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.