Posters Part 2

I was able to finish my poster in lab tonight. I am happy to report that the entire board was filled, and I shouldn't have worried about having too much white space. It was very fun to see all the hard work that the other students have put into their topics.

GLOBE at night

I was excited to read this article this morning, and to learn that I was one of 6,838 people to take note of Orion at the end of March.

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6859

Strange Star Formations in M83

NASA has released a picture today that combines images from Galaxy Evolution Explorer (an ultra violet telescope) and VLA in New Mexico (a radio telescope). This image shows that stars are forming 140,000 light years outside of the galaxy proper, an area that was thought to be too far out to support star growth. The conditions that these stars have formed are thought to be much like during the immediate time after the Big Bang when metal was not widely disbursed throughout the universe. Scientists now feel that they are getting glimpses of what the universe was like then.


http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6840

Posters for Astronomy Day!

Tonight we had time to begin our posters for Astronomy Day. My assigned topic is Hipparchus the ancient Greek astronomer. While he's an exciting guy, I haven't found a whole lot of information on him, so I decided to fill my poster with lots of visual aids and bright colors.

Young Moon

Tonight on the way home from class I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Young Moon through the clouds. The moon was in the west sky just below the Pleiades, but through the clouds, I wasn't able to get very long glimpses of those stars.

I wish I had a camera with me, but instead I found this picture, taken last night from Canada.

DRACO

Tonight I found the constellation Draco in the North sky. Draco rotates around the North Star (Polaris) and is visible most of the year. This is called circumpolar. The Cat's Eye nebula is in Draco, but I could not see it with my telescope.

PROPER MOTION

We did an exercise in lab tonight that showed us that the stars are not stationary. We plotted the stars in Orion as they appear today, then using math (ugh) we plotted them one million years ago and one million years in the future. We learned that the farther the stars move away from each other, the faster they move. This exercise was challenging as I have never been good at math, but luckily the ladies at my lab table were willing to share tips on how to solve the problems.

New Planet

Astronomers have used the VLA in New Mexico, a radio telescope, to focus on the star HL Tau. HL Tau is a young star, only 100,000 years old. From the images they collected, the astronomers have identified a planet that is currently forming. This find could help us learn how the Earth formed.

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6783