1.5 APOD

This APOD of September 22, 2007
is actually a drawn prediction of what the world will look like in about 250 million years. They're dubbing the continent "Pangea Ultima" (remember from history class that the original continent that all of our current continents broke from is called Pangea). This is kind of confusing, but apparently the continents once formed a super continent called Rodinia about 1100 million years ago, the continents split up, and then 600 million years ago came back together and formed Pangea, and then split up into our present day continents. The reason for the shift in continents is plate tectonics - the earth is made of up plates that constantly shift and move and bump into each other and cause volcanoes, mountain ridges, earthquakes, and other geographic things.
Pangea was actually different from the projection of Pangea Ultima, because Pangea had Australia and Antarctica actually as a part of the continent, whereas in Pangea Ultima they're still seperate from everything else. This drawing was created by the PALEAOMAP Project. Notice the new mountain range and the disappearance of our dear Atlantic Ocean.

Moon Observation 9/25-9/27

I live on Bee Ridge Rd and every morning to get to school I drive West to get to the highway. On 9/25 (the day before full moon), the moon sat low in the sky and was massive, probably three or four times its normal size and a very orangish-greenish-yellow (it reminded me of the color of sulfur). It was so large that you could very clearly see dark spots on the center, where I assume craters and mountains and whatnot must be. The next day, 9/26 (the day of the full moon) I observed the moon during the same time (give or take a few minutes) driving the same route. This time the moon (though very bright) was its normal white color, but about a forth of the size of the previous day and up higher in the sky (about twice as high as before).
Then, on 9/27, I observed the moon from my friend's doorstep in Lake Sarasota at about 8:15. It was large and sulfur in color once more. I came back out to her doorstep at about 9:00 and the moon was higher in the sky, smaller, and white once more.

What the hey???

APOD #4, week of 9/17-9/21

APOD of September 20, 2007
This picture, taken in Cygnus (Swan, one of Ptolomy's 48 constellations)/The Northern Cross, shows the bright star (a white supergiant) Deneb (Arabic for "Tail) of the summer triangle in a bright blue color, surrounded by a red nebula. This nebula is actually along the plane of the Milky Way itself, and one of the links is a panorama of the Milky Way. You can see the North American Nebula and Pelican Nebula in the top left, close to each other. The North American actually looks like America, but the Pelican is kind of a stretch (you can see the beak but the body is just kind of a blob. Yes, that's a scientific word for you: blob.) One of the links has the same picture, but with other stars and nebulae labeled. Deneb is actually a part of two asterisms - the Summer Triangle that we're familiar with, and also the Northern Cross (a link shows a picture of the area, when you scroll your mouse over it shows the Northern Cross).

APOD #3, for the week of 9/10-9/14 (I was absent, sorry it's so late)

APOD for September 12, 2007
This picture is of a triple rainbow, reflected by a calm lake and therefore producing an image of six rainbows. While it's more common to see a double rainbow, even that is rare and the triple rainbow is hard to explain. The normal rainbow is created by internal reflection and refraction by the air around the rain drops as they fall, and the second rainbow is caused by multiple internal reflections. According to one of the links, the third rainbow (a reflection bow), which appears at such a different angle than the other two which seem almost parrallel, is caused by the light reflecting from the lake and then being refracted and reflected by the rain. The picture was taken in Sandessjøen, Norway after heavy rain storms.

Iridium Flare Observation 9/6/07

Observation place: Near Bee Ridge and Cattleman (my house)
Time: About 8:55 at night
Observation: The flare originally looked like just a faint star, hard to see, until you realized that it was moving. It got steadily brighter, lasting about 15 seconds or so, and passed just to the right of the North star, going South to North. During its peak it was easily the brightest thing in the northern sky, much brighter than Jupiter when I turned southward and looked at the star in order to compare. The flare happened almost due north, and just above the tree line.

APOD entry 1.2

The APOD picture I chose was of the Victoria crater (September 4th), a potentially traversable crater on the Martian surface. The picture was taken after dangerous dust storms (dangerous because dust blocks sunlight from the Opportunity rover's solar battery panels) and the trip into the Victoria crater has been much anticipated since July. It's lucky that the picture happened at all seeing as the rovers have lived three years past their anticipated three month expiration date, and the rovers have been searching for a way into Victoria crater for months. Victoria crater is the largest crater the rovers have found, and NASA hopes the rover will be able to go inside of the crater itself. NASA plans to keep the rover in this area in case the dust storms resurge (it will be in more view of the sun here) and in case we can find a way in. NASA hopes that the crater's walls will hold evidence about what the Martian surface was like before the impact that created the crater happened.