APOD 1.5

My first guess was that this was a shot from a horror movie, complete with blood red sky and orange oversized moon. Fortunately this is not The Hills Have Eyes 3 but instead a real shot of the moon above a few cacti in the desert. The rising of a full moon can apparently be quite a sight, and its no different with this moon, the Saguaro Moon. Though the long focus lens of the camera has blown up its size, the colors of the moon and the sky are still pretty striking altogether. The light provided is amazing and is basically another sunrise.

Observation - August 22nd, 2007

August 22, 2007
9:20 - 9:30 PM
My Backyard
Clear

Observed with the naked eye.

Again observed the relationship between the positions of Jupiter, Antares, and Luna. The moon has shifted dramatically in 24 hours, and now lies directly beneath Antares and Jupiter so that a straight line perpendicular to the horizon has been formed. This demonstrates parallax and how the relationship between the stars doesn't change because they are so far away, but the relationship between the moon and the stars does because the moon is much much closer to us.

Observation - August 21, 2007

August 21, 2007
9:20 - 9:30 PM
Backyard
Mostly clear

Observed everything through the naked eye.

Noted the planet Jupiter's position in relation to the star Antares and our moon Luna. The three objects form a quasi-right triangle, with Antares being located at the 90 degree angle, Jupiter slightly above it, and the moon almost as far to the right as Jupiter is above. The moon looks to be in the waxing gibbous phase.

APOD 1.4 September 21st

Wow this picture is pretty outrageous. This Bruce McCandless guy is braver than I could ever be. I know his SAFER jetpack thing probably works all the time and the shuttle can come get him, but still. I wouldn't go into space let alone without anything keeping me attached to the shuttle, especially back in 1984 when that MMU technology was primitive compared to now. This guy has the proverbial "big cajones." Earth also looks pretty cool.

APOD 1.3 September 14th

This picture details the atmosphere of Iapetus, one of Saturn's moon. I didn't know there could be different colors of atmosphere, and was surprised that it's common knowledge that Iapetus has dark (looks black) atmosphere and light (looks white) atmosphere. The planet's organic ice-dense composition is probably the cause for the atmosphere, and the dark terrain was named after a guy named Cassini Regio. Its really interesting to know that atmosphere can vary like that on the same planet.

APOD 1.2 September 7

The recent lunar eclipse of August 28th was recorded recently at the South Pole by Robert Schwarz. I think it would be cool to see the moon here where it doesn't set for fourteen days. It was really freakin cold though, like I thought, so Schwarz had to record the photos through a slit in a heated room. Though these photos are slightly blurred due to the convection of the room, this man showed great bravery in enduring the cold and providing a revealing glimpse into the lunar cycles of the South Pole. I didn't know anybody resided at the South Pole, nor that the amount of atmosphere makes the photos even blurrier. It still looks really cool.