APOD 1.8 -- Jupiters Clouds

On its journey towards Pluto, the New Horizons spacecraft was able to take beautiful of Jupiter's atmosphere. From this picture, the high speed bands of equatorial clouds are clearly visible in high detail true color where it looks like something out of a Van Gogh painting. The left side of the image is Jupiters south pole. The size of brightness of these bands allow them to be seen with relative ease, even with a small telescope.

Observation 1.2

Date: 10-23-2011
Time: 8pm - 10pm
Place: Pine View School Astronomy Night
Sky Conditions: clear/light clouds
Instrument Used: Naked Eye, Binoculars, Telesopes
Planets: jupiter
Bright Stars Noted: Altair, Deneb, 
Constellations Noted: Summer Triangle
Constellations & Mobjects: Cygnus, Aquila, Andromeda, M11, Sagittarius, Scutum, Hercules/Keystone, Sagitta, Ophiuchus, Jobs Coffin, Vulpecula(location was noted), 
Other: New moon

APOD 1.7 -- Transit of Venus

The 2004 transit of Venus was the first of the such event to occur since 1882. It was a very important event as it was used to measure the effect that small rocky planets have on the apparent brightness of a star, as well as to see if the atmosphere of the planets being seen effected the observable dampening of a star. The 2004went over the majority of the countries in the northern hemisphere.The next transit of Venus will occur in 2012,  transit occur pairs.

Brahmagupta Essay

Brahmagupta wan an Indian astronomer and mathematician born in Bhillamala city, in the state of Rajasthan. Due to the success of his work, in literature of the time he was referred to as the teacher from Bhillamala. Bramagupta was not only and astronomer, but a brilliant mathematician as well. As a mathematician, he was revolutionary for his time as he was the first to compute with 0 and devised rules to work with zero. His mathematical prowess is by no means exaggerated, as he created an ainterpolation formula for calculating the value As well as creating the rules that are used today for doing math with negative numbers. As an astronomer he was one of the first to accurately calculate a year, calculating it to be 365 day, 6 hours and 5 minutes however he was a little off, as the true length of a year is a little under 365 days and 6 hours. He was also extremely interested in the moon, probably because it was the one of only things that could be easily studied with out optical amplification. He studied solar and lunar eclipses and the mechanics of the moons crescent as well

APOD 1.6 -- Galactic Winds

This image of M82 is a starburst galaxy. The large outflow of material from this galaxy old galaxy was caused by the common occurance of supernova, and the winds from large stars. Unlike most sharp images of space objects, this photograph was taken through the composite of many pictures taken by small earthbound telescopes. The Red fingerlings coming off the galaxy are caused by the hydrogen gas emissions, and the abundance of hydrogen in these regions of space are causing a burst of star formation, likely to continue for the next 100 million years. M82 is circumpolar in our region, as it is located in the northern region of Ursa Minor.

APOD 1.5 -- Start of the Martian Summer

At the end of each Martian summer, the ice on the south pole begins to defrost as the weather gets warmer, causing the dry ice to sublimate into Carbon-Dioxide. The walls of the thawed ices pits are of an unknown composition, and it is likely that they were formed by either water or lava. This image was captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was launched in 2005 to search for evidence of water on Mars. It took the orbiter 13 months to reach its science orbit at which point its water detection instruments were switched on. Over the next few months, the Martian weather will begin to get colder until the atmosphere again begins to freeze into dry ice.

Brahmagupta Essay - Bibliography

Gale Reference Library:


Krehbiel, Randy. "Ahead of its time. (An Advanced Society)." Calliope Nov. 2002: 35+. General OneFile. Web. 1 Oct. 2011.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA97388640&v=2.1&u=fl_sarhs&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w


"The curious case of research." Financial Express 18 Apr. 2011. General OneFile. Web. 1 Oct. 2011.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA254234406&v=2.1&u=fl_sarhs&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w


Online:
O'Connor, J J, and E F Robertson. "Brahmagupta Biography." 2000. Web. 01 Oct. 2011. <http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Brahmagupta.html>.