Recent Observations 14

Recent Observations 14
             On Wednesday 1/28/14, I went outside around 7 to see the Iridium Flare. It was about 35 degrees above the horizon and the phase of the moon was a waxing gibbous (nearing the full moon). It is difficult to find constellations in the winter sky because many of the stars within the constellations in the winter sky have low magnitude stars. However, I was able to find Orion's Belt.

APOD 3.2

APOD 3.2
                  A Night at Poker Flat 

On January 26, 4 NASA suborbital sounding rockets took off from the University of Alaska's Poker Flat Research Range. The image above is a time lapse composite picture that follows all 4 launches. In the picture, small, multi-stage rockets take off through the aurora-filled skies with Lidar (beams of pulsed green lasers) in the scenery. Operating successfully, the 4 rocks were 2 Mesosphere-Lower Thermosphere Turbulence Experiments (M-TeX) and 2 Mesospheric Inversion-layer Stratified Turbulence (MIST) experiments, that created vapor trails at high altitudes to be tracked by ground-based observations.

Recent Observations 13

Recent Observations 13
           I recently went outside to observe the sky on Sunday 1/18/14. The moon was a waning gibbous and almost a new moon. I was once again always able to pinpoint Orions belt. Unfortunely, it was pretty cloudy and there are not many easily visible stars in the winter night sky.

APOD 3.1

APOD 3.1
Huygens Lands on Titan


Delivered by Saturn-bound Cassini, ESA's Huygens probe landed on Titan 10 years ago (January 14, 2005). The images above are from a fisheye view and they were made as the probe made a slow decent (by parachute) through the dense atmosphere of Titan. Although it appears like Earth, the temperature is so cold here that the liquids flowing across the moon's surface are methane and ethane, hydrocarbons (not water). This landing was the most distant landing for a spacecraft from Earth. The images over the years from this probe have shown Titan to be filled with complex chemistry of organic compounds, dynamic landforms, lakes, seas, and a possible subsurface ocean of liquid water.

Recent Observations 12

Recent Observations 12
            I watched the sky 1/7/15. The moon was in a waning gibbous phase as it moves away from its' full moon phase. That night, around 7:30pm I was able to view an Iridium Flare. I also went out earlier to view Mercury and Venus being in close proximity of each other as they both sat above the southwest horizon.

APOD 2.8

APOD 2.8
           Hubble 25th Anniversary: Pillars of Creation

In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, the telescope was once again pointed to one of its' most famous images, named the Pillars of Creation. The first image taken of these Pillars of Creation were snapped in 1995. Today, the image taken is wider and sharper, allowing for the view of the stars forming deep inside the pillars. The pillars are destined for destruction due to the powerful winds and the ultraviolet energy of the newly forming stars but astronomers believe that this image is similar to what it looked like when our sun was forming. This image is distant in M16, taken near the constellation Serpens and near the Eagle Nebula.

Johann Hieronymus Schröter

Johann Hieronymus Schröter (or Schroeter)

Schroeter was born August 30, 1745 in Erfurt, Germany and he died August 29 1816. He began his studies in 1764, learning about law at Göttigen University. While in school, Schroeter went to lectures in math and astronomy, which in turn, lead him to form an interest in the two subjects. After he graduated, he managed to get an administrative career that he worked in for the next ten years of his life. First being appointed junior barrister in Hannover and later (1781) becoming chief magistrate at Lilientha. Schroeter's passion in astronomy were rediscovered by the Herschel family (in England); specifically, the Hershel family’s son, William (who became the foremost astronomer of the 18th century). In 1772, Schroeter found his Observatory in Lilienthal, Germany. He studied the planets and solar system while living off the money he gained as a district governor and judge. Most of his telescopes were bought from William Hershel (Schroeter’s observatory was even home to the largest telescope in continental Europe for a short time- a reflector with a twenty-seven-foot focal length). George III of England then began buying all of his instruments, believing that the instruments would become the property of the University of Göttingen when Schroeter died. Schroeter also had two assistants in his life span, as granted by George III. These two assistants were K. L. Harding and F. W. Bessel. In 1810, Napoleon began his invasion of Northern Germany which created chaos in Lilienthal. During this time, many of the observational notebooks created by Schroeter were lost. Schroeter had returned to Erfurt to create a new observatory after having lost his old one, however; he did not make many observations due to the death that soon followed his move.

In regards to the scientific contributions left undisturbed in the invasion, Schroeter was the first to notice granulation in 1787. In his works Schroeter also gave descriptions of light bridges over the umbrae of sunspots, observations of Venus and Venus’ rotational period (which he believed to be 23 hours and 21 minutes). Schroeter was the first to observe the surface of the moon and the planets systematically over a long period of time, making hundreds of drawings regarding lunar mountains and other features such as the lunar rilles. However, his drawings were rough and reflectors were replaced by refractors (creating more detailed images). In his observations he also noted the mountains on Venus and the lines on Mars (not recognizing them as canals). In the end, he managed to form two volumes of writing on lunar topography that held the most detail than any other writing for many years. September 20, 1800, Schroeter founded the first astronomical society. The point of this creation was to organize an observing program to detect a planet between Mars’ and Jupiter’s orbits. By 1807, this society had found four large asteroids: Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, and Juno.

Today, Schroeter’s reputation is damaged by the extravagant conclusions he drew from his observations. He is mostly known for his influence on Bessel and Harding to work in astronomy, as well as, inspiring the selenographer J.F.J.Schmidt in the moon (after Schmidt had read Schröter’s work).