So I wasnt able to make a decent observation on my trip. That meant I had to make one today. I was down near Casey Key and observed sunset there. A little while after sunset, a first quarter moon was at its zenith. A bright object, which im sure is Venus, was visible since the sun began to set and the sky began to darken. Right behind me, due east, was the easily recognizable constellation of Orion. Almost right in front of me was the Square of Pegasus. From here we were able to discern other constellations. we saw taurus, and i think we saw perseus, but the moon was too bright to be sure. conditions were almost perfect. besides the brightness of the moon, there was noticeable light pollution to the north in sarasota.

Update

So I´ve been here in Bolivia about a week, and I finally have some time to sit down at a computer to quickly update this blog at an internet cafe. The computers here, of course, are substandard (and the keyboards are all weird), so I´ll try to fix the previous apod entry as soon as I get home, which should be the 27th if all goes well. Anyways, here´s a quick recap of my observation attempts in the southern hemisphere thus far (I hope to fully record my trip somewhere else in the near future):

We arrived early friday. It was cloudy, contrary to intel i received from my mother. It was she who told me Bolivia would be perfect and sunny in our stay here. We arrived in the midst of a huge political rally here in Santa Cruz where a million of the 1,300,000 people in the city took to the streets. As a result, nearly everything was closed, internet cafes included. Not like I could make any observations anyway. The night sky was BLACK. No biggie, I though. That monday we would be leaving for La Paz, which is situated about 4 km high in the Bolivian Andes. My uncle was going to join us there, and he would bring his telescope with him. Sweet right? Sunday we got a call that there was an emergency, and my uncle would be in Brazil for the next few days. No telescope :( .
In the end, it didn´t matter. We arrived in La Paz Monday afternoon after an unexpected change in our plans only to find the mountain city completely covered in clouds. We decided to continue on to Copacabana, another small mountain town situated on beautiful Lake Titicaca (I just looked outside, and it started to rain again). We took a crowded bus there, a 3 hour trip on really dangereous mountain trails (i.e. steep drop, winding curves, no gaurdrails). It rained. It rained the duration of the voyage to Copacabana, with a brief sint of sunlight Wednesday afternoon. We went back to La Paz, where it was also raining, and took a plane back to Santa Cruz, where it was nighttime. And cloudy. Thus it has been since then, wet, cloudy summer days. It´s also very windy. I was hoping for a clear christmas night, but weather.com says to be prepared for severe thunderstorms the coming days. Great. Hopefully, it will be clear enough when we get back to sneak in another observation session. I´ll post a link here to a full account of my trip here because, despite the weather, it´s been real fun. I´ve got to go, times up, and we got to run through the rain to our apartment.

AMOD?

Well, I think this will work.

Launch in external player

In this stunning movie, we see how active the sun's surface is. Hot jets of gas shoot out, burning everything it touches. This movie was captured by Japan's Hinode satellite. The satellite was launched last September, and is a joint venture of the Japanese, American, and European Space Agencies.

AMOD?

Well, I think this will work.


In this stunning movie, we see how active the sun's surface is. Hot jets of gas shoot out, burning everything it touches. This movie was captured by Japan's Hinode satellite. The satellite was launched last September, and is a joint venture of the Japanese, American, and European Space Agencies.

APOD

This is the "Pelican Nebula," IC5070, in the Cygnus Nebula. Honestly, astronomers are way too imaginative. To me, this looks more like some sort of lopsided smiley face. This baby is about 2,000 light years away, and,in the night sky, is found just off the eastern coast of the North American nebula. Very peculiar in this nebula is the cosmic emission visible in this overexposed photo. It's rather huge. The photo itself spans some 30 light years. The original photos were showed much greater depth and resolution, but for practical purposes, the image was scaled down for the web (100 meg .TIFF to 1.5 meg .JPG). The Pelican Nebula is undergoing much change, as its star clusters continue to give birth to stars and evolve. On a few million years, this nebula won't even be recognizable.