los links

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1653.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/stellar_nurseries.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150211141242.htm
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2409.html#.VNzVV-a-2m4
http://www.space.com/21142-orion-constellation-s-blazing-dust-band-holds-stellar-nurseries-video.html

Observation 4

The Earth is wobbling on its axis like a top. You can’t feel it, but it’s happening. And over long periods of time, these wobbles shift our calendars around, move the stars from where they’re supposed to be, and maybe even mess with our climate. Thank you very much precession. The earth wobbles regularly changing our north star and also effects the climate.

Observation 3

Tonight i looked at the sky and saw Venus and Mercury. These planets are close to each other which only happens once a year. Mercury is very hard to see throughout the year and this is the only opportunity to be able to observe it. Mercury is a very small planet and only rises a few degrees above the equator. Venus on the other hand is very easily viewed and is a rather bright object.

observation 2

http://www.astronomycast.com/2013/11/ep-321-solar-flares/
Sometimes the Sun is quiet, and other times the Sun gets downright unruly. During the peak of its 11-year cycle, the surface of the Sun is littered with darker sunspots. And its from these sunspots that the Sun generates massive solar flares, which can spew radiation and material in our direction. A solar flare is a sudden flash of brightness observed over the Sun's surface or the solar limb, which is interpreted as a large energy release of up to 6 × 10²⁵ joules of energy (about a sixth of the total energy output of the Sun each second or 160,000,000,000 megatons of TNT equivalent, over 25,000 times more energy than released from the impact of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with Jupiter).

OBSERVASION

http://www.astronomycast.com/2013/11/ep-322-soho/

The Sun is a terrifying ball of plasma. It’s a good thing we’re keeping an eye on it. And that eye is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO. Operating for more than 18 years now, SOHO has been making detailed observations of the Sun’s activity though an almost entire solar cycle. With so many years of operation, SOHO has some amazing stories to tell. SOHO is an observatory that specifically looks at the sun and gives us the best images for today's knowledge of the sun.

APOD 2.8

The first thing that one sees when viewing this image is the striking blue brilliance of the clouds of gas reflecting light off of stars. This cosmic scene is located less than 500 light-years away from us, near the northern edge of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Despite only taking up about a degree in our field of view, the clouds depicted here are magnificent when magnified. The blue tinge of the cosmic clouds is due to their reflection of light off of hot young stars obscured by them. Among the vast blue clouds there are also various other interesting celestial bodies, such as the spiral seen to the center left of the picture and the red orb seen in the lower left center. At the center of the two main bodies of blue cosmic dust there also appears to be two pairs of double stars, embedded in the blue double cluster. The effect is one of cosmic brilliance.

APOD 2.7

This incredible photograph is of the group of reflection nebulae in Orion called NGC 1977, NGC 1975, and NGC 1973. This cluster of nebulae is usually overshadowed by its glittering nearby neighbor, the Orion Nebula. The clouds reflect the light off of hot blue stars which is how they gained their brilliant colors. NGC 1977 is the cloud going across the picture slightly below the center, while NGC 1973 occupies the top right and NGC 1975 is in the top left and all of these clouds are separated by the dark red clouds of hydrogen gas.