APOD 2.6

This picture of the Orion launch was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on December 6. Destined two orbit the Earth twice and then splash in the Pacific, the rocket launched Friday at 7:05 AM. The Orion spacecraft travelled farther than any other spacecraft designed for manned usage since the Apollo missions, traveling 15 times farther than the orbit of the International Space Station. The module reached speeds of up to 20,000 miles an hour and temperatures up to 4000 degrees during its re-entry into Earth orbit.

APOD 2.5

This picture of the 'seahorse of the Large Magellanic cloud was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on November 30, 2014. The 'seahorse' in the picture is a curious smoke pillar in the Large Magellanic cloud roughly 20 lightyears long. In the photo, newly-formed star cluster NGC 2074 can be seen right off the center of the seahorse. These newly-formed stars will actually erode the pillars over time.

APOD 2.4

This picture of the Crab Nebula was made Astronomy Picture of the day on November 21, 2014. Also known as M11 and present in the constellation Scutum, the Crab Nebula is actually a remnant of a supernova. Recorded in 1054 by astronomers around the globe, the supernova that created the Crab Nebula was said to be brighter than the full moon, and lasted for upwards of 3 weeks in the sky. The Crab Nebula is roughly 12 lightyears wide and is another 6000 from the constellation, Taurus.

APOD 2.3

This picture of the Cat's Eye Nebula was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on November 9, 2014. A planetary nebula located 3000 lightyears from Earth, the nebula is going into its final phases as a galaxy. Regular convulsions by the nebula's central star create the halo effect, foreshadowing, possibly, the future of our own star.

APOD 2.2

This picture of an aurora over Norway was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on November 3, 2014. Taken at the summit of the Austnesfjorden Fjord in early March, at a peak of solar activity. Solar flares and general solar activity caused a series of beautiful auroral patterns in the sky, such as this one in Norway.

APOD 2.1

This picture of a spectre in the Eastern Veil was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on October 30, 2014. This is a closeup of the Veil Nebula, a remnant of a supernova. Located in Cygnus, the Veil Nebula covers about 3 degrees of the sky. The Veil Nebula is about 1400 lightyears away from Earth, and is about 3 lightyears long.

Stargaze 10/12

I attended the stargaze on October 12 for 1.5 hours, observing patterns in the sky, as well as taking telescopic observations of such celestial bodies as Saturn and M13.

APOD 1.8

This picture of an eclipse at moonrise was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on October 11, 2014. During the lunar eclipse on October 8, this composite time exposure image was taken of the moon by Zhou Yannan as it rose over Chongqing, China. Fully encompassing the moon, the eclipse made a 'blood moon' effect as the full shadow of the Earth covered the moon.

APOD 1.7

This picture of an eclipse at moonset was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on October 9, 2014. This image was taken of the lunar eclipse that occurred on October 8, transcending into the morning of the day the picture was made Astronomy Picture of the Day. Taken off the Chilean coast, the eclipse was fully immersed in the Earth's shadow.

Gian Cassini

Jack Fitzgerald

Percival

Astronomy P1

10 October 2014

Gian Cassini

Gian Cassini is a well-accomplished Italian astronomer. Born in 1625, Cassini made major contributions to the field of astronomy for nearly 90 years before his passing. Some of his major contributions in astronomy include locating the moons of Saturn, finding the distance of Mars, and determining the obliquity of the ecliptic. His historical influence on astronomy as a whole is impeccable, evidenced by the naming of the Cassini space probe, which was the first to orbit Saturn.

Cassini was born in Perinaldo, Italy, on June 8, 1625 to Jacopo Cassini and Julia Crovesi, the former of which was a Tuscan. He studied at Vallebone and then the Jesuit college of Genoa and the abbey of San Fructuoso. His astronomical career began when Marquis Cornelio Malvasia, a rich amateur astronomer and senator of Bologna, invited him to come to work in his observatory at Panzano, near Bologna in 1648. Cassini left that post when he departed for France in February 1669. However, in that time, he completed his education under two prestigious professors, and made use of several instruments that allowed him to begin his first researches. He was a conservative theorist- he initially rejected Copernicus’ theories on the heliocentric model.

Cassini won the favor of the Bolognan community with his works to such an extent that the senate of Bologna actually designated him to be the principal chair of astronomy at the university. Cassini had a specific interest in planetary astronomy, and in 1653, he wrote to Pierre Gassendi to request precise measurements of the superior planets. Upon receiving these observations, Cassini concluded that the Earth was the center of the galaxy. Among the many of his great early feats that demonstrated his practical ability included the building of a large and accurate meridian in San Petronio after its current meridian was rendered useless after architectural changes to the church it was originally situated on blocked sun rays from reaching the meridian.

Using his meridian research, he made principal observations on the obliquity of the ecliptic, exact positions of solstices and equinoxes, the speed of the sun’s apparent motion and the variation of its diameter. He published these findings in Specimum observationum Bononiensium in 1656, and he continued to use the San Petronio meridian in later publications. In 1659, he presented a model of the planetary system that agreed with the hypothesis of Tycho Brahe. In 1661, he developed a method, inspired by Kepler’s work, of mapping successive phases of solar eclipses, and in 1662 he published new tables of the sun, based on his observations at San Petronio. He held a special interest at this time, however, in comets. In 1664, in front of Queen Christina of Sweden, he studied one and formulated a theory about the orbit of the comet being a great circle.

He maintained healthy friendships with Roman lens-makers, and in 1664, he obtained powerful celestial telescopes. With these telescopes, through studying the shadow of satellites on Jupiter, he was able to find the rotation period of the satellites and the planet itself, and he came very close to the modern commonly accepted time of 9 hours and 56 minutes. In the beginning of 1666, he did the same with mars, and came up with a rotation time, being 24 hours and 40 minutes, only 3 minutes less than the modern commonly accepted time. In the case of Jupiter, however, where Galileo failed, Cassini made a full, precise table of the determination of longitudes of the planet, and published this in 1668 as Ephemerides Bononienses mediceorem siderum.

Because of this publication, the Académic Royale des Sciences, recently founded in Paris, offered Cassini the honor of being a regular correspondent with the academy. He accepted in 1668, and in 1669, he left Italy for good to reside in Paris. Upon his entrance, he was cordially accepted by the king. Because of the financial contribution of the academy, he was amply able to replace his instruments whenever necessary. He took a special planetary interest in Saturn; in September 1671, he discovered a second satellite of Saturn, Iapetus. A year later, he discovered a third, being Rhea, and in March 1684, he discovered 2 more, being Tethys and Dione. In 1680, he made an observation on a comet that confirmed his method of observing comet trajectory.

The tables of the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites were utilized internationally, being used by many French Astronomers. In 1672, he travelled to Cayenne to observe the parallax of Mars during its opposition, and they not only were able to determine the parallax of Mars at 25’, but also changed the accepted parallax of the Sun from 8.8’ to 9.5’.

Unfortunately, in the 1700’s, his activities dropped sharply, and in the last two years of his life, he went completely blind. He died on September 4, 1712, in Paris.

Observation 1.2

Looking up at the stars this week, I saw two heavily-studied celestial bodies in close proximity to each other. Mars and Antares laid about a fist-length apart in the sky this week to my right. I observed the relation between the two, and spent about 30 minutes doing so.

APOD 1.6

This stereographic sky of the Swedish skyline was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on October 3rd, 2014. This picture was taken on the northern atmosphere's autumnal equinox. The milky way is visible arcing in this photo, as well as an aurora induced and intensified by geomagnetic storms.

Biography Sources

1.  "Giovanni Domenico Cassini (June 8, 1625 - September 14, 1712)". Messier Seds.org. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
2. Cassini, Gian Domenico (Jean-Dominique) (Cassini I). Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. pp. 100–104. retrieved 30 May 2013.

APOD 1.5

This picture of the NGC 206 and the star clouds of the Andromeda galaxy was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on September 25, 2014. Also known as M31, Andromeda is only 2.5 million light years away. This particular image is a close-up on the outer disk of Andromeda's dust clouds. Andromeda is a relatively young galaxy, its youngest stars being less than 10 million years old. Andromeda roughly spans about 4000 light years.

APOD 1.4

This image of an aurora over Maine was made Astronomy Picture of the day on September 17, 2014. These auroras are due to the recent activity of sunspot region 2158, a region of the sun that has been active in releasing plasma ejections and flares into space in recent accounting. Most notably, 2 major coronal mass ejections (CME's) hit the Earth's magnetosphere, creating the most intense geomagnetic storm this year. Auroras were seen as far south as Wisconsin, where, without a geomagnetic storm, they are normally only seen in far northern regions closer to the poles. These were rays and sheets of multicolored auroras over Acadia National Park in Maine.

Observation 1.1

In the last couple weeks in class, I've been introduced to observations about the stars that better help me understand the theory behind the movement of the celestial bodies in the stars above. Recently, I've come to notice that, as the phase of the moon has come closer to new, the moon appears to be closer to the Sun than at the quarter and full phase. The moon appears the furthest away from the Sun at the full phase and appears at 90 degree angles between the horizon and sun when it is at quarter phases. These observations have roughly accounted for 30 minutes of time.

APOD 1.3

Dubbed 'An Aurora Cupcake with a Milky Way Topping', this photo was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on September 9, 2014. This picture was captured by astrophotographer Göran Strand in the sky over Österstrund, Sweden. Unfortunately not actually a delicious sky cupcake, the actual cause of this event is double auroral ovals. The green auroras laid closer to the ground than the violet auroras above it, giving the event a cupcake-like image. To accentuate the utter beauty of the photo, the central band of the Milky Way galaxy is seen at the very top of the photo. These auroras were actually caused by a magnetospheric disturbance of Earth due to solar flares, which are becoming more frequent due to an extremely active sunspot. 

Apod 1.2

This picture of airglow ripples over Tibet was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on September 1, 2014. After a giant thunderstorm in Bangladesh, these ripples of glowing air appeared over Tibet. The pattern is created by gravity waves, which are waves of alternating pressure that grow with height as the air thins. These particular gravity waves existed 90 kilometers in the sky. Although this phenomenon appears to be an aurora, it is actually not- whereas auroras are powered by collisions of charged particles at high altitudes, the airglow ripple effect is caused by chemiluminescence, the production of light in a chemical reaction. Airglow is more typically seen on the horizon, making this a particularly odd phenomenon. Airglow actually keeps the night sky from ever being completely dark.

APOD 1.1

 This picture of Messier 20 and 21 was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on August 28, 2014. Messier 20 and 21 refer to numbers 20 and 21 on a list of celestial objects noted by French astronomer Charles Messier. Messier 20, also known as the Trifid nebula, is a part of the zodiacal constellation Sagittarius. It is one of the youngest star-forming regions in our galaxy, being only 300,000 years old. Composed of stars, as well as gas clouds and natal dust, it forms a beautiful picture in the sky. Messier 21 is a relatively close open star cluster to the Trifid nebula.