APOD 6

I think this is an amazing picture. I saw it on digg.com for the first time a few days ago. This picture, taken from the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn, shows Saturn eclipsing the sun a a brilliant display. Both the nightime and daytime parts of the gas giant are visible, as are its rings.The picture itself, like the picture of moon from a few weeks ago, is color enhanced. The original photo can be seen here. The image itself is made from stitching together 165 photos taken by Cassini's wide-angle camera. Cassini was about 2.2 million miles away from the planet when it took the pictures. Also visible in the picture is the planet earth, a miniscule blue point just left of the main rings. Saturn's E-ring is also visible, created by the ice fountains from Encaladus, a moon.
The Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft is a joint venture of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency that reached Saturn in 2004.

It has come to my attention...

I was reviewing my blog in lieu of the deadline, and I noticed all the time stamps for the entries were way off (a blog entry at 5:55AM? I wish I were that committed!) So, instead of taking advantage of that, I decided to correct the time at a comfortable -5GMT. There, I didn't cheat.
I just noticed I didn't post anything about the group observation a few weeks ago. So here it is.
I arrived at the site, the service road outside the math building, at around 9:00PM, and all nearby lights were covered for the most part. The view was fantastic, almost as good as if we were in the country. The sorrounding area was mostly flat, and when facing the pond, all the stars were visible. I remember seeing a shooting star in the south eastern sky. I was able to identify many constellations almost as if they were on the star chart: Scorpius, Sagittarius, Ophiuchus are what I can remember off the top of my head, since they are the three I can almost instantly recognize.
During the course of the observation, we saw Jupiter slowly descend into the treeline. I remember Mr. Percival showing us a lot of stuff, such as the northern cross. He brought his telescope, to the enjoyment of everyone, and we saw some binary stars and I think two of Jupiter's moons. We also saw the complete Summer Triangle, which means I saw the constellations Aquila, Lyra, and Cygnus. Wait, Cygnus is the Northern Triangle. We also saw the North Star. Next time, I'll be sure to post a blog entry right after the observation session, which will hopefully be Thursday.

APOD

This spectacular photo of the moon is actually a a mosaic of 15 different images stitched together, and shows the true hues of the moon. The images were taken by an 8.2 megapixel camera hooked up to a 10 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. Most pictures of the moon we see in books and magazines are desaturated ones, that is, pictures that have been completly converted to black and white. However, original photos display slight differences in the hues of the gray material of the moon's surface. Given that the moon is made of of a multitude of different materials, we can assume that the moon is much more colorful than we see it. By enhancing the color saturation in an image editing program, such as Photoshop, we can really see the differences in hues of the moon, as exemplified by this huge image. Photos like this are impossible to see, even with telescopes.

Double Post

Here's an observation I made an observation Friday morning. I woke up earlier than usual, and, noticing that it was still dark out, I decided to go outside really quick. The full moon what showing brightly, and had a slightly golden yellow hue to it. It was significantly larger than normal. It was about two fists (about twenty degrees declination, I think) over what I perceived to be the horizon, since there were houses and trees in the way. It was setting. Looking around, I spotted Ursa Minor, and located Polaris. I also spotted Cepheus, and I think I saw Draco. I went in a few minutes later, as the sky started to brighten.

APOD


Now for the second part of the post. This is an image from the Mars Opportunity rover of the largest crater yet to be visited by a rover, the Victoria Crater. The crater itself is about 730 meters wide, and is located in the Meridiani Planum, a Martian plain just two degrees south of the equator. The region is home to about 12 craters, the largest being the Airy Crater, which is a whopping 40 km in diameter. The Victoria crater is likely the last significant landmark the Opportunity will visit. The rover traveled 21 months to reach it, and the site will take about 1 year to analyze. The nearest prominent craters are 25 km away.
The Opportunity, or the Mars Exploration Rover - B, was the second of two rovers in NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission, launched in 2003. The Opportunity landed on January 25, 2004, about three weeks after its sister Spirit (MER-A) made planetfall. The rover's operational duration has lasted ten times longer than expected, making it a valuable asset to NASA in its ongiong mission to mars. The official patch of this mission sports Duck Dodgers as the mascot.