APOD 1.3

The Autumnal Equinox is upon us! Well, actually it already passed. It occurred yesterday (Sept 23) at 3:09 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), and at 11:03pm for us here on EST. The word 'Equinox' literally translates to 'Equal Night' from Latin. For those of you who know Latin (like myself), you might be thinking "Well wait a minute, Equi (from Equus) means Horse!" Well, the 'equi' that means equal is actually derived from Aequus, which does literally translate as Equal. 

Now, while the translation of Equinox is 'equal night', the concept is that the length of the night is equal to that of the day. Why they didn't call it 'Equidies' (dies means day) is beyond me, since you'd think they'd care more about the day, the time they get to spend awake, then the night. However, it is one less syllable, so they probably just liked it better. 

Now, the picture assigned to the Equinox celebratory day is slightly irrelevant, but it still looks cool. 

False-color image showing Ultraviolet light.

Here we have a image of the Sun. Now, what gives the sun it's interesting aura is not the fact that it is emitting light on the visible spectrum, but the ionized atoms within. The Iron that makes up less than 1% of the Sun's composition is emitting ultraviolet light due to the immense amount of ionization it has undergone. With this image, NASA was able to capture that light.

Now, on another interesting Equinox related story, there are two 'Equinox' themes for Ubuntu, a popular distro of Linux. It's a very aesthetically pleasing theme, and comes in several varieties. I'm actually currently using it's Equinox Glass variant. Here's a picture of the default theme: 

Standard Equinox Theme with Avant Window Navigator dock-bar in Ubuntu

Observation 1 (Sept. 13th 2010)

A bit overdue, but I realized I had not gotten around to posting this entry, so here it is.

I was taking a bike ride just after sunset, and had not planned on doing any observing, but the thought occurred to me shortly after departing. I began my ride going West, and observed a bright object about 15 degrees above the horizon, which I assumed to be Venus. To the north, I found nothing, but when I turned around and headed back south, I was able see the Moon, which seemed to be right in it's first quarter, with only half showing. While also heading South, I observed a bright object to the ENE, but after making a series of turns along my path, I was unable to locate the object again. Shortly, I arrived at my house and decided to search for some constellations since It was now actually dark enough for stars to come out. I located Sagittarius and Scorpius, although I had trouble at first due to not realizing the size of the constellations. With my favorite two constellations found right over my house, I decided to call it a night. 

APOD 1.2

In this picture, we have a remarkable view of what is known as the 'Vela Supernova Remnant'. As the name implies, it is the leftovers of the Vela Supernova. It gets its name from its location, in the constellation 'Vela', or 'The Sails'. The star that left behind the gas after it exploded is unknown to us. Since the light released from the explosion reached Earth 11,000 years ago, the star exploded long before that. 

It is believed that the Remnant is approximately 815 light years away, and is the closest Supernova Remnant to our galaxy.


A Supernova, which leave behind Supernova 'Remnants', are extremely large explosions of stars. In the matter of a few seconds, vast amounts of light and radiation are released, amounts that are greater than the light and radiation our sun will produce in it's entire life.

APOD 1.1

Here we have a picture of the 'Small Cloud of Magellan'. These clouds were discovered by Magellan on his voyage around the world. They are visible primarily from the southern hemisphere.

The Small Cloud is what is known as a 'Irregular Dwarf Galaxy', a galaxy that acts as a satellite to our own. This relationship is similar to the relationship our moon has to Earth. Being the 'Small' Cloud, it has a sister galaxy known as the Large Cloud of Magellan (Those astronomers sure were creative namers!). To the naked eye, it appears to be a part of the Milky Way Galaxy, but is in fact beyond. 210,000 light years beyond to be exact. It is of irregular type, which means it has been deformed by the gravitational influences of our galaxy, and it's sister, the Large Cloud of Magellan.