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End of semester post-crab nebula

The Crab Nebula is a celestial wonder that never fails to capture the imagination. This nebula is the remnants of a supernova explosion that was observed by humans way back in the year 1054 (Rodriguez). Can you believe it? It's been captivating stargazers for centuries!

The Crab Nebula is located in the constellation Taurus, about 6,500 light-years away from us (Rodriguez). It's one of the most studied objects in the night sky because it offers a unique opportunity to study the aftermath of a supernova explosion up close. The explosion itself was incredibly powerful, releasing an enormous amount of energy and creating a shockwave that propelled material into space at incredible speeds.

Now, what makes the Crab Nebula even more fascinating is its pulsar, which is a rapidly spinning neutron star at its center. This pulsar emits beams of radiation that sweep across our line of sight, much like a cosmic lighthouse. These beams of radiation are so precise that they're like a ticking clock in space, pulsing with incredible regularity.

The Crab Nebula is a testament to the power and beauty of the universe. It reminds us of the dynamic and ever-changing nature of the cosmos.

The Crab Nebula, also known as M1, is a supernova remnant and a pulsar wind nebula that resides in the constellation Taurus. It's the result of a supernova explosion, which was recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054 (Rodriguez). The core of the exploded star formed a neutron star, which is incredibly dense – so dense that a teaspoon of its material would weigh about a billion tons!

This neutron star, also known as the Crab Pulsar, spins approximately 30 times per second. As it spins, it emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation that can be detected as pulses of radio waves, visible light, X-rays, and gamma rays. The pulsar is about 20 to 30 kilometers in diameter, and it's the powerhouse that energizes the entire nebula.

The Crab Nebula itself is expanding at a rate of about 1,500 kilometers per second (Rodriguez). As the ejected material from the supernova moves outward, it interacts with the interstellar medium, creating the intricate filaments and complex structures we see. These filaments contain a mix of gases, primarily hydrogen and helium, along with other elements synthesized in the progenitor star.

What's particularly interesting about the Crab Nebula is that it's one of the few astronomical objects where we can actually see the dynamics of the nebula changing over human timescales. Observations over several years show noticeable changes in the nebula's structure.

In terms of its significance, the Crab Nebula is a key source for studying the extreme physical processes involved in pulsars and supernova remnants. It's also important for understanding the synthesis of heavy elements and the role of supernovae in seeding the universe with these elements, which are crucial for the development of planets and life as we know it.

The Crab Nebula's brightness across the electromagnetic spectrum makes it a natural laboratory for astrophysics. It's one of the most intense gamma-ray sources in the sky, and this high-energy radiation provides insights into the most energetic particles and forces in our universe.

The Crab Nebula is not just a pretty sight; it's a treasure trove of information for scientists. Here are some more intriguing facts:

Cosmic Generator: The Crab Nebula's pulsar is so energetic that it's essentially powering the nebula. The fast-spinning neutron star is shooting out a wind of charged particles, which lights up the nebula and creates the glow that we can observe across various wavelengths.

Historical Record: The event that created the Crab Nebula was one of the few historical supernovae visible to the naked eye. Its appearance in 1054 was documented by astronomers in various cultures, including Chinese and Native American (Rodriguez).

Size and Distance: The nebula is about 10 light-years across, and as mentioned, it's around 6,500 light-years away from Earth. Despite this vast distance, it's one of the most studied objects in the night sky.

A Window to the Past: Since the light from the Crab Nebula takes 6,500 years to reach us, we're actually looking at an image of the nebula as it was 6,500 years ago 9Rodriguez). This provides an incredible opportunity for astronomers to study the historical evolution of supernova remnants.

A Source of Insight: The Crab Nebula is also a source of cosmic rays, which are high-energy particles that bombard Earth. Studying these particles helps scientists understand more about the origins and acceleration mechanisms of cosmic rays.

X-ray Vision: In the 1960s, the Crab Nebula was one of the first sources of X-rays discovered outside our solar system 9rodriguez). This discovery helped to establish the field of X-ray astronomy.

Cultural Impact: The Crab Nebula has made its way into various aspects of pop culture, including literature and television. It's often used as a symbol for cosmic phenomena and has been featured in science fiction stories.

Let's dive into the world of quantum mechanics for a bit:

Spooky Action at a Distance: Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon where particles become interconnected and the state of one instantly influences the state of another, regardless of the distance separating them.

Uncertainty Principle: Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that you cannot simultaneously know the exact position and momentum of a particle. The more precisely one is known, the less precise the measurement of the other is.

Wave-Particle Duality: Quantum objects exhibit both wave-like and particle-like properties (Rodriguez). Depending on how you measure them, they can appear as particles or as waves. This duality is central to quantum mechanics.

Quantum Tunneling: Particles can pass through barriers that, according to classical physics, should be impenetrable. This tunneling is what allows the sun to shine, as it powers nuclear fusion.

Quantum Superposition: This principle allows a particle to be in multiple states at the same time. It's famously illustrated by Schrödinger's cat thought experiment, where a cat in a box can be both alive and dead until it's observed (Rodriguez).

Quantum Computing: Utilizing quantum bits or qubits, which can be in superpositions of states, quantum computers have the potential to process exponentially more data compared to classical computers.

Quantum Decoherence: This is the loss of quantum behavior as a quantum system interacts with its environment, causing it to transition into classical states.

These concepts are just the tip of the iceberg, but they offer a glimpse into the strange and fascinating world of quantum mechanics, where the usual rules of physics as we know them are turned upside down.

The Crab Nebula continues to be an object of fascination, not just for its historical significance, but also for the role it plays in helping us understand the universe. It's a cosmic beacon that reminds us of the incredible events that can occur in space.

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End of semester, facts on Dumbell nebula

The Dumbbell, a nearby planetary nebula residing more than 1,200 light-years away, is the result of an old star that has shed its outer layers in a glowing display of colour. The nebula, also known as Messier 27 (M27), was the first planetary nebula ever discovered. French astronomer Charles Messier spotted it in 1764 (nasa 3). Ah, the Dumbbell Nebula! It's a fascinating object in the nigNt sky. Also known as Messier 27, it's a planetary nebula located in the constellation Vulpecula. The Dumbbell Nebula gets its name from its distinctive shape, resembling a dumbbell or an hourglass. It's formed from the outer layers of a dying star that has shed its outer layers into space. The central star, which is the remnant of the original star, can be seen at the center of the nebula. It's a popular target for astrophotographers due to its brightness and unique structure. Capturing its vibrant colors and intricate details is quite a treat! The Dumbbell Nebula is really a showcase of the end stages of stellar evolution. When a star like our Sun gets old, it starts to lose its outer layers into space, creating a planetary nebula. The term "planetary" is a bit misleading though, because it has nothing to do with planets. It's just because these nebulas, through early telescopes, appeared round like planets. The Dumbbell Nebula is one of the closest and brightest of its kind, making it a favorite for amateur astronomers. It's about 1,360 light-years away, which is pretty close in cosmic terms (Nasa). With a good telescope, you can see the details of the gas clouds that used to be part of the star, glowing due to the ultraviolet light from the hot central star. It's like a cosmic recycling program, showing us the beauty of the universe's life cycle! Sure, diving even deeper into the Dumbbell Nebula, we see that it's not just a simple shape. The nebula has complex structures with knots, loops, and filaments of gas. These are all part of the turbulent history of the star's demise. The colors you see in images are due to different gases getting excited by the central star's radiation. Oxygen emits a blue-green light, hydrogen gives off red, and nitrogen glows in low-intensity red. It's a cosmic painting in progress, with the physics of the universe acting as the artist. And because it's a planetary nebula, it gives us a glimpse into the future of our own solar system when, billions of years from now, our Sun will go through a similar transformation.

When you look at the Dumbbell Nebula with an in-depth perspective, you're essentially peering into the heart of a star's dramatic transformation. The central star, now a white dwarf, was once much like our own Sun. As it aged, it expanded into a red giant and eventually shed its outer layers. These layers are what we see as the nebula.

The intricate details within the nebula, such as the knots and filaments, are areas where the ejected material is denser. The patterns are likely caused by variations in the star's loss of mass, interactions with stellar winds, and the magnetic field of the dying star (Nasa). Over time, these structures will disperse into space, enriching the interstellar medium with heavier elements that could one day be part of new stars and planets.

The Dumbbell Nebula is also a study in how light and elements interact. The white dwarf at the center emits intense ultraviolet radiation that excites the atoms in the nebula, causing them to glow. This process, called fluorescence, is similar to how neon lights work.

The study of objects like the Dumbbell Nebula helps astronomers understand the life cycle of stars and the chemical enrichment of galaxies. It's a reminder that the universe is constantly changing and that the end of one star's life can sow the seeds for the next generation. It's a stellar example of the cycle of cosmic birth, life, and death.

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End of semester post

This semester has taught me so much about the art of photographing space and editing pics to a tee. It goes deeper than just pretty pictures. It's a blend of art and science. By photographing the cosmos, we can document astronomical events, track changes, and even discover new celestial bodies that only certain, high-tech cameras can capture. Astrophotography is a way to see the universe's vastness and beauty from our own backyard, in this case the classroom. Whether you're using DSLR, a dedicated astronomy camera, or even a smartphone with a telescope, the sky is the limit. Getting into astrophotography I have go an insight on long exposure shots to catch those faint stars that a smartphone camera wouldn't have access too. I've also learned about tracking stars' movement with a motorized mount to get sharp images. The editing process was my favorite part, what I worked on most over the course of this semester. After having the calibrated images I was able to bring out details from the raw images. At first the images would look itch black, but with what my institutor, Dr. Kern taught me was that editing pictures is like magic. It revelers the colors and structures of distant galaxies that I didn't even know existed. Capturing images revolved a lot around the weather, light pollution, and phases of the moon. Capturing images was all about timing and making sure underlying circumstances weren't present. The software the class used on a well developed picture editing called gimp allowed for me to stack photos for clarity, colorize, reduce noise, adjust exposure levels, luminance, and enhancement. It is definitely a process but once I was able to get my final edits of the Crab Nebula and the dumbbell nebula, it was incredibly rewarding. Since the pictures we edited included deep-sky focus which was capturing nebulae galaxies, it required the camera to have longer exposure times which is why the editing process was timely. In this class I also learned about flat frames to correct vignetting and dust shadows, as well as how the camera picks up four different colors- clear, red, green, and blue. However, the camera doesn't pick them all up at once, it depends on the lens. It's a manual process of bringing each captured image to life. It's a new found hobby of mine and I'm so thankful for you Jamie to introduce me to it. Signing up for this class was my favorite class and the best thing I have done in college by far. I highly recommend it to anyone who has even just the slightest bit of interest in astrology, galaxies, and our universe.

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Callibrating Flats and Data Images in Maxim DL

A dark calibration image is an image taken with the camera's shutter open but without any light falling on the sensor. Basically, it is just a black image that captures any noise or electronic artifacts present in the camera's sensor. The purpose of using it is to calibrate a flat image or data image by subtracting the noise and artifacts from the original image which makes for a cleaner and more accurate representation of the scene.

A flat calibration image is an image taken with the camera's shutter open, and a consistent light source like a strobe or LED that is placed near the camera. The light source illuminates the scene, and the resulting image captures the scene with consistent lighting. The purpose of using a flat calibration image is to calibrate a data image by providing a reference for color and exposure accuracy. By comparing the data image with the flat calibration image, any discrepancies in color or exposure can be identified and corrected.

When combining darks or flats for use in calibration, the "median" combine mode is usually chosen over the "average" mode. The median combine mode takes the middle value of the combined data which is less sensitive to outliers or extreme values. In contrast, the average combine mode takes the mean of the combined data, which can be heavily influence by outliers or extreme values. By choosing the median combine mode, the calibration process is less affected by noise or electronic artifacts present in the darks or flats, resulting in a more accurate and reliable calibration.

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How'd it turn out? Crab Nebula

This is my final product from editing a Crab Nebula picture! The program I used to create the vivid image is a photoshop program called gimp. Through this app I was able to brighten up certain areas of the picture, focus the picture, and colorize it. It is definitely not perfect yet, some of the stars are a little blurry and the picture in general is somewhat grainy, but that will be fixed in the near future. To create this one picture, it took four images. To edit each individual image I would make sure the eyeball icon was only clicked on the picture I was working on, and that my mouse was clicked on it as well. I would then click the color button, click curve, and drag a point on the graph up that made the picture bright to where I would see fit, then on the x axis I would take the end of graph point and bring it to the right, almost touching the line that went vertical through the graph, but not quite touching it. I kept repeating this process about 15 times on each picture. Once each picture was clear to the best of my ability, I clicked image, then mode, then RGB to start colorizing it. At first to colorize in my pervious post I typed in certain measurements but It wasn't getting me where I wanted because it was too heavy on the green. So this time, I just played around with the color scale by picking a color I saw of best fit. For example for the blue picture, I took the mouse and placed it on a royal blue cyan mixture and kept playing around with the saturation and pigment for the color to not be too blue, too green, or too red. Once all my images were colorized in the upper left corner on the gimp program I clicked the grid and would slightly move my images to be stacked perfectly on top of one another. To layer the images before I started editing, I made the clear image luminance, and made the other images on the screen setting. This way I was able to see the colorized images on top of each other to get the final product of what is above. I stopped editing up to this point because it was the best I could get it without it being grainy or discolored. What I like best is how it the nebula itself is pretty colorful, but what I like least is that it isn't as clear as it could be and that the nebula has a bit of blur to it. Besides that I'm really happy with my Crab Nebula!

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Colorized Image

First image

The colors in this image aren't perfect. It's noticeably heavy on the green which probably means that the camera it was taken on had mainly green pixels. To do this I dropped each downloaded image into the photo editor app. I did each color individually first based on exposure and focus, then I colorized them. To turn each original image from the black sky with very faint stars, I clicked colors, then curves, and adjusted the graph based on how I wanted the luminance. Once I got what I wanted for each color, I clicked image, mode, then RGB. For red I made the hue 1, the saturation 1, and the light -.5. For blue I made the hue .6666, the saturation 1, and the light -0.5. For green I made the hue .3333, the saturation 1, and the light -.5. Once I adjusted the colorization to my liking I zoomed in on the pictures, layered them, and adjusted them to be directly on top of each other to get my final product. It definitely needs improvements, but for now I did it to the best of my ability, next time will be even better!

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Class experience-Wet Collodion Process

The Wet Collodion process was mentioned in class and it's a process for developing the exposure of pictures. This process was originally introduced in 1851 by Fredrick Scott Archer. This process was one used in the early stages of photography. The wet collodion process used a piece of glass placed in a darkroom. Then it would get coated with collodion and then made light-sensitive with further chemicals. Before the plate could dry, it would be placed in the camera and exposed. Each photo had to be not only coated, but sensitized, exposed, and developed in no longer than a 15 minute interval. A combination of chemicals would be poured on a thin piece of glass under a red light which created the haiide substance. Once washed and dried it was coated with a protective varnish. This was a very tedious process and with technological advancements it has been modified to be easier and quicker.

For example, dry plate has made for an easier and quicker option. It's very similar to the wet process, but it calls for shorter preparation because the development doesn't have to be done all at once. Briefly mentioning this process, it gives a look similar to wet plate being its orthochromatic and has halonation (Gibbons). It involved using a light sensitive gelatin emulsion coat on glass photographic plates (Gibbons). As well for allowing them to dry prior to use.

George Eastman Museum, "The Collodion process," in Smarthistory, May 5, 2019, accessed February 4, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/the-collodion-5-of-12/.

https://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/preservation-glossary/dry-plate-photographic-process#:~:text=The%20Gelatin%20or%20Dry%20Plate,to%20dry%20prior%20to%20use.

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In this picture, the city lights are blurred and the focus is on the northern lights. They are in pinkish, red, green, and yellow hues. You can see that the northern lights don't go far up into the sky—that's why they are visible to the naked eye. Above what appears to be the Northern lights are thousands of little stars extending into space. It's very faint, but towards the center there is a white sheer disk which may be gas the city is polluting, or tens of thousands of small white stars closely clumped together. When looking at the northern lights, people normally only see hues of green and yellow, but this picture perfectly shows the red hues on top of the green fading out into the sky which the naked eye can't see. The outer space part of this picture, just above the red hues of the northern lights, has a faint hue of green which is probably from how potent the green light is reflecting off nearby bodies of water. The northern lights are in a horizontal direction to the far right of the city but it extends vertically into the abyss (up into space).

Auroras occur when these charged particles launched along Earth's magnetic field collide with gases in Earth's upper atmosphere, that's why it is visible to the naked eye. The northern lights are caused by massive explosions on the sun, called 'coronal mass ejections'. The colorful clouds we see are from hot plasma that is released from such explosions. The hot plasma have billions and billions of energized particles that are moving at 45 million mph (Kenning).

2024 January 18

Northern Lights from the Stratosphere Image Credit & Copyright: Ralf Rohner

Explanation: Northern lights shine in this night skyview from planet Earth’s stratosphere, captured on January 15. The single, 5 second exposure was made with a hand-held camera on board an aircraft above Winnipeg, Canada. During the exposure, terrestrial lights below leave colorful trails along the direction of motion of the speeding aircraft. Above the more distant horizon, energetic particles accelerated along Earth’s magnetic field at the planet’s polar regions excite atomic oxygen to create the shimmering display of Aurora Borealis. The aurora’s characteristic greenish hue is generated at altitudes of 100-300 kilometers and red at even higher altitudes and lower atmospheric densities. The luminous glow of faint stars along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy arcs through the night, while the Andromeda galaxy extends this northern skyview to extragalactic space. A diffuse hint of Andromeda, the closest large spiral to the Milky Way, can just be seen to the upper left.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240118.html