Solar System

 

This week in class we had to do a model of the solar system. Our group got very creative. These are some pictures of what we were doing. The first one is Balbina writing the distance Neptune is from the sun. The other two show just how we got Pluto so high up on the wall :)

Night sky: moon maps

Moon Maps (night sky observation)
Date: 6/26/12
Time: 10:30pm
The greatest visibility of lunar details is when it's higher in the sky but not right overhead. In twilight, the visibility of the moon worsens right when the sun sets or is minutes away from setting because the light catches the clouds and atmosphere to make the colorful sunsets but this blocks visibility of the moon. Haze and the moon altitude affect the visibility because if the moon is lower and it's hazy you can't see very good detail on the moon but as the moon rises it gets out of the haze and more detail can be seen. The following is a drawing I attempted of how the moon looked. I could see the Sea of Crisis and a few other craters near the bottom. :)

Zooniverse

So for Zooniverse I did the moon project. For this I had to highlight craters and interesting objects, and also note if there were any boulders around the craters. It was interesting to learn the different kinds of craters on the moon and how they were made. I learned that the new craters show up white and that some craters aren't round because of the rock dragging across the surface of the moon. Overall, this was a pretty fun project. As you can see I got a little carried away with the classifications!

Movie review

I watched the new Star Trek (came out in 2009) movie yesterday and realized that the one part was wrong. There was a star that was dying and it went supernova. Spock was in charge of saving the nearby planet but was too late and the supernova destroyed the planet. Spock still had to contain the supernova though so he injected "red matter" into it and created a black hole inside the supernova and swallowing up the explosion. Then he and another ship got caught and traveled through a black hole and came out back in time. This can't actually happen because you wouldn't survive going into a black hole and it definitively wouldn't be a time portal. 

Night sky

Night sky observation:
What are the colors of the brightest stars? Why do you think that is?

• The brightest stars are the blue-ish ones and I think that because they are the biggest and the hottest. 

What colors were the most difficult to find? Why do you think that is?

• The reds and oranges were hardest and I think that's because they are much smaller stars and not as hot and therefore not as bright. 

What is the name of the least brightest star in which you detect a hint of color?

• The least bright star I used that still had a little bit of color was Castor. 

My classifications: (star; color; date/time)


Polaris; blue-white; 6/17/12, 12:47am
Deneb; blue-white; 6/18/12, 12am
Capella; blue-white; 6/17/12, 10:30pm
Castor; yellow-white; 6/17/12, 10:30pm
Pollux; blue-white; 6/17/12, 10:30pm
Regulus; white; 6/18/12, 12am
Vega; white; 6/18/12, 12am
Altair; yellow-white; 6/18/12, 12am
Spica; blue; 6/17/12, 10pm
Arcturus; blue-white; 6/17/12, 10:37pm

The Moon

Here are the moon pictures I promised. They didn't come out as clear as I was hoping but I was able to show how far the moon moved in only an hour. The first picture was taken at 10:30pm and the second two were taken at 11:30pm. On the last picture the moon is the dot on the right and if you measure about an inch to the left that's were the moon had been an hour before. 

Stars app

I have this app called Stars on my iPod touch. It is essentially a constellation chart. You can line it up with a star that you know and from there move it around to where you look and it has the constellations highlighted so you know where to look in the actual sky. I used it tonight actually and use it whenever I want to see how many constellations I can find. I like it because it's easy to use and right to the point. Also because it automatically updates your date and time, etc, and shows the line for the equator and the names of all the constellations. 



UPDATE: With this app I was able to observe the Big and Little Dipper, Cassiopeia, Bootes, and a few other constellations.  I wish this app had a feature where you could use a camera and it could observe the sky with you and highlight on the screen when the camera was facing a constellation and tell you what it was. (sorry for the poor quality of the pictures)