Symphony of Science

Here is a video of a collection of scientists that a musician has auto-tuned into a song. Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasses Tyson, Richard Feynman, and Bill Nye all make appearances and the result is brilliant!

It is somewhat daunting to think of how infinitely tiny we are compared with the Universe, and yet at the same time, I think one of the most beautiful conclusions that human beings have reached. For me, there is no more reassuring feeling in the world that we are connected with the cosmos and all that is within it.

Here are some pictures of the Full Moon from Tuesday evening. The circular areas are from meteor impacts and the darker areas were formed when lunar volcanic activity cooled and formed basaltic plains on the Moon's surface. You can see all of these with a decent pair of binoculars and an area that doesn't have a lot of electric lights around.

IYOA 2009!

Good morning!

I cannot believe that I haven't mention this already, but 2009 is the International Year of Astonomy! There are many ways to get involved in this, but the best way is to meet up with the local Astronomical Society. Visit their website at http://longmontastro.org/ for more information.

If you don't currently have a telescope or something to view the night sky, Galileoscopes are a great way to get into stargazing! A Galileoscope is an inexpensive telescope (only $15!) that you can assemble yourself. They are quite practical too! Galileoscopes can be purchased as a gift for schools as well. Ordering for the telescopes can be found here, https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/products.

Keep your eyes on the skies!

Mr. Freeman

Hubble Images

With all of the talk of Hubble in class and in the news lately, not to mention the Atlantis repair mission, I thought it would be relevant to talk about a sweet opportunity. Did you know that you can look at any image that Hubble has taken that is over one year old!? The images are the untouched data right from Hubble itself, so they don't look like the images that we've seen in class with the color filters and fine-tuning included. But they are still incredible photos of the furthest reaches of our exploration, proof that there is more out there, and evidence that we have a lot to learn about our universe.

You can find the images here, HST Search.

"The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know."
-Socrates

-Mr. Freeman

May Update

Holy smokes! An endless amount of apologies need to be made for my inexcusible absence from the Paths. Hopefully a more regular schedule of posts will be made through the end of the school year!

As you may or may not know, our beloved Giant Water Bug Angus recently passed away. He was a decent age for a water bug, and his passing makes me believe that we received him after his final juvenile molt (during his adult stage). But his home isn't empty anymore, because we just adopted a crawdad from the creek north of the school. We haven't decided on a name yet, but he is approximately 10-12 centimeters in length, blue-green in color, and possesses a large right claw. Pictures may be coming soon, so keep posted!

We have been getting quite a fair amount of precipitation lately, and I wanted to remind you of the CoCoRaHS site for Colorado. Formed in 1998 after the tragic Spring Creek Flood in Fort Collins, CoCoRaHS is a volunteer based organization that measures and reports the rain, snow, and hail around the country. You can find the site here, http://www.cocorahs.org/state.aspx?state=co.

In other news, Sky Maps has released the May 2009 version of what the night sky will look like. I will make several copies for students if you would like one, otherwise they are very printer friendly.

Until next time, keep an eye on the skies!

-Mr. Freeman

Planetarium

This is just too cool of a website to wait until we get to the Astronomy unit.  The Neave Planetarium lets you look at any modern constellation (there are 88 of them) by entering in your coordinates, date, and time.  The coordinates for good ole' Longmont are Latitude: 40° North, Longitude: 105° West.

Screenshot of Orion, one of the most recognizable constellations in our sky.

Another cool feature of the site is moon phases and planet positions for any given date and time.  Have fun with it.  Get outside and find the same constellations in the sky!  Venus is especially bright in the early evening in the Southwestern part of the sky.

-Mr. Freeman