Crescent Moon

Yesterday Paul and Dylan were over to hang out. At 8 25ish Paul reminded me that we were going to see if we culd see the moon, so we went out to the usual spot: the roof. Unfortunately there were trees in the way. About 10 minutes later we went to the dock and saw it. It was actually more like one fist in the air from the horizon. The sky was really beautiful that night, lots of colors. A few clouds but we could still easily see the moon. We didn't get a picture though, and when it became darker there were too many clouds to take out the telescope.

Blue Lagoon

This image is of the Lagoon Nebula, M8 in Sagittarius from the constellation quizes. The pretty blue color is oxygen emission from the nebula, while the red is "atomic hydrogen" (H-alpha emission). The nebula is about 30 light years in length, and is about 5,000 light years away. That's really far away!

The comet and the galaxy

The comet in this picture, Comet Hale-Bopp, was discovered individually by two "amateur" astronomers in July, 1995. This comet was the farthest comet to be discovered by "amateurs" and was discovered outside of Jupiter's orbit (7.15 AU). When it was discovered, it was 1000 times bigger than Comet Halley at that distance. Also, comets at that distance are usually inert, which means that Comet Hale-Bopp is probably a particularly large comet. The comet was at its closest distance to earth in March of 1997 (some of you may remember seeing it. I think I do)
The Andromeda Galaxy is our closest neighboring galaxy. This picture was almost ruined by the presence of the moon. The moon at that time was very close to being full, which would have made the Andromeda Galaxy not visable. This picture was taken during a total lunar eclipse, which I'm still not sure about how that took place coincidentally when the comet passed by the galaxy.

This Weekend's Forecast: Clouds and Rain. Surprise.

Planned to take out my dad's telescope this weekend (Saturday) but since it was rainy and cloudy I ended up disappointed. Maybe some time this week though.

Hey I see one! It's moving really slow and it's blinking!

Paul (apod) and Giancarlo (Atlas) came over last night to check out the meteor shower. After getting gelayed a few times we went out to my dock at around 11 30. After 5 or 10 minutes we saw one and decided we could get a better (and more comfortabe) view on my roof. We were on the roof from about 11:50-1:30 and then again at 2:00-2:15. We saw a total of I think 26. Atlas posted the exact times and directions of them. Maybe I'll add them later.
In non-meteor shower related news, the moon- bright and annoying as it was- did look...dare I say...beautiful? I was going to take out my dad's telescope and check it out but we ended up not doing that. Maybe next time.