APOD #7 on NGC 5905 and 5908

The two galaxies pictured, NGC 5905 and 5908, are 140 million light-years away, in the constellation Draco. The two galaxies, about 500,000 light-years apart, are spiral galaxies. MGC 5905 is seen face-on, while NGC 5908 is seen edge-on. NGC 5905 is a central bar spiral galaxy. A few bright star clusters can be seen, as well as the arms that give it its spiral characteristic. NGC 5908, seen edge-on, is also a spiral galaxy. This is known because of the characteristic large nucleus and the dust disk. NGC 5908 is similar to M104, more commonly known as The Sombrero Galaxy.

Class Stargaze 9-23-06

• Planets observed: Jupiter and Uranus
• Deep-space objects observed: M-objects 8, 11, 13, 31, and 57.
• Constellations: Sagittarius, Scorpio, Serpent-handler, the two serpens, Lyra, Aquila, the Swan, Andromeda, the King, Pegasus, Ursa Minor
• Stars: Antares, Arcturus, Epsilon-Lyra, Polaris
• Asterisms: Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Summer Triangle, the Square, the Worm asterism

We also noted how much the sky moved.

In Epsilon-Lyra, the star orientations were almost perpendicular, and almost parallel.

Andromeda (M31) was slanted to the left.

Uranus appeared to have a white disk with a blue hue.

Total time was 2 hours, at the PV Service Road.

Total time (personal) observation: 8 hours, 30 minutes.

APOD Entry #6 Central IC 1805

The "clouds" seen here are formed by stellar winds and massive radiation from young stars. The cluster is about 1.5 million years old. The image is a composite of many images, made by narrow band telescopic. It spans about 15 light-years. The colors are formed by different elemental emissions. Green is hydrogen, red is sulfur, and oxygen is blue. IC 1805, of the "Heart Nebula," is about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation Cassiopeia.

APOD #5 on Magellanic Cloud

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) galaxy is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way galaxy. The image is comprised of 300,000 individual pointings to create the sharpest LMC image ever. It shows gas encompassing the numerous young stars (red-tinted bright clouds), mid-life stars (green-tinted clouds), and the old stars (small red dots). The empty spaces are formed by energetic outflows of massive former stars. The faint blue glow is the combined light from the central stars. The LMC is 70,000 light years, and lites 160,000 away.

APOD #4 on Atlantis to Orbit

The Space Shuttle Atlantis is lifting off to restart construction on the ISS. It travels much faster than an airplane. It's a lot heavier than the Statue of Liberty. Pictured here on the morning of September 9th, 2006, it weighed 2 million tons before launch. It orbits the Earth above the atmosphere, where it can free fall in space without falling back to Earth (due to air resistance).

On a side note, rockets are launched from Earth about once a week.

APOD Entry #3 on Extra Galaxies

A composite image, which is a larger picture composed of many smaller pictures, of the area near the constellation Ursa Major shows a lot of galaxies. The biggest is NGC 3718, also classfied Arp 214, which is a spiral galaxy that is warped. Originally, it was not known as a spiral galaxy, but later pictures with longer exposures provided evidance that it is a barred, warped spiral galaxy. To the right of that, in the space of about 150 thousand light-years, is NGC 3729. The pair of them are interacting, gravitationally, which causes the warping on NGC 3718. Together they are about 52 million light-years away. Underneath NGC 3718 is Hickson Group 56. It contains 5 galaxies which all interact together. It lies over 400 million light-years away.