APOD 4.5

This week's APOD shows Messier 5, a globular star cluster located between the constellations Libra and Serpens. This globular cluster was thought to be a nebula, discovered by 18th century astronomer Charles Messier. It contained more than 100K stars, bound together around a 165 light-years in diameter length. According to this APOD, M5 is one of the oldest globulars in the milky way. I chose this photo for this week's APOD because we have studied the constellations Libra and Serpens so I found it interesting to learn about a new M object located between both. I also found it incredibly interesting that  in the 18th century, so long ago, Messier was able to observe this cluster with the naked eye or telescope. 

APOD 4.4

The APOD that I chose for this week depicts the recent lunar eclipse seen over from the chilly Waterton Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park in Albert, Canada. Recently, we have been working with a lot of astronomy photography and it is something I have grown to understand and become interested in more. In this photo of the lunar eclipse, there is an exposure of 10 minutes which allowed for the capture of the moon's eclipse phase's position over a period of 80 minutes.The photograph also depicted the star Spica from the constellation Virgo. Something interesting that I learned from this entry was that as early as 270 BC, a greek astronomer by the name of Aristarchus measured the duration of a lunar eclipse. I find it awesome that someone in such an early civilization could do that without the aid of modern clocks and cameras but rather algebraic math.

Contributions to N + S of Milky Way

Galileo: Galileo observed the Milky Way, which was previously believed too be nebulous, He found it to be a magnitude of stars packed extremely dense instead of what people thought to be simply nebulas.

William Herschel: Helped establish the shape of the milky way with the large telescopes. He helped establish that we in fact live in the milky way and that the fuzzy patches observed were nebulae. By measuring the stars, he helped establish that we live in what he called a disk of stars. 

Harlow Shapley: Helped expand our knowledge on the shape of the milky way. He began by studying globular clusters around the time when the shape of the galaxy was unknown. But after his research was published, the shape and the position of our solar system in the galaxy was known. 

Edwin Hubble: He helped understand that the cloudy patches observed were not nebulae but other nearby galaxies. This helped understand the size of the universe. He also helped by stating that the universe was in fact expanding.

Immanuel Kant:  Believed the milky way was disk shape but never achieved much work on it.

Henrietta Leavitt: Discovered the period luminosity relation.

The Great Debate: Between Curtis and Shapley, Shapley held the position that the spiral nebula we call galaxies were inside the milky way. Curtis argued they were outside.