3.2

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100128.html

Kemble's Cascade

In this picture there is an asterisms. An Asterism by deffinition is just a recognized patter of stars. An asterism is not one of the the 88 official constellations. the lagest asterism is the big dipper, not a costilation. This pretty chain of stars is near the costellation of Camelopardis. Another asterism is Kemble's Cascade, it is so large that is has about 20 stars nearly in a row creating this asterism. It is so large that is stretches over 5 times the width of a full moon. In this picture arounf the upper right to the lower left in the picture, Kemble's Cascade was created and made more popular by Lucan. In this picture we can see a lot of beautiful stars that are created by consillations and even more asterisms.

3.1

Mars Opposition 2010

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

In this picture Mars is at opposition. This means it is opposite the Sun in respect to Earth's sky. It is easy to spot even for a novice astronomer because it is closest to the fool moon. Mars is still over 99 million kilometers away but still not particularly close approach for the famous Red Planet. In this picture we can see a reddish planet very clearly. This is an example of the telescopic images possible in the coming days which means a lot more clear pictures of this red planet. In the picture you can even see the north polar cap of this red planet, that is how clear the picture is. It is the white part of the planet in the upper right hand corner. This planet is also about 14 arcseconds in angular diamiteter relitivly one hundreth of the size of the full moon.

APOD 2.8

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100114.html

M94: A New Perspective
This picture is a picture of the M94 Universe that only lies about 15 million light-years away. This universe is in the northern constellation of the hunting dogs. This picture looks like a swirling beautiful color. It looks like it goes on forever but in fact it is about 30,000 light-years across. Thanks to new multi-wavelength investigation the old knowledge and pictures of M94's inner spiral region only being surrounded by a faint broad ring of stars has been improved and revealed that this previous undetected spiral arms sweep across the outskirts of the galaxy's disk. This universe's optical wavelengths M94's outer spiral arms are followed in this remarkable discovery. This remarkable discovered enhances the outer disk structure. In this background galaxies are visible through the faint outer arms, while the three spiky foreground stars are in our own Milky Way. This picture is a beautiful picture of new technology.

APOD 2.7

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100106.html
The Spotty Surface of Betelgeuse

This picture was taken in Paris of the red supper giant or actually known as Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse is a really big star so big that in comparison to our star, if we put it in the middle of our solar system it would reach Jupiter. Because most stars only look like single dots even in large telescopes astronomers used interferometry to take this picture. This picture was taken at infrared wavelengths. In this picture there are two brights spots, big convective cells. These cells are rising from below the star's surface. They are bright because like lava coming out of a volcano they are hotter than the rest of the star. This is a really amazing picture when you take into acount that this star is about 600 light-years away.

APOD 2.6

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap071030.html
Comet Haley's Nucleolus

This picture is a picture of a comet. In this picture you can see very well the actual nucleus of the comet. The nucleus is formed by the primordial stuff of the solar system. I believed that comets are basically very dirty icebergs but with new technology and ground-based telescopes we know the surrounding cloud of dust and gas around active comets close to a star are clearly resolving only the comet's coma. In 1986 European spacecraft, Giotto, became one of the first ever to get a photograph of a nucleus of a comet. This picture is of Halley's comet, one of the most popular comets. The nucleolus is potato shaped and about 15 kilometers wide. Haley's comet comes by only ever 76 years. So we do not get to see it very often, but know with the close up photo everyone can see it every day.

Astronomer Biograohy: Friedrich Georg Struve

Shannon Sims
Mr. Percival
Hon. Astronomy
07 Jan 2010

Astronomer Biography: Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve

Friedrich Georg Struve was born in April 15, 1793 and lived a long and successful life and later died in November 23, 1864. He was born in Altona, Denmark. Altona Denmark is currently part of Germany. He was the son of a fellow astronomer, Jacob Struve. Counting himself and his father there would be five generations of astronomers in his family. These astronomers in his family include Otto Struve, Otto Wilhelm von Struve, and Hermann Struve. He married a woman named Emilie Wall in 1815. They had 12 children together but only 8 survived early childhood. One of his sons Genrickh Vasilevich Struve became a prominent chemist and his other son Bernhard Vasilyevish Struve served as a government official in Siberia. He had many children who grew up to become very influential people. Unfortunately his wife died in 1834, he later remarried Johanna Henriette Francisca Bartels. He had 6 more children with Joanna. One of which was Karl de Struve he served as a Russian Ambassador to The united States, Japan, and Netherlands. Jacob Struve, Friedrich Struve’s father moved his family to Livonia, in Imperial Russia. He did this in order to stay away from military services. Friedrich was first interested in the study of philology, the study of words. He studied at the University of Tartu which is in Estonia. Fortunately he found philology to be dull and then turned to astronomy for more excitement, which he studied at the same school. He started teaching in 1813 Tartu at the University of Tartu. He also observed at Dorpat Observatory on his free time which was also in Tartu. Later in his teaching career in 1820 he became a full time professor and still found time to managed to be the director of the Dorpat Observatory. In the Dorpat Observatory he researched double stars and geodesy. In 1839 he founded and directed a new Obervatory, the Pulkovo Observatory in St Petersburg. He was given many honors one of the most regarded ones was in 1826 he was honored by the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1862 Friedrich Georg Struve retired on account of his failing health. He died two years later on November 23,1864. Friedrich Struve did a lot of different work and observations but he is most widely known for his observations on double stars. He worked on his double star observations for many years. He exceeded past astronomers that observed double stars like William Herschel and John Herschel and Sir James South. He found many double stars in 1827 in this year he published his double star catalogue Catalogus novus stellarum duplicium. Struve’s observations were so exact and tedious that he made micrometric measurements of 2714 double stars around 1824, it took him many years to published his measurements in his work Stellarum duplicium et multiplicium mensurae micrometricae. He was also the first person to measure the parallax of the star Vega. Struve was one of the first Astronomers to recognize the effects of interstellar extinction even thought he could not provide a reason to help better understand the effects of interstellar extinction. He also was remarkably close to the modern estimate of the average rate of visual extinction he believed it was 1 mag per kpc and the modern believe is 0.7 to 1.0 mag per kpc. Along with Astronomy he started the Struve Geodetic Arc, which consisted of a chain of surveys triangulations stretching from Hammerfest, Norway to the Black Sea, ten countries wide and over 2,820km long.