it, one day the human race is going to come to an end.  There are many theories as to how the end will come, but I think that human's life on Earth will come to an end due to Earth's inability to sustain the population.  Every year the population is becoming much greater, and the resources and space is being used up rapidly.  One day, I feel that the Earth will simply fail to foster humans' continuously expanding wants and needs.  

In order to extend the amount of time that will make Earth optimally habitable for humans, the global society needs to be as efficient as possible.  As the population is increasing, we need to work on finding new ways to satisfy desires, and treating natural resources as a scarcity, not something disposable.  

Adventures with Galileoscopes

While one day messing around with my Galileoscope, I was observing a traffic cone down the street from me.  While attempting to view the cone, I discovered that through my low and high power lenses the image was upside down, and that the low power view gave me the largest field of view.  The medium lens, however, offered an erect image.
On October 8th at about 9 p.m, I went over to the soccer field at North where I had a good view of the moon.  Using the low power lens, I was able to spot some key characteristics of the moon's surface.  The large dark spots, called maria, and the bright streaks that radiate outward from craters, called rays, are the easiest to identify.
When I first brought out the Galileoscope to test the different lenses, I had some difficulties.  Getting something into view while everything is upside down is frustrating.  Also, it was difficult to see through the lens while using the high power configuration.  I was, however, excited to use the telescope and observe the moon once I figured out how to use it.
When Galileo first viewed the moon, he probably had a mix of excitement, relief, and a certain confusedness.  He likely didn't know what he was observing on the surface of the moon, and could only speculate.  After all the work that he must've put into it, finally being able to have an enlarged view through his telescope must've brought great joy.  Galileo accomplished true greatness.

Why Study Space?

Although we no longer have to study space for the reasons we used to, like navigation or timekeeping, it is still necessary to expand our knowledge on the endless information beyond Earth's atmosphere.
Even if we no longer treat the Sun as a god, we still need to study it because of its occasional solar flares that reach Earth.  Thanks to Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere, we aren't as negatively affected by the flares that produce high energy particles and radiation.  When one of these geomagnetic storms occur, electric transformers and power stations can be blown out.  The Sun still presents Earth with different situations and thus has to be monitored. http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/sftheory/spaceweather.htm
The Sun's flares are not the only potential danger that awaits us in space, but many asteroids and space rocks present humans with another reason to study space.  Astronauts say that there are 4,700 potentially dangerous space rocks that can come close enough to Earth to pose a concern, and possibly cause damage on a regional or global scale.  Space rocks in orbits that overlap Earth's have to be closely tracked. http://www.space.com/15734-dangerous-asteroid-census-nasa-telescope.html
Potentially dangerous situations are not the only source of reasons to continue the study of space.  Earth is rapidly increasing in population and resources are steadily decreasing.  The exploration of other planets and the search for water and potential life is an exciting and important cause.  If one day there could be life on a planet other than Earth, the result would be revolutionary.  Space holds the source of many problems but also potential for greatness, and the exploration of the endless boundaries must continue.

What do you want to know?

One topic that I really wanted to expand my knowledge on throughout the semester of Astronomy was the life and death of stars.  Given that they're such large scale objects, I'd imagine that something drastic has to happen..

How long does a star live before it dies?

What is the process of the formation of a star?

How long does the light  from a star shine for?

Where is the biggest star located and what is its name?

Why does a star die?

Messier Object M101

An interesting Deep Sky Object, located in Virgo, is the M104 Galaxy.  Because of its dark dust lane that surrounds the galaxy's disk, it is commonly referred to as a sombrero galaxy.  It is possible to see the galaxy through a pair of binoculars, but with its 50 million light-year distance from Earth, it's best seen through a 4-inch or larger telescope.  The intriguing shape of this galaxy caught my eye and was the first one of this sort that I've seen.

This image was taken by Todd Boroson: http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0583.html