January 20, 2018

On this night, the stars were so clear in the sky that it seemed like they were "all there". The Moon, to the northwest, was a spectacular waxing crescent. The whole time I spent with my eyes up to the sky, I was whispering "oh wow" on repeat to myself, taking in the sight. Below, you'll find my observations for the northern and southern skies, and a small comment about the eastern sky. I was out so long that I didn't even get the chance to look at the western sky! But of course, I did look west for a second, just to see Cassiopeia!

In the southern sky, I could see Orion, Sirius (the brightest star in the sky), part of Taurus, and Pleiades (the famous "Seven Sisters" star cluster in Taurus ~ that, to me, looks like a tiny Dipper!). The red of Betelgeuse and the blue of Rigel didn't seem to stand out to me as much today. The ISS was passing by at this time, but it was unfortunately too low behind the trees for me to see.

In the northern sky, I saw both Dippers, but only parts of Ursa Minor (it's always fainter than Ursa Major). You'd expect that for the two constellations everyone knows since childhood not to be so awestruck, but today, I was even saying "oh wow" to the Big and Little Dipper.

I saw a lot in the eastern sky as well, but I'd already been out in the cold for 20 minutes, so I didn't draw them, but, with the help of my trusty SkyView app, I was able to see Capella & Menkalinan, Castor & Pollux, and Alhena & Procyon, among many others (I did write down 2 other stars' names, but once inside, I couldn't even decipher what I'd written!). 

Last night's observations, along with my recent research about the Very Large Telescope (read my new post here) spoke to and inspired me, causing that flame of passion to burn a little stronger within me.

The Very Large Telescope

The Very Large Telescope, owned and managed by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is located in Cerro Paranal, Chile. The facility consists of four individual rotating telescopes, Antu (Sun), Kueyen (Moon), Melipal (Southern Cross), and Yepun (Venus), named from the indigenous Mapuche language. The elevation of the site is 2,635 meters. Construction of the VLT began in 1991 and it made its first observation in 1998.


The Very Large Telescope is an optical telescope that is able to detect ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light waves. It uses Ritchey-Cretien reflectors and interferometry, a technology that creates higher resolution images by combining light wave signals underground. The telescope is used to view deep space objects as faint as magnitude 30, which means they are four billion times fainter than what is visible to the naked eye. Each of the four unit telescopes has an aperture of 8.2 meters. The facility also has four smaller auxiliary telescopes, each of which is 1.8 meters in diameter. When combined through interferometry, the telescopes can have an aperture of up to 200 meters in diameter. Each unit telescope has an angular resolution of 50 milliarcseconds (an arcsecond measures the angle between two objects to the observer). When combined by interferometry, this resolution is reduced to only 2 milliarcseconds, which the ESO defines as being able to distinguish two points on the ISS separated by the width of a single sesame seed from Earth or being able to read a newspaper on the Moon!


The VLT had made many discoveries including:
* discovered the most massive star, R136a1, which is 265x more massive than our Sun
* observed the afterglow of the furthest known gamma ray burst
* watches stars circle around the black hole at the center of our galaxy
* produced the first image of an exoplanet and measured the planet's mass
* discovered the Great Cold Spot on Jupiter

On the homepage of the website, you can view a live panoramic image of the Paranal Observatory which I have linked here with a map of the site, which includes its high-end "resort" called the Residencia where astronomers and engineers live.
http://www.eso.org/public/usa/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/ 

The last thing I have for you today is an amazing set of images taken by the VLT. The link below is from the ESO and contains 682 unbelievable, groundbreaking images. I scrolled through all 14 pages on the website clicking on the ones that I wanted to learn more about (which was a LOT). And not very far into the collection, my eyes were tearing up. Sure, I'm an emotional person, but looking at these sparked something in me. Inspiration? Hope? Just pure awe? I don't know what it was, but these pictures of deep space that are possible through the abilities of our own humankind truly struck me. 

I'll insert here some of my favorites:

http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/list/1/?adv=&facility=31 

                                                 Jupiter                           Spiral Galaxy NGC 1232     

  

Red flames of Betelgeuse          Jewel Box cluster    

       Eta Carinae Nebula               Gas cloud being ripped 

                                                     apart by the black hole at the 

                                                 center of the Milky Way

Outbursts from a newborn star in the constellation Orion

Rosetta's Comet

Dust ring around the star           Globular cluster 47 Tuc

 HR 4796A in Centaurus                                                   

  

The protoplanet that orbits the             Colliding galaxies          

young star HD 100546 is seen                                                    

in the star's dust and gas                                                     

                                                   

     Exoplanet CVSO 30c           Triple quasar QQQ 1429-008

   

Never forget to look up and beyond,

                                       🌠
    North Star Gazer 🔭

   

Works Cited

alienarka. "VLT Trailer 2009 (Paranal, Chile)." Online video clip. YouTube. 4 December 2009.
“Angular Measurements.” Cool Cosmos, IPAC-Caltech, coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_
        classroom/cosmic_reference/angular.html.
Ferris, Timothy. Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding
Earth from Interplanetary Peril. Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Greenhaven Press. Exploring Science and Medical Discoveries: Astronomy. Thomson Gale, 2006.
Gregersen, Erik. “Very Large Telescope.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 7
        Mar. 2016, www.britannica.com/topic/Very-Large-Telescope.
Nave, Rod. “Very Large Telescope (VLT).” HyperPhysics, hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase
        /Solar/VLT.html.
“Very Large Telescope.” ESO United States, www.eso.org/public/usa/teles-instr/paranal-
        observatory/vlt/.

January 10, 2018

I'm sorry that I haven't been posting much lately, but I'm back! I had a burst of inspiration so get excited for the fun posts I have planned! (Seriously, earlier today I was tearing up looking at something that you'll hopefully get to see very soon)

⭐   ☆   ⭐   ☆   ⭐

Facing 165° south, it was interesting to note the shifts in the positions of the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Spica since my previous observations, which were all generally at the same time. On November 28th, Jupiter was much closer to the horizon, Mars and Spica were almost next to one another, and there was no Moon (see picture below). This change is due to the differences in the orbits of the planets around the Sun. In this observation, Mars did not appear as red as it does other days. The Moon was in the waxing crescent phase. Also, the coloring of this picture does not do the sky justice- the sunrise was a much more vivid orange.

January 1, 2018

Happy New Year, everyone!! 

My Observation Notebook project is finished now (although I still have more observations to post here) but I am happy to announce that I'll be continuing my observations. My dad surprised me this Christmas with this notebook that he ordered with my blog logo and a star chart printed on the front. In here, I'll be doing my own personal observation notebook. Since this one is separate from class, the format will be a little different because there are no guidelines. And as for the blog posts, I'm not sure exactly how I'll set them up but for this one, I'm typing out the paragraph I wrote in the notebook, adding a little bit more. 
Thanks so much for reading! Here's to a great 2018- I'm looking forward to continuing to explore the night sky together!

Just as I was going to bed at almost 2 am, I could see how bright it was outside, so I got up and looked out my window. The moon was full and bright at due west, and I could see part of Orion. Through the window, without my glasses on, I could see the red of Betelgeuse - if that tells you anything about how dark and clear the sky was! I'm not positive, but this might've been my first time seeing Sirius, which is the brightest star in the night sky. It most certainly was the brightest star, so much that I had to check the SkyView app to see what star it was because at first sight I thought it must have been a satellite or something! Wow, that was an amazing sight in itself! The moon's light created a beautiful shadows of the trees in the snow on the ground- another sight in which I took delight. I remember thinking that it was cool that January 1st was a Full Moon, but when I looked it up, according to moongiant.com, on December 31st, the moon was 96% illuminated and 99% on January 1st - "not quite a full moon." But even if it doesn't fall right on the start of a new year, that only means that I have tonight to look forward to as even more spectacular.

                   Shine bright and keep dreaming,
                               ✰North Star Gazer