APOD 1.7

- This image was taken in the northern constellation of Casseopeia. The reddish color is very bright and illuminating. The light is reflecting off gases in space as well as space dust. After learning about the different colors that gases reflect, it was interesting to learn that hydrogen produces a red glow. on Earth however why does hydrogen not glow red naturally. Why do its electrons have to be excited with electricity to create the color. Is there some sort of electromagnetic radiation in space causing the color? The color manipulation helps to aid our visualization of picture. The image coming from the telescope could not have been this high of resolution. The narrow filter stated in the descriptuion was very helpful in creating this picture.

APOD 1.3

- This image is very intersting to me. First off the land is extremely light yet the sky is dark, and the stars are visible. What time of tday is this? The description says that the photo was taken in Spain, I assume at a very high altitude away from the effects of city lights. The meteor streaks are as well very interesting. Taken over 90 minutes of time, the visible length the comets have taken is remarkable as I can only imagine how far away they actually are. If the size of the meteors are the size of a pebble, what makes them so visible in the sky. They cn't be on fire as there is no oxygen. They must be surrounded by some gas or force that reflects light, as how else would they be visible to us? None the less, a very cool image.

Astronomy Observations- 7

October 22, 2011
              -After the astronomy night I looked up at the sky Tuesday morning and saw an extremely bright object in the North West corner of the sky. I could not see the moon very well, but this object was the most pertinent object in the sky. I assumed it was Mercury or Venus as Mars is generally a reddish color and this was a blueish hue. I did not expect that it was actually Jupiter as at the previous night it was in the Northeast portion of the sky. I sometimes forget that due to the Earth's rotation objects can drastically change their position in a few hours of time. It amazes me that astronomers have been able to record so many astronomical effects. It was at this moment that I really appreciated the time and effort tht has gone into hundreds of years of study and observations of the night sky that has given us what we have in Astronomy now.

Astronomy Observations- 6

October 21, 2011
             - Continued astronomy night.....Another interesting part of the night was the shorter telescope aimed at Jupiter. Jupiter was extremely bright and was in the north east portion of the sky. The telescope was very focused and actually made the off colored rings on Jupiters surface distinctly visible. After the first telescope passed, I was amazed that four other telescopes were spotted that night. No shooting stars were spotted that night. Throughout the night we referred back to Deneb, Altair and Vega, in order to find the summer triangle and other objects within their respective constellations. Lyra had two binary systems. Another awesome moment of the night was the meteor flash around 8:50 at night. Again I was most fascinated by the satellites, and after studying the Hubble Telescope we actually observed it passing across the sky.

Astronomy Observations- 5

October 21, 2010
                   Astronomy night was yet again a success. The sky was clear except for some hazy clouds in the lower portion of the northern sky. I observed Scorpius, which at the time was jsut above the horizon. Sagittarius was just above it. The binocular stand was interesting as well. I was able to observe the sky through a reflecting contraption. I saw the many stars that were in the previous systems as well as others in the Milky Way. Over the shell parking lot was Delphinus and Job's Coffin. One of my favorite parts of the night was the passing over of the telescope. This is what i found most interesting. As an object that is so far away from us, that we can physically observe the reality of its existence and speed. I have always seen images of satellites but have never actually viewed one.

APOD 1.2

The above image is called a pireus iredescent cloud. The photo was taken in Ethiopia. Like a rainbow this phenomena is caused by water droplets and the diffraction of sunlight when it hits the droplets. The uniform and similar size of the water droplets also adds to this occurence. I wonder why I have never seen any of these clouds before in Florida? There must be other atmospheric properties in certain regions that allow this to happem, because I have viewed hundreds of clouds, rain or not and have never seen this before.

Michael Mastlin

        Michael Mastlin was a renowned astronomer from Germany. Born in 1550 and past away in 1631. Mastlin created many parts of the fundamental aspects of Astronomy. Such noteable contributions to astronomy are the correct interpretation of what is now known as Earthshine, and the idea that the heavens and celestial objects are changeable, which were previously thought to be fixed objects. Mastlin also had contributions to the development of other great minds in Astronomy such as Johan Kepler.
         One of Mastlin's major contributions was the idea of Earthshine. When the Sun shines light onto an object, part of the light is absorbed, while the other part is reflected. As light shines from the Sun to Earth, a portion of the light reflects off Earth onto the moon. Following this process light from the moon is then reflected back to Earth and so on. The farther down the chain the dimmer the light, as at each reflection, the majority of the light is absorbed. Another important contribution by Michael Mastlin was the idea of the heavens being changeable. Mastlin observed a nova in 1572 and presented his observations and concluded that it was proof, that celestial objects are not fixed objects.
       Despite complications with the idea of parallax, Mastlin observed many moveable objects such as Comets. Mastlin also accepted the Copernican models of astronomy. Other facts would be that Mastlin had two wives, and many children. The second wife in particular gave birth to nine of his children. Kepler and Mastlin were two great friends who together developed prestigeous reputations in the fields of astronomy and the study of the heavens. Masltin lived a full 81 years, which in his time, was an amazingly long life.

APOD 1.6

       This image is very interesting. I have always known that throughout the universe there are other objects than planets and stars, such as comets and asteroids. Typical knowledge that I have however leads me to believe that they are very scarse, such as Haley's comet. This image places gives me a better perspective of the actual amount of asteroids there are in such a close proximity to Earth. The word close, being used very vaguelly. Thanks to Neowise and their infared imaging, we have a better knowledge of the number of asteroids. As light is a difficult determinant to exactly calculate the number of asteroids. Some asteroids are non-reflective and others are extremely reflective. The suns heat is stored in the asteroid, allowing infared radars to detect the presence of an asteroid.

Astronomer Sources List

Gail Virtual Reference Library:
1) Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 3: 1450 to 1699. Detroit: Gale, 2001. p394.


2) Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 9. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. p167-170.


Online Source:


1) http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Mastlin.html