APOD Entry #2 on "Bullet Cluster"

Galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, commonly known as the "Bullet Cluster," is 3.4 billion-light years away. It is a great galaxy cluster, as it provides evidence of "dark matter." Astronomers have calculated that, out of the total mass of the cluster, the visible portion does not add up to anywhere near the total mass. Ergo, there must be the elusive "dark matter." The dark matter was mapped through gravitational lensing of the background galaxies, which means that, due to the gravitational forces of dark matter, the light from the distant galaxies is bent slightly, thereby giving it a brighter appearance to our telescopes.
The Bullet Cluster was created when two smaller clusters collided. The dark matter is the blue hued section of the picture, and the red is x-ray emitting hot gas.
Dark matter is matter that we can prove through gravitional effects, but can not see on any known frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is believed that dark matter is created from WIMPs and axions, neutrinos, dwarf stars, and planets deemed "MACHOs." It is more massive than visible matter. Most of dark matter is formed from an even more mysterious "dark energy," which, hypothetically, has strong negative pressure. This means that it works in opposition to normal conventions.

Spying on Jupiter

Tonight was not a very good night for observing. I had gone out at 8:31 to view a satellite known as Lacrosse 2, but my desperate searching (10 degrees and an azimuth of South) was to no avail.

I then noticed a particularly bright "star" in the SW portion of the Celestial Sphere. I realized that this was the planet Jupiter, which had been explained to us in class that it would be at 30 degrees SSW at 9 PM. After 10 minutes of gazing at it with my binoculars, I had remembered that we had a refracting telescope in the garage.

I got it out, and during the course of an hour of fiddling with it, I realized that it had moved about 3 of my hand widths, or about 18 degrees (which is about the normal speed of a star moving across the sphere).

I finally got the telescope dialed in on Jupiter, and proceeded to spy on it. I didn't see much, just a big, bright, cream-colored circle of light.

With the mosquitos eating me alive, my father (who had been helping me with the telescope) and I decided to call it a night, but I remembered to find the Big Dipper. After a moment of searching, we found it. I tried to find Polaris using the "pointer stars," but it's light was obscured by the clouds and dust in the atmosphere.

Total time: 1 hour.

APOD Entry #1 on Orion Nebula

The Orion Nebula, classified as M42, is one of the brightest deepsky objects. It was discovered in 1610 (probably) by Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. It is the brightest diffuse nebula in the sky. It is 1,600 light-years away from the Earth.
It has been made into a Messier object. It has about 200 stellar embryos.

Perseid Meteor Shower part 2

I was viewing the night sky from 9 to 10 PM, and saw about 9 meteors. I also saw 2 UFOs, one going north to south, and the other going west to east. Judging by their speeds and altitude, I'm guessing the north to south was a satellite and the west to east was the I.S.S (International Space Station).

At about 1:30 AM, I went outside again until 2:00 AM and saw nothing. As like last night, the moon's glare was too bright.

Perseid Meteor Shower part 1

Well, I started looking at around 11:00 PM. I didn't see much of anything. The unlucky combination of the waning gibbous moon and the number of lights around my house pretty much blocked out all but the brightest of stars.

In the end, after more than 2 hours of observing, I saw a grand total of 1 meteor. Perhaps tomorrow I will see more.

First Entry

This is Erich from Astronomy. I will hopefully be seeing the Perseid Meteor shower tonight and tomorrow. I will post those observations on the day after I see them.