Month: November 2010

The Orion Nebula as seen from KPNO

Check out this color image of the Orion Nebula that Tim Douglas (’11) constructed from images obtained by Annie Preston (’12) and Emily Cunningham (’12).   They obtained their observations at 5 am one night (in terrible observing conditions!) over Fall break with the S2KB camera on the 0.9m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory.  Tim (and everyone else in our Observational Astronomy class) used IDL take the raw telescope data and turn it into nice, 3-color images:

Hubble Gotchu – first installment

Over the summer, there was a fantastic set of Hubble Space Telescope comedy/outreach pieces done by the character Milky J, culminating in his trip to NASA’s Goddard Flight Center.

The students in my Fall 2010 Astronomical Ideas class just collaborated on podcasts inspired by Milky J’s love for HST. They investigated one of: M87, the Red Rectangle Nebula, the Bubble Nebula, the M22 globular cluster, or the M64 Black Eye galaxy. Students then developed an mp3 recording based on their findings. Every one of the presentations were fantastic in different ways.

Here are five of the podcasts, one for each of the 5 objects that students had the option to study… and for each podcast here, there is another equally good one I didn’t post! I’ll write a sequel to this post in a couple of weeks.

Here is the Mystronomy Science Theater podcast resulting from Rachel Cholst, Rachel Kobasa, and Hilary Brashear’s investigation of the Red Rectangle Nebula:Red Rectangle Nebula

Emma Richards and Rushil Gambir are interviewed by Tiffany Fritz to share their expertise on NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula, and on Hubble Space Telescope: Bubble Nebula

For corny laughs combined with lots of great astronomy, listen to Bill Board’s (Jay Gorchow) interview of Dr. Den Eb (Zach Reisch) and Cass Iopeia (Iris Lippert) to learn about HST’s observation of the M22 globular cluster: M22

Katie Drooyan, Richard Sarro, and Emily Bailinson give us a historical and modern account of the fascinating Black Eye Galaxy: Black Eye Galaxy

Last, but not least: Especially for fans of This American Life, three acts on the M87 galaxy written and performed by Kyle McCloskey, Emily Letts, and Thea Hogarth: M87