Thoughts and Presentation.

Tonight is my turn to present my final project AKA all about my blog. I am really excited and not nervous at all. Great now I am a little nervous! I am excited and want to share with you one of my last Observation Projects... To share our thoughts about the night sky after we have had the class. I will probably blog once or twice more. =( Also I made an 88 on my last TEST. which is the awesome.

I am so glad I have taking this class, I have learn a lot about our sky. When I first took this class I knew nothing about the night sky. I did not know constellations or even cared about them. All I knew about Astronomy was that we had some planets and stars and we lived in the Milky Way Galaxy. After taking this class I have learned so much! I know that stars are different colors depending on where they fall on the H-R diagram. I know all about the layers of the sun, different galaxy types, and even about some of the space missions NASA has had. I think the most helpful learning tool in this class was something I was dreading the most, the Observation Projects. I learned so much from doing those and I am really glad I stuck this class out. At the beginning I was really thinking about dropping it because I just did not think I could do it. I am glad I did not, because I have enjoyed this class a lot more then my other one. The night sky really does look different to me, and now I get bummed if it is not a clear night. I may not know all the constellations but I do get excited when I can point one out and know how to look them up if needed. I do have a greater appreciation of our sky, planet, galaxy, and universe after taking this class. My major is Elementary education and I hope that someday I will be able to share what I have learned in this class with them.

I can't believe how fast time has gone by! I only have a month left in this Semester. I am going to be a touch sad to see this class go, I have enjoyed it and learned so much. I learned a lot about myself and my class mates when I gave my 1st class presentation last week. I had to review the material that we had covered in the last class, and I was super nervous. I had not spoke in front of people in a really long time. After I gave my presentation, everyone clapped and said I did a good job. I did learn a few things about public speaking in your class.

1: Most people are not listening or paying much attention.

2. Most people get nervous so they can relate to your pain.

3. Prepare a bit, get your notes in order and go over them a few times.

4. Most people are not listening or paying much attention.

5. People are going to remember if you do something crazy like pass out or vomit, so don't do that.

Everybody has to present something in their classes at one time or another, so don't be nervous because people don't care or not paying attention! I need to remember this for the rest of my school career instead of getting all worked up.

We had our 3rd test last night. My feelings on it: I thought it was going to be a lot harder then it was. I studied like crazy and still did not feel ready. When we had our class review by playing Jeopardy. That was pretty fun, but stinking hard, which made me feel like I was gong to fail this test, I don't think I did and am very curious as to what my grade will be. There were only a few questions that stumped me and made me go HUH?!?!



NGS 6302 The butterfly nebula!! a little bit of my observing project for the week!

yikes

I need to write a few more blogs for this! We are over half way done with the Semester and I have only written SIX blogs!?!? I wonder if I will still get an A for this project!! Also this week is Spring Break YEAH... oh don't get to excited yet we still have home work and an Observation Project due. Luckily, My husband and I had friends over last night and they all helped me with the project! They were kind enough to let me point out a few constellations/stars and let me talk about them. It was not the clearest night BUT THE STARS WHERE OUT!

Then I started to wonder when the Spring sky was coming and I guess it is at the beginning of April. I started to wonder if that would effect the luminosity of the stars or not.... I guess I will never know. HA I am glad I picked this as my final project. Even thought making a cake sounds really awesome too.

Did you know there are 3 types of Galaxies ?

Nor did I!! But there are and that is my observation project this week! It was fun to learn about them, because I had no idea. I hope you enjoy the pics! Wish me luck on my test tomorrow!

Spiral Galaxies examples: Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. They have a central concentration of stars, called a bulge. And are flat, rotating disk with stars, gas, and dust. Most galaxies are this type.



Elliptical Galaxies examples: M32, M49, M59, Maffei They have an elliptical shape and are smooth. Can have over trillion stars. Mostly made up of older low mass stars.



Irregular Galaxies examples : NGC 1427A and Sextans A They are any galaxy that fit into the other 2 galaxy shape definition. They can be any shape, size, and are made up of all kinds of things.

a trip to the Planetarium!

On Monday the 22nd we took a trip to the BYU planetarium! It was pretty awesome and I had a lot of fun. I had never been before so this was a new experience for me. But the best part was that we got to bring someone with us to class. I brought my husband and left our son home with a sitter so it was kinda like a date. But can it be a date if it is a class where you learn something? Hahaha But we did learn and looked at different constellations in the winter sky. That was very helpful to see our sky at night and have our teacher point out where things are. So helpful in fact that I was able to point out Orion's Belt and one of his dogs Siruis, on our way home. That was the first time I could look up in the sky and go "Hey I see Orion's belt, there it is." That was pretty cool to do. Things I also knew but never really think about till I was there: The stars in the sky change during the year and we have different stars at different times of the year. And that the sky in the southern hemisphere is different then the sky we are looking at now. I knew those things, but I guess I really don't think about them that often. But it is cool to know. One of my other favorite things was that we got to the see our closet neighboring Galaxy, Andromeda! How freaking cool is it that you can see a galaxy that is 2.5 million light years away with your naked eye !?!?!? Well not so much with your naked eye more like binoculars.. Well you can kinda see it with your eyes! But the point is that you can see it without having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on some fancy telescope! It was a very fun trip and I hope I get to go back sometime!!

Sunrise, Sunset, Sunrise, Sunset

This weeks assignment is to write our feelings and observations about a sunrise or a sunset. Oh do I have some feelings about them!! We could do one or the other and since I am NEVER up to watch a sunrise, I quickly crossed that off. For the past 5 years I have seen the sunset every day. Ok not everyday but most days. I am pretty sure our family room window is perfectly aligned with the sun's setting path, because most days that is how I see it and all its "splendor". What surprises me most about this, is that I see even when the sky is cloudy and gray and have not seen the sun most of the day. That is because when the sun sets it gets lower and lower out of the atmosphere and shines/blinds me for a good 2 hours as it sets. So I pretty much hate sunsets and refuse to look at one for fun or for school. I see the effects of it every day EVEN when I close the blinds it still comes in. IT IS COMING IN RIGHT NOW as I type..... Another thing I hate about the sunset and when it rises for that matter. Is the fact that it blinds you when you drive!! How dangerous is that!?!?!?! I am convinced the sun is out to get us... If it dies we die... It annoys us sometimes. But we need it, so how can something we need so much cause us so much annoyances ??? To sum it up... I hate the sun but we all need it and it is forced upon me even when I don't care for it... I did not even get into sunburns, yet another reason to hate the sun......

Big Moon!! Big Test

This weeks observation was awesome!! It was to go out and look at the moon and draw what we see..... Since I have pretty crappy/sensitive eye sight... I did not do that great of a job. It pretty much looks like my son drew it. And because I decided I did not need to take a light out with me to draw because heck it would have dimmed the moon.... But not so, I chose the night happened to be the biggest and brightest moon of the year! I am pretty lucky! You can read all about it here: Full Moon Nah its not just chance.. I have been keeping an eye on the moon chart/phases.

While you are reading all about the awesome moon, we can talk about me taking my 1st test in this class..... It was hard but at least the info covered was in the book and was gone over in class. I give Ms. Bush credit for that. Unlike my other class where I am not sure where most of those questions and answers came from. But the Astronomy test was VERY hard. I studied like I have never study for a test before. I have never made a 6 page study guide in my life. So I am ready to get my big fat F. So I am either the worse test taker in the world or just inept to Physics.......

Observation Project #1

Due to the fact of the inversion and new moon I could not see any stars or the moon, so I decided to do a internet project. I really did try to go out a few times and even looked up on the internet to see what phase the moon was in.... It will be hard to see until next week! The project I chose was to look up different space missions to each of the planets, our sun, and an asteroid. After looking at the assignment paper again, I wonder why our moon was not included, I know there have been a few mission there.

I was surprised to learn about how many space crafts we have sent up and for whatever reason they were unsuccessful. How frustrating is it to spend millions of dollars and years working on something only to have it break and be destroyed within seconds of taking orbit?? Never the less NASA has continued to build and have successful missions. All of my info can be found at a NASA web site detailing all of past, present and future missions. On a side note NASA takes advantage of using different missions to visit multiple planets, moons, and whatever they can that is why some have the same info.

The Sun: I was surprised to learn how many missions included gathering info about the sun. We can not obviously send anything to the sun with out it getting destroyed, so when ever they can get close to it they try to collect data. Thats is what they did on the Genesis Mission (2001-08) It collected solar winds from the sun to study. After collecting everything it returned to earth and landed in the Utah desert. Which I thought was cool because I live in Utah. Now the solar winds are being studied and learning tons from it.



Pretty much all the other missions to other planets have been to collect different samples of the atomosphere, dirt, air, and this and that. Or to map out as much of the landscape as possible. That is cool in all but I don't really want to blog about each mission to each planet... and study for my test and this. I will share my favorite mission of the whole project.

Voyager 2: It was lunched in 1977, before I was born CRAZY. I has been traveling all those years and is still going collecting data! WOW that is pretty dang awesome to have a machine built in 1977 that is still going strong..... But it did find some cool things about Neptune, like 3 new rings and 6 new moons. I hope any of you reading click on the links on the page to learn more about this and the other missions. I could not write everything about all the missions, so I just wrote about some highlights and things I thought were cool!


Next Project: I am leaning towards writing about a sunset or sunrise... I have beef with both of those things. And because I have YET to see the moon in like a month.....

Astronomy recap!!

I decided it would be awesome to do a blog for my final project. I have to start my blog now to give an accurate account of everything I am learning! Here is a brief re cap of my first 3 classes!

Class 1: This was my very first college class in 9 year, I was nervous so I showed up 15 minutes early! To my surprise there were some other people already there including a male professor and 3 other students talking computers. Thinking this is class before mine I just grab a seat in the back and wait. I thought this because my professor is FEMALE and these people are talking about computers. But at last the class starts to fill and I begin to panic because I must be in the wrong class!! But I was not because I saw other people with Astronomy books so I wait it and learn that the real teacher is away at a conference and will be back next class. WHEW. I do learn stuff or remember terms and learn that Pluto is no longer a classical planet and that we have now have dwarf planets. I knew about Pluto but not so much about the new planets, but that is OK.



Class 2: Our REAL teacher shows up and starts to pile on all this work!!?! I don't think I was prepared for all the work that was going to be required of me.... She actually wants me to read these chapters and take notes on what I read so I can make a 100 on the quizzes we have!?!? I did read, take notes, and make an 100! I don't think it would be so hard if my 2 year old son wanted me to do homework. But we are starting to get more into Astronomy and learning that ancient people used the stars and sun to tell time and to navigate. And that the Earth is not the center of the universe. I think I might have know that.



Class 3: I did all my homework and reading!! Which was crazy because that chapter talks about the history and the Fathers of Astronomy. I am pretty amazed at all the discoveries and ideas made, with the lack of technology they had. Galileo is probably the one that we are most familiar with. He in fact did not invent the telescope but made one and used it for looking at the stars and planets and not for navigation. If you are feeling inspired you can go buy a Galileo Scope HERE!! I think i might buy one because my husband said I could! So that is a "brief" over view of my first 3 classes. I have an observation project due on Wednesday and I will blog about my feelings towards that then.