Visual Magnitude Estimates Exercise

While attempting to estimate the apparent magnitudes of stars located in orion, canis minor, canis major and Taurus, I used several reference stars. The most useful of which were Beta Aurigae and Eta Canis Majorum. The conditions for viewing were excellent, however, trying to read a paper and then look up at the sky was rather difficult. I found that I wanted to use other reference stars then the ones given and was rather annoyed at trying to find the few ones that were given magnitudes. Sirius is really bright, and I missed venus by a few hours, considering it was around 9:00pm.

APOD 3.6

The Dust and Helix Nebula has a truly amazing appearance. It is only 700 light years away in the constellation Aquarius. The cloud of dust and gas around a central white dwarf is an excellent example of a planetary nebula. The infrared radiation emits from the nebula making the pattern that appears to be an eye. This is what you get after a Star goes nova. The smoke after the Explosion is just as beautiful as the Explosion itself.

Apod 3.5

NGC 2685 is a Polar Ring Galaxy. It is a rare type of galaxy with stars, gas and dust orbiting in rings perpendicular to the plane of a flat galactic disk. The bizarre configuration could be caused by the capture of random material not originally in the galaxy. The view is really amazing, but like most APOD's it is not visible with the naked eye. The perpendicular rings are easy to trace in the Constellation Ursa Major.

Planetary Nebulae

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_nebula

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/P/planneb.html

http://www.seds.org/messier/planetar.html

http://www.nightskyinfo.com/planetary_nebulae/

http://www.news-about-space.org/story/2556.html

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2001/1220/index.html

Apod 3.4

Potlemaeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel are 3 large impact craters that lie on the northeastern shores of Mare Nubium. The lunar sea of clouds is shown on nearly the entire picture. Careful examination also reveals the straight wall, a fault and the davy crater chain. overall the striking moonscape is similar to those recorded by ranger 9. There are small mountains in the center of the larger craters that are from impact.