Just some cool pics

These were all on Bings featured photos today. BEAUTIFUL!

Astronomical Event

Over the course of the semester I can honestly say I did see anything that was "out of this world" (no pun intended), but I did really sit and think about how small we are here on planet Earth. I have always loved looking at the stars and have always been intrigued by astronomy, but the more I learned in class, the more I thought when I was sitting just looking. I won't lie I got freaked out a few times thinking about whats truly out there. Everything to me that I have viewed has been an astronomical event for me. Learning how the constellations move and actually seeing it happen was awesome. At the beginning of the semester Orion's Belt was right out my door and now I can barley see it from the same spot I saw it before. This semester really made me think not just look. I really, throughly, enjoyed this "project".

Shooting Star

Last week at about 5:30am i saw a shooting star. It was almost at 90 degrees above. It only appeared in the sky for about 2 - 3 second, just long enough for me to see it. It looked like it was a red tint which was weird to me because I had always assumed shooting stars were blue. It was cool to see, I haven't seen a shooting star since I was probably like 12.

The picture below is from NASA.com which I'm obsessed at looking at the amazing picture on there. =)

Venus

So in my previous post I said Mercury was supposed to be out when in fact it was Venus, Which I did see. It was in the west with an azimuth of about 70 degrees. It has been visible almost every night from dusk til late into the night. It was pretty bright with a red tint. As for Mercury, it is out now but I have yet to see it=)

Mercury

So I looked last night for Mercury even though it was cloudy and SNOWY! But no luck. The sky's pretty clear tonight in Ada so I will try again. I found so "cool info" at SkyandTelescope.com about the Planets locations in late March and early April.

This Week's Sky at a Glance
by Alan M. MacRobert
Some daily events in the changing sky for April 9 – 17.

Friday, April 9

Mercury remains to the right of Venus at dusk, but see how it has faded! Mercury is now swinging between us and the Sun and consequently, in a telescope, it's becoming a thinner little crescent. See article.
Saturday, April 10

A small telescope will always show Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Tonight and tomorrow Titan is four ring-lengths to Saturn's east. A 6-inch telescope will begin to show the orange color of its smoggy atmosphere. A guide to identifying other Saturnian satellites often visible in amateur scopes is in the April Sky & Telescope, page 47.
At dawn Sunday morning, look for the waning crescent Moon low in the east. Look about 5° below it for Jupiter (seen from North America), as shown below.


MARS' STATS TONIGHT :
Mercury
Friday, April 09, 2010
Distance From
Sun: 31,536,403 Miles
Earth: 83,254,299 Miles
Constellation: Aries
Phase: 42%
Size: 42%
RA: 2 hr 19 min
DEC: 16° 47'
Magnitude: 0.08
Rises: 6:46 AM
Transits: 1:33 PM
Sets: 8:16 PM

Planets

So after browsing the internet for my semester long project, I stumbled along a web page about Michigan night sky and what you "should" see and according to mich.info/news/skymap.htm Saturn, Mars, Mercury, and Venus are all in the sky at this very moment (8:36 pm)I tried to get the picture but It wouldn't let me copy it =( This is what the picture looked like but I made this one on paint.

Sunrise

I observe the sunrise almost everyday, which I thought I'd never say, but when you're up at 5:00 am everyday, you tend to see the sunrise a lot. This morning I decided to actually take a picture. I took this picture at roughly 7:50 am in Ada. The sun had an altitude of about 20 degrees. With in the next 5 minutes, the sun rose what seemed to be quite quickly. As much as I love a pretty sunset, there is nothing like a pretty sunrise to start a good day. =)