The Sky This Week.

This Week if you look at the shimmering moon in the night you can see that the shape of the moon has changed. The moon is going into its first quarter. This is when you can see half of the moon as so in this picture.

 

First quarter is also when the moon is going to a new moon. The first quarter is a waning quarter.Meaning that the moon gets smaller after this phase passes. One very cool thing that I noticed that I have never noticed before is that when you look at the moon at night during any phases you can still see the whole moon just not lit up. For example during, lets say, a waning crescent,

even though the phase of the moon is a crescent (the part lit up is a crescent) the light still shines a tiny bit around the boarder of the moon showing the whole moon. You can only see this if you study the moon for a couple minutes. Only then can you see it. This is my little discovery of the week that I found really cool.

Celestron Founder Dies

Ever heard of the word Celestron? Neither did I until i read a interesting article about the founder of Celestron on http://www.astronomy.com.

Celestron is a company that produces high tech telescopes for astronomical research. The founder of these telescopes is Tom Johnson who passed away on March 13th at 5:00 am at age 89. The loss of this amazing innovative man is truly heart breaking to everyone. This man allowed amateur astronomers to pursue their dream of being an astronomer.

Johnson, a electronics engineer, first started creating Celeston Telescopes as a part of his electronics firm, Valor electronics. He was inspired to make telescopes from his 2 sons. Finding no suitable telescopes for his sons he began to make them from scratch.  Many of you would think this is incredibly hard, well it is and that is why I think Tom Johnson is remarkable. He first started with a 1960 6-inch reflector and then eventually grew to bigger telescopes and more sophisticated designs. Later on he created a new company that offered Schmidt- cassegrain telescopes in 4- 22 inch models.

As I said before, the loss of the man is heart wrenching and a great loss. Sorry to Tom Johnson's family, for their loss. :(

Apogee of the Moon

 Make sure you watch for the skies this week specifically on Monday, February 27! The Moon is at its phase of Apogee.  Apogee is when the moon is at its farthest point from the Earth during its orbit, which is when it is at 251,570 miles (404,862) away. Because the orbit around earth is not circular the Apogee always changes by 13 percent. 

One fact that i found very interesting is that the moons maximum distance from the Earth will occur on February 3, 215 which will be 252, 724 miles ( 406, 720 ) from the earth. Now that's a long distance. What amazed me the most is that people are able to give a exact date and the distance!

The Phases Of the Moon

"Have you ever noticed that when you write on a black sheet of paper with a black marker you so not see the marker?" -(Copy right of Sofia Infante.)


 Well the phases of the moon are exhibiting the same thing.


Alex and I  were making observation with a flashlight as the sun, a small ball as the moon and a different ball 4 times bigger than the small ball as earth. What alex and i made sure that we did, is the we mark where we are on earth.
From our testing i observed that when the moon is aligned with the sun and the earth (the moon in between the sun and earth)    you cannot see the moon or you can only see a very little bit ,a crescent because the sun is shining on the front face of the moon that isn't facing the earth, only the side that is black is facing earth but its a black moon in a black solar system. Black on black in unseen!
But when the earth is in-between the earth and the moon you can see the moon because the sun is shining on the part of the moon facing you. A white chalk on a black piece of paper is seen!!


These are some of the pictures that we took of our testings:

As you can see the sun is shining on the face the moon that is not facing you, only the dark side is facing you.

But here the sun is shiny on the earth and the moon the bright side of the moon is facing you giving you a full moon.

Analyze and conclude: Question Review p.29 chapter 1

Book: Astronomy

Prentice Hall Science Explorer

1. In our model, a flashlight represents the sun, a mini ball represents the moon and a larger ball represents the earth.
2.  When the sun was facing the flashlight and the moon was behind the earth i could see the moon.
3.  

4. After each turn you see 1/2 of the moon more or less. It always increases then decreases, from this drawing. But if you include the wanning and waxing gibbous and the wanning and waxing crescents the moon increases or decreases by 1/4.
5. Since the moon rotates with one side/ 1/2 of the moon always facing the sun, its just the way the moon rotates.The darkness of the moon is not caused by an eclipse.


6. This model did help me understand the phases of the moon but not in every way that it should have. I did have to research a bit after i made the diagram because some parts just didn't make sense. The advantages of having a model is that you have a visual but the disadvantage is that there are no word to explain it. I think model are a good thing to use but for me they aren't help full if they aren't backed up with words.