Qtr 2 Observation Logs LATE

These are my observations from November to January.

November 2012:

•  Getting easier to see the moon in the mornings
• Still see Jupiter and Venus
• Not many bright new stars visible
• Still bright summer constellations visible
• Able to identify Vega quite easily now
• Using star track app in order to make sure that I have the right name for the stars I see
• Getting easier to see
• Identified the great square of Pegasus
• Able to distinguish  clusters from one another
• Went out to myakka with some friends and was able to see the milky way
• Harder to see bright stars with winder approaching
• Spent an hour at the beach with some friends and was able to clearly see many stars and name some of them
• Summer triangle often visible, can tell the stars apart, Vega, Deneb, and Altair and then tell their constellations

December 2012:

• Not many bright stars in the winter sky
• Very few first magnitude stars compared to the summer sky
• Harder to distinguish certain constellations and stars
• Of course able to see the moon every night
• Accurate in predicting the phase of the moon only from looking at it
• Over Christmas break able to stay up late and look at the stars with my cousins
• No morning sightings over break
• More free time to gaze, no school, able to devote more time
• Looked off balcony for a while to escape my family, with the help of the star tracker app I was able to  identify many more stars than usual
• Overall good break, lots of star gazing

January 2013:

• Up early again, able to see the moon and a few planets every morning
• Not much time to stay up late like before on break
• Have the lunar schedule down
• On weekends able to spend more time looking up
• Good quarter for star gazing

APOD 3.2

This strange mechanism was found at the bottom of the sea in a shipwreck that occurred over 1000 years ago. The technology is amazingly advanced for its time and it astounds scientists in all fields, especially astronomers. It seems that this device can accurately predict where the stars will be and it isn't much bigger than a book. It is amazing that the people of this time had such advanced technology when it only appeared hundreds of years later in other places and civilizations. This could be one of the big breaks in the history of astronomy that no one even heard of.

APOD 3.1

Pictured above is the Stickney crater on Phobos, one of Mars' moons. It is named for the mathematician Chloe Angeline Stickney. Her husband, an astronomer, discovered the moons in 1877 and then found the crater. The crater is over half the diameter of the moon so it likely collided with another small moon sized object. Telescopes today permit us to see things in space with this sort of picture. There are strange grooves on the moon and crater and astronomers are unsure of what they may be for they look as if something had been brought across the surface. It is an awesome picture and discovery about one of Mars' moons.

Works Cited for Laplace biography

Works Cited

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Laplace.html

http://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/periodictable/html/La.html

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Laplace/RouseBall/RB_Laplace.html

Pierre Simon Laplace Biography

Connor Boles                                                                                                              Boles 1

Mr. Percival

Astronomy

7 Jan. 2013

Biography: Pierre Simon Laplace

            Pierre Simon Laplace was a well known astronomer born in France in 1749. He was known as the French Newton, playing a big part in the evolution of sciences and mathematics, mostly astronomy and statistics. Throughout his time he was able to increase his social stature through the science community and was well known and respected in his time. He is known as one of the most influential astronomers of his time.

            Even from an early childhood he had showed promise, which is why his wealthy neighbors forwarded his education so that he could grow to be more than his original family rank permitted him to be. He was very religious from an early start, mainly his fathers’ desire, and he went to the University of Caen to study theology as his father wished. He never graduated from the college and chose to leave so that he could study mathematics. He had gotten a textbook for mathematics and as the myth goes he read and understand the book over only a few days and soon after he was admired by many of his colleagues. He was recommended for a teaching position and soon after that was his occupation.

            That was when Laplace’s life truly began. He was able to start a family and study what he wanted to while securing a stable income. In 1776 he made his first discovery in astronomy, solving a problem that had eluded many of the best minds of that time for many years. The problem was concerning observational astronomy, it was the apparent instability while Jupiter’s orbit seemed to be shrinking while Saturn’s was expanding. Although that was not as easy to solve as the math problems Laplace was able to solve it and help bring light to the confusing matter. It expanded on Newtonian gravity. Along with this he also contributed greatly to the subfield of spherical harmonics. He was one of them who introduced the topic although he had to give some of the credit to one of his colleagues Legendre he was given most of the credit for the research. He used to have part in the name however it never caught on and it maintained the name of spherical harmonics. He also had a big part in formulating the Potential Theory. His work mostly concerned velocity and gravity and he expanded on many of Newton’s laws. His theories and formulas still help calculate some of the things in space today.

            Pierre Simon Laplace died in 1827 in Paris at the age of 77. He achieved the title of count in France in 1806 and was likely the most prestigious astronomer at that time for that portion of the world. Although he was an astronomer he mostly worked on the mathematical aspects and did not do very much observing compared to some other astronomers however when his formulas are applied they are soundproof and he remains one of the most notable mathematical astronomers in history.