observation 2.2

Thursday, December 13th
approx. 11:15 pm
Clear skies
looking east
2 hrs

As i was sitting in my back yard last night studying, i saw what you explained to us today is mars. My backyard faces east, so i was able to look straight ahead and see it. It looked like a small reddish-orange dot in the sky. It was relatively bright and i was able to focus my eyes on it without too much strain. it was interesting to see something in the sky that is not just a bright white light and actually has some color!

Note: i just wanted to remind you that my apods and observations are not numbered correctly and you told me just to leave them and not worry about it. Just so that you count all the ones i have. thanks!

apod 2.4

this is a picture of the jets and waves that are emitted from the sun. I think it is amazing that there is so much activity on one single planet and that space probes are able to take photographs of this activity. The description said that the jets and waves are created by magnetic reconnection events. Even though space travel is probably my greatest fear, i think it would be very cool to be able to see the sun from a closer distance and see some of the energtic activity on the sun from that close.

observation 2.1

Friday, December 7th
approx 7:10 am
clear skies, early morning, just getting light
30 mins

This morning, as i was driving to school, I saw a small light about 15 degrees above the moon. Apparently, this light was the planet Venus. The moon also looked very cool. it was a tiny crescent and almost could not be seen. I looked it up online and it said that the new moon should be occuring on December 9th.

apod 2.3

This is a picture of the double cluster in the constellation Perseus. Since we had this constellation this week and learned that there was a double cluster in it, it was interesting to see what it actually looks like. it is also cool to know that this is the only double cluster that has been found in the universe. I found it strange how in the picture the 2 clusters look relatively close to each other, yet in the description it said that they are actually several light years away from each other!

apod 2.2

This picture is so cool looking. I have never seen a cloud that has different colors in it or that looks kind of smeared like this one does. It looks like it is a rainbow within a cloud. The discription of the picture makes it sound like it is the same thing that happens with rainbows, yet is a lot more difficult to find and occurs much more rarely.

apod 2.1

for last week

The explanation for this picture is very confusing. I am not really sure what all of it means, but I really like the picture. From what i can gather from the explanation, it sounds like there are new results coming from the Auger observatory about high energy cosmic rays that had never been calculated before.

observation 2.0

Wednesday, November 7th
approx 9:30 pm
clear skies, very dark
looking due east
2 hours

Tonight when i was sitting outside in my back yeard, I was able to clearly see the summer triangle. All 3 stars, Deneb, Altair, and Vega, were very bright. They were making an obvious triangle shape. There was one star (the one on top) that seemed to be brighter than the other 2 stars. I am guessing that star was Vega. I had never seen the asterism before so it was very neat to finally be able to notice it.

apod 1.9

It is so interesting how flares from the sun can actually effect things on earth. It would be strange to be watching TV from a satellite and have the satellite picture go fuzzy because of activities on the sun, as it is so far away. It is also crazy that the temperature of the "glowing gas" is over ten million degrees Celsius.

apod 1.8

(last week)


This is a very approproate picture to show on Halloween! It looks just like a ghost with eyes and wings and a flowing bottom end. It is amazing that the Ghost Head Nebula can span 50 light years. It is hard to even imagine a distance that large.

apod 1.7

This is a picture of saturn in the crescent phase.I think that it is very interesting that this picture could not be taken from earth, but had to be taken from another object in space. This picture makes it very easy to see the different rings of saturn and creates a very clear image.

Pierre Gassendi

Aviel Kanter
Period 0
Astronomy
12, October 2007
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi was born on January 22nd, 1592 in Champtercier, France. He was initially educated by his uncle. He then was admitted to the College of Digne. He later pursued his studies at the University of Aix. Here he studied philosophy and theology. He also received the degree of Doctor of Theology at Avignon. He then took his holy orders in 1617. However, in 1624, Gassendi left Aix and moved to a canonry at Grenoble . It was here that he published the beginnings of his writings, Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos.
In addition to his interest in ancient philosophy, he was greatly concerned with issues dealing with astronomy and optics. He published the works called Parhelia, sive soles quatuor (1630) and Mercurius in sole visus (1632). Gassendi followed Galileo and Kepler and became increasingly dissatisfied with the Peripatetic, or Aristotelian, system. Yet, as it was a controversial time period, he held off on publishing his theories.
He then moved to Paris and lived there from 1628 to 1632. Here he met many friends and colleagues such as Boulliau, Mersenne, Mydorge, Naude, and La Mothe le Vayer. He also traversed through Holland and Flanders, all the while continuing to observe and work on his speculations. During his travels, he wrote an essay parahelia, or “sun dogs,” and made observations on the phenomenon of the transit of Mercury that Kepler had predicted. Gassendi was also the first person to see the transit of a plant across the Sun. He viewed the transit of Mercury, just as Kepler had hypothesized. He also published a book called De motu impresso a motore translato, which delved into his theories on motion and inertia.
Gassendi’s observations also caused some controversy. His work, De motu impresso a motore translato, was assailed by criticism from his adversary, Jean-Baptist Morin. Gassendi also began to respond to the theories of Renee Descartes. He objected to the fundamental propositions that Renee Descartes set forth. These objections were published in 1642.
In 1644, Gassendi was appointed to the prestigious position of Chair of Mathematics at the College Royal in Paris. He lectured and taught there for several years with great success. In 1647, Gassendi produced one of the two works for which he is most remembered: De vita, moribus, et doctrina Epicuri libri oct. The second was Syntagma philosophiae Epicuri, which was published in the same year.
In 1648, bad health forced him to resign from teaching at the College Royal, and instead he traveled to the south of France. He came back to Paris in 1653 and published biographies on Tycho Brahe and Copernicus. In 1655, Gassendi passed away from a lung condition. A bronze statue was erected in Digne to keep his memory alive.
"Pierre Gassendi." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 10 Oct 2007, 21:21 UTC. Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc. 11 Oct 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pierre_Gassendi&oldid=163658255>.
"Pierre Gassendi." American Council of Learned Societies: Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 5
vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981.
Hatch, Robert A. "Pierre Gassendi." Professor Robert a. Hatch: the Scientific RevolutionHomepage. Feb. 1998. 11 Oct. 2007 .

observation 1.7

October 9th
approx. 7:00 am
clear skies, just after sun rise
heading towards pine view from downtown sarasota

as i was driving this morning i was able to barely see the moon. i saw it as i was sitting at a traffic light looking up through my window shield. i was trying to find venus because i knew the moon was supposed to be located directly under it. however, i could not find venus, just the moon. it was a very small sliver and i was only able to focus my eyes on it for a few seconds at a time (granted the light only stayed red for about 30 seconds..). i had never seen the moon that small before so it was very interesting to see it right before it becomes a new moon.

apod 1.6

this is a picture of the path of the sun over the course of a year. i think the most interesting part of the photo is the one image of the sun where it is in a total solar eclipse. it has the distinctive white glow around the outside and the seemingly "black hole" in the center. i really like this picture because you can actualy see the steps the sun take to get back to a solar eclipse. i also find it amazing that the photographer had enough time and patience to go out every day at the same time for a year and take these pictures!

observation 1.6

Last night i was going to go out and observe but it stared raining. However, when i was out to dinner we were sitting right by the window. I was watching the lightning as the rain kept coming down. it seemed different than normal lightning as it seemed to linger in the sky much longer than a regular bolt of lightning. it was very cool. i know this isnt exactly astronomy but i thought it was interesting and it has to do with the sky.

observation 1.5

Thursday, September 27th

I went out and observed the moon tonight. It looked as if it were a full moon. Yet, the most distinguishable feature of the moon tonight was that it was a harvest moon. It was a glowing yellowish color. It looked very distince against the black sky. i thought it was extremely beautiful, yet somewhat eerie.

apod 1.5

I think the harvest moons are the most beautiful type. i love the yellow color that they appear to be. It almost looks like it is a cross between the sun and the moon.

apod 1.4

i really like this picture simply because of what it looks like. the description said that this was of volcano Tungurahua in ecuador. when i first looked at this picture it almost looked like this volcano was erupting on the face of another planet in space and not on earth. i really like how the lava and ash from the volcano are mixed with the wispy white clouds.

observation 1.4

I was actually able to see the moon on friday night. It was quite difficult to see as it was just a tiny sliver. However, the sliver was quite bright so i could see it clearly. I could also just barely see the outline of the rest of the moon when i looked closely. It was very neat looking.

apod 1.3

This is a picture of 6 rainbows that was shot in Norway. i can acyually only see 3 of them. I think it is very interesting how the inner side of the main rainbow is lighter than the outser part. It is also strange how the thrid rainbow is almost going in a different direction than the other two and is in the middle of the other two. The explaination said that the rainbow in the middle is probablycaused by the sunlight that was reflected off the lake first. It is also strange how the colors of the second rainbow on the outside are in reverse order of the first, main rainbow.

observation 1.3

i went out this evening to try and view the moon. however, when i went out it had gotten very cloudy and was beginning to thunder. i will try again tomorrow night!

observation 1.2

Iridium flare on 9/6/07

It is a little bit hard to view the sky from my backyard as there are many trees and it is difficult to see through them. From what i could see, at about 9:00 there was a bright streak across the sky. i was looking north. it was faint at first but as it moved along it got quite bright. it lasted for about 10 seconds before i could no longer see it because of the trees.

observation 1.1

This is from the first week of school.

I went outside to view the relationship between the star antares, jupiter, and the moon. The moon was to the left of both antares and jupiter. Jupiter looked as if it was flickering slightly and was a orange-ish color. it was about 4 degrees away from the moon when i used my fist to measure. Jupiter and antares were about 2 degrees apart. The moon and antares were also about 4 or 4 1/2 degrees apart.

apod 1.2

I thought that the picture of Victoria Crater on the moon was the most interesting from the week. The technology that is used to produce these kind of images still amazes me. It is fascinating how we have such advanced technology to have rovers on the surface of the moon.

APOD 1.1

I liked the picture of the red lunar eclipse the best from this week. Overall, i really just liked how the picture looked. i didnt expect the moon to appear red. The explaination said that the eclipse was "a dark one." i also didnt know that there was a difference between the light emission that could be seen during a lunar eclipse. its unfortunate that the sky was cloudy the morning when this occured as it would have been interesting to see.