Not-quite-apod-but-cool-nonetheless

The new telescope Hinode, launched by Japan, showed a new view of the sun that was captured on October 27. As the satellite orbits the sun it is in sunlight for 9 months out of the year. This photo was taken with the X-Ray telescope mounted on the sattelite. I think it is especially spiffy looking and I hope that I can find more video on these awesome recordings.

My failed attempt at observations.

Last night I figured I should cram in some more observations since I havn't been keeping much time account and even less writing down what I see. I went outside and noticed a police cruiser go by with lights on and no siren. I thought it was odd, but no big deal. As I was about to get comfortable I got yelled at by my mother to come inside. I meandered on in and sat down to huddle around the news they were watching on TV. Apparently someone had shot someone in the viscinity of my neighborhood and the shooter was still lose on foot. I decided it probably wasn't worth sitting outside to do observations with a psycho killer on the loose. I did however notice that the moon was almost full and that it is really easy to tell even when it is slightly oval. I prided myself on realizing that it was a Waxing Gibbous without having to use the internet (although I did check the internet before I posted that.)

Star Trails at 19,000 Feet

On the top of a mountain with the camera pointed at the south celestial pole and a long exposure time, you can see the rotation of the earth. The altitude of the shot is over 19,000 feet which shows why you can see slightly below the south celestial pole. it was an hour long exposure which makes each star moved 15 degrees in the sky.

Moon Over Andromeda

An overexposed andromeda in the sky shows it's massive size in comparison with a common sight of a nearly full moon. Andromeda is actually 2.5 million light-years away and nearly the size of our own mily way. The colors in the galaxy as well as the different colors of stars. M32 and M110 are also visible in the photo because of the overexposure.

Observations

I went outside to make some observations and decided my roof was once again my best outpost. After securing the area, I looked to the sky and saw a few basic constellations. Pegasus was the most obvious of all of them. After that I located draco. After I saw some of these constellations I realized that none of the constellations actually look like the things they are named after. As much as I wish they really looked like animals or people, I realize that all those dots are really shiney and pretty darn cool... Some more undetermined time later I realize that I'm staring at the sky and not even thinking. I decided to be content with that idea and kept staring. Some more time later I was prodded with a wonderful meteor that lasted for almost an entire second. It was by far the largest one I've seen and was pretty darn cool. After that I decided to head in and go to sleep.

Sunspots.

Using solar filter glasses, large sunspots can be seen with no magnification or other forms of assistance. A particularly large one could be seen a few days ago. Most sunspots are too small to be seen without a telescope.

Its a Movie!!!

The sun is not exactly a non-moving object. So a photo rarely does it justice. To fix this, we have a movie of the surface of the sun captured by a japaneese satellite. The active region shown here is based around a sunspot. The visible region is obviously the photosphere which shows a solar region of 8,000 kilometers. The embedded video is supplied courtesy of http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov

NGC 1097

This Spiral Galaxy NGC 1097 is also known as Arp 77. It is in the constellation Fornax and was discovered in 1974 by Halton Arp. This Image unique because it is from a single photo. It appears to have a strong gravitation attraction due to the Black hole it harbors.