Biography Sources

http://messier.seds.org/xtra/history/pmechain.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Méchain

APOD 2.7

For this week, I chose an APOD entry depicting Titan's lake-filled land. Titan is Saturn's large moon. I remember learning about Saturn during the solar system presentions in class and from this entry I learned that Titan,besides earth is the only unique world with stable liquids on its surface. I was intrigued by this because I had never truly grasped the idea that other objects in our solar system could have that.

APOD 2.6

This week's chosen APOD depitcs the bright source of gamma rays that is Earth. This image was taken from a gamma-ray telescope orbiting around earth in space. I chose this picture for this week because I remembered what we learned in class about telescopes and light rays. The telescope that took this image is called the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope which recently celebrated its 2000th day in orbit. I thought this picture gave an interesting depiction of the bright souce of gamma rays on Earth and I also liked looking at the different intensities these rays had.

APOD 2.5

The APOD for this week that I chose is titled, "From California to the Pleiades" The entry describes with detailed the size of the distance from the California Nebula to the Pleiades star cluster. According to the entry this is about a 400 light year distant. I think it's awesome to see how time and distance in space can expand so far. I think it's a tough topic to wrap my hand around but the APOD picture helps because I can see the two different celestial objects and connect them somehow.

APOD 2.4

The APOD for today is titled "The Flash Spectrum of the Sun" I was immediately intrigued by this picture and decided to pick it for this week's APOD because I was remined of when we looked at light spectrums in class from several angles. This APOD entry speaks of the brief change in the visible spectrum of the sun during a solar eclipse. The entry also mentions and explains why the light spectrum of the Sun appears the way it does. It relates to the chemicals of the sun liek Helium and Hydrogen. This also reminds me of when we did the light spectrum activity in class.

APOD 2.3

The APOD for November 8, 2013 depicted the previous total solar eclipse viewed from the country of Uganda. This eclipse took place on November 3rd, however the eclipse cannot be completely seen from every single part of the world. This is why this picture is from Uganda. The elipse lasted a full 20 seconds. The reason I chose this picture is because solar eclipses, in my mind are extremely facisnating and since I cannot see a full solar eclipse from where I am, I thought it was intriguining. I also find it very interesting that one can look at the eclipse and it looks as if the moon and the sun look similar in size.

APOD 2.2

The NCG 7841 is a smoke nebula in the constellation Frustriaus. Actually no, this is not a real nebula but rather the amazing result of bad water and the earth's natural elements: water and smoke. In Sweden, astrophotographer Göran Strand  used flash photography to make this photograph. I chose it for the APOD of this week because when I first saw it, I thought it was a real satellite picture of a nebula but I was proven wrong. I for one, think this is a really cool picture and can show how inspirational space can be. I'm also interested now in both what flash photography is exactly and I want to learn more about the cool smoke nebula that looks so realistic in this picture.