Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Zooniverse
Over the last few weeks I have spent over ten hours on zooniverse.org classifying different types of storms. There were several categories that I put these tropical storms into, the categories being Eye, Embedded Center, Curved Band, Shear, and Other. Before I put each storm into a specific category I chose which storm looked to be the strongest. Some of the storms were difficult to classify because they were in between two categories and others were unclear pictures. After choosing a category I matched the storm in question with a picture of the storm whose category I selected. Although it sounds like several tedious steps after a while I did not even have to examine each category or pictures but just knew beforehand where each storm belonged. Even with the experience some where quite difficult to classify and took longer than the rest. By the end of the ten hours I had classified several hundred storms at least. Some of the storms were recurrent but many others were new to me. I can now say that I can successfully classify storms from a satellite orbiting the earth. I noticed patterns and many of the storms were in the same place, mostly in the western hemisphere in the Atlantic Ocean and in the Gulf of Mexico and below. It was a very interesting topic to help scientists with and I am glad that I had such an interesting thing to research.
Monday, May 20, 2013
APOD 4.6
Above is an exploded star that created a very strangely shaped nebula that is known as Kepler's supernova remnant. The stellar explosion that created the cloud was seen in 1604 and has been visible ever since. It is located in the constellation Ophuichus and was one of the subjects of study of Johannes Kepler, yet without a telescope. He looked for a reason for why it looked this way but he was unable to understand it at his time. Currently with the new technology it is not difficult for astronomers to understand the reasons for the supernova and the cosmic cloud.
APOD 4.5
Above is a picture of a supercell storm that was in Montana. The storm looks absolutely amazing and is a large spiral firm. The middle is called a mesocyclone and the huge storm spans several kilometers. Tornadoes can exist within these storms and tons of raid drop every second. This storm did not cause much damage to the area or the people and this storm lasted hours and hours. These thunderstorms do not happen too often but the storm above is quite spectacular and they look absolutely amazing.
Grote Reber Biography
Grote Reber was born in 1911 to a middle class family in Wheaton, Illinois. He lived there in the suburbs of Chicago until he left for the college that he would later graduate from in 1933. He attended the Armour Institute of Technology, later to become the Illinois Institute of Technology. He got a degree in electrical engineering and later became a radio operator for a few years. In 1937 he built a radio telescope in his backyard and that is when his career in radio astronomy.
In the 1930's Grote Reber began to conduct sky surveys with his radio frequencies. In was in 1937 when his radio antenna became to be used for astronomical purposes. He was only one of the two people who had access to a radio antenna at the time and for a long time he was the only one in his field who contributed to the world of astronomy. He learned his profession from Karly Jansky who was the first to work this way at Bell labs where Grote applied to work in order to work alongside his idol. He was unfortunately turned down but that was not the end of it for when he built his own in his back yard and the telescope was far more advanced than that of Karl's. With his advanced technology he was able to see all parts of the sky and advance quickly and become a leader in his field.
Reber did have trouble in the beginning of his career because at 3300 MHz as his first receiver operated he was not able to detect anything. The same thing happened again when he tried at 900 MHz but he still tried rather than giving up on his dream. In 1938 over a year after the finishing of his telescope Reber succeeded in getting a picture of the sky at 160 MHz. Not long after he received his first publication in 1940 in the famous Astrophysical Journal but Reber kept at his own individual work rather than accept research offers from places such as Yerkes. He instead worked on making a radiofrequency sky map which he fully completed 1941 and increased the data in 1943 to have the most complete work in the entire world. He helped jumpstart the rapid growth that occurred after WWII.
He introduced to topic that became the standard theory of radio emissions from space that was due to black-body radiation. It was later explained in the 1950's and Reber became the most prominent and well known in the world in his field. Synchrotron radiation was the explanation of the strange measurements which explained it all and opened a whole new door in radio astronomy. Reber later sold his telescope to the National Bureau of Standards where it is now erected in Sterling, Virginia. Reber helped build other telescopes of the same kind so that the field could have expanded further and kept with his research at other MHz's that no one had ever tried before and he focused on the medium frequencies where it required him to move to Tasmania where he experienced less atmospheric problems.
He spent the rest of his life in Tasmania mostly in a very low inhabited area where he was able to study his astronomy all day. He spent thousands of hours from his modified house gazing at the sky and analyzing the radio pictures that he got from them. He worked mostly in winter when he could avoid the ionization that plagued him during much of the year. He died in his house there in 2002 doing what he loved. He was one of the most influential astronomers in his field and helped create the field of astronomy as it is today. Even though he is not known too well in his field he is highly respected by those who do know him.
In the 1930's Grote Reber began to conduct sky surveys with his radio frequencies. In was in 1937 when his radio antenna became to be used for astronomical purposes. He was only one of the two people who had access to a radio antenna at the time and for a long time he was the only one in his field who contributed to the world of astronomy. He learned his profession from Karly Jansky who was the first to work this way at Bell labs where Grote applied to work in order to work alongside his idol. He was unfortunately turned down but that was not the end of it for when he built his own in his back yard and the telescope was far more advanced than that of Karl's. With his advanced technology he was able to see all parts of the sky and advance quickly and become a leader in his field.
Reber did have trouble in the beginning of his career because at 3300 MHz as his first receiver operated he was not able to detect anything. The same thing happened again when he tried at 900 MHz but he still tried rather than giving up on his dream. In 1938 over a year after the finishing of his telescope Reber succeeded in getting a picture of the sky at 160 MHz. Not long after he received his first publication in 1940 in the famous Astrophysical Journal but Reber kept at his own individual work rather than accept research offers from places such as Yerkes. He instead worked on making a radiofrequency sky map which he fully completed 1941 and increased the data in 1943 to have the most complete work in the entire world. He helped jumpstart the rapid growth that occurred after WWII.
He introduced to topic that became the standard theory of radio emissions from space that was due to black-body radiation. It was later explained in the 1950's and Reber became the most prominent and well known in the world in his field. Synchrotron radiation was the explanation of the strange measurements which explained it all and opened a whole new door in radio astronomy. Reber later sold his telescope to the National Bureau of Standards where it is now erected in Sterling, Virginia. Reber helped build other telescopes of the same kind so that the field could have expanded further and kept with his research at other MHz's that no one had ever tried before and he focused on the medium frequencies where it required him to move to Tasmania where he experienced less atmospheric problems.
He spent the rest of his life in Tasmania mostly in a very low inhabited area where he was able to study his astronomy all day. He spent thousands of hours from his modified house gazing at the sky and analyzing the radio pictures that he got from them. He worked mostly in winter when he could avoid the ionization that plagued him during much of the year. He died in his house there in 2002 doing what he loved. He was one of the most influential astronomers in his field and helped create the field of astronomy as it is today. Even though he is not known too well in his field he is highly respected by those who do know him.
Friday, May 17, 2013
APOD 4.4
Pictured above is the Omega Centauri star cluster. It is one of the largest and brightest clusters known by astronomers and it is far older than our own sun and many others. It is approximately 18,000 light years away and 150 light years across which is why we are able to see it from so far away. It's magnitude is placed at 3.9 which puts it as one of the brightest things in the sky and it is not necessary to have a telescope or any sort of device to see it, even with a naked eye it is still bright and visible. There are over 10 million stars in the cluster making it the largest one that we are aware of.
APOD 4.3
Planets other than Earth do have very vicious storms and now astronomers have a recorded one from Saturn. It started in late 2012 and it still lives in part. It is amazing that a storm was able to live this long and it is the longest recorded storm in the solar system. It was seen up close from some of the satillites that could get close enough to take high resolution pictures and videos of the amazing storm. There are several vibrant colors on Saturn and the notorious rings leave shadows on the planet. The picture is partially distorted but it still shows the planet and what has been going on in the atmosphere.
Friday, April 5, 2013
APOD 4.2
This is a picture of the horizon obviously from France as you can see from the Eiffel Tower. It is very colorful because on the opposite side of the sun it is raining. It is a regular rainbow but due to the location of the sun in the sky this is the effect. One cool thing about this is that due to vantage point every single person sees a different rainbow in the sky. The thunderstorms that caused the rainbow lasted for most of the day but unfortunately the rainbow only did for a small amount of time. It is a very visually appealing occurrence.
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