Stars
esiegel | April 5, 2013"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Universe has been around for a long time: 13.8 billion years, to be precise. As humans, we're relatively young, and our species has only been around for the last couple of hundred thousand years of it. For nearly all of human history, this is what the night skies have looked like.
Image credit: The Milky Way, by Stephane Guisard.
When the Moon isn't out and you're in a place that's…
esiegel | April 1, 2013"It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and mistakes and make amends for them. To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character." -Dale Turner
This April Fools' day, even though the rest of the internet revels in trickery, happens to fall on a Monday. Over here at Starts With A Bang, that means it's time for Messier Monday, an in-depth look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects catalogued by Charles Messier in the 18th Century to help comet-hunters avoid confusion. Today, the catalogue boasts 107…
esiegel | March 18, 2013"Every star may be a sun to someone." -Carl Sagan
Welcome back to yet another Messier Monday! Each week, we highlight one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier catalogue: Charles Messier's legacy to comet-hunters and amateur astronomers, pointing out some of the most easily visible deep-sky objects as seen from our vantage point on Earth.
Image credit: Yvett Bass (M1-M55) and Josh Sanford (M56-M110), via Dan Bruton of SFASU.
Once-a-year, around the new Moon nearest to the vernal equinox, many amateur astronomers around the world attempt to view all 110 objects in the same…
esiegel | March 17, 2013"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." -Terry Pratchett
Whether it comes from without or within, there are few things in this life that captivate our attention better than a brilliant, hot and colorful display. This weekend, have a listen to The Roots with John Legend, as they sing about
The Fire.
Deep off in the depths of space, although you won't find any stars burning a bright green color, you will find stellar remnants, or star corpses, glowing a brilliant green.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage…
esiegel | March 13, 2013"As a boy I believed I could make myself invisible. I'm not sure that I ever could, but I certainly had the ability to pass unnoticed." -Terence Stamp
When we look up at the night sky from a dark location here on Earth, somewhere around 6,000 stars greet you on a clear night.
Image credit: Tamas Ladanyi (TWAN).
This is just a tiny fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars that actually make up our galaxy, which makes sense, considering how large our galaxy is and how vast the distances between the stars is. You'd probably think that the stars we can see are pretty representative of the…
esiegel | March 4, 2013"Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will forever bubble up, if forever you dig." -Marcus Aurelius
Welcome back to yet another Messier Monday! Each week, we're taking a look at one of the 110 fixed, deep-sky objects -- not to be confused with comets -- that made up Messier's original catalogue.
Image credit: ScienceSouth - Tony's Astronomy Corner.
Today, we're going to take a look at Messier 52, one of the 33 open star clusters in Messier's catalogue, which happens to be right on the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. It's one of the easiest Messier objects to find, as to get…
esiegel | February 18, 2013"If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if the simplest things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive." -Eleanora Duse
Welcome to another Messier Monday, where each week we take a look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier Catalogue! One of the most common type of object in this catalogue is the globular cluster -- referred to by Messier as a round nebula (since he couldn't resolve them into individual stars) -- of which there are 29 in the catalogue.
Image credit: Deep Sky Observing, http://www.deepskyobserving.com…
esiegel | February 11, 2013"Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life." -Marcel Proust
Welcome to another Messier Monday, where each week we take an in-depth look at one of the 110 deep sky objects that make up the Messier Catalogue! Messier was not the first person to try and make an accurate, large catalog of deep sky objects, but he was the first to successfully do so: most of his objects both actually exist, are deep sky objects, and had their positions recorded correctly.
Image credit: © 2008 Space-and-Telescope.com.
Most, that is, but not all. Today, we'll be looking at the open star cluster Messier 48…
esiegel | February 8, 2013"Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
When you look out into the Universe, what is it that you typically think of? Do you think of reliable, fixed stars and constellations? The vast expanse of the Milky Way, with its memorable dust lanes and amorphous shapes?
Image credit: Wally Pacholka of http://www.astropics.com/.
The unchanging nature of the points of light in the sky?
Image credit: Roth Ritter (Dark Atmospheres), of the double cluster in…
esiegel | February 1, 2013“It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. It’s a crazy world out there. Be curious.” -Stephen Hawking
One of the most existential questions humanity has ever asked is the question of our origins: where do I come from? Inspired by Ben Kilminster's writings, here's the entire history of the Universe -- that's led up to the existence of you -- in just 10 sentences*.
Image credit: Amber Stuver of http://www.livingligo.org/.
1.) At some point in the distant past**, the…
esiegel | January 28, 2013"A wise old owl lived in an oak
The more he saw the less he spoke
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?" -The Immortal Poet Bromley
To your naked eye, the night sky appears littered with thousands of individual points of light: the stars and planets so familiar to us. But through even a small telescope or a pair of binoculars, not only do the number of visible stars increase into the hundreds-of-thousands or even the millions, but a slew of deep-sky objects become visible to us as well. Each monday, we highlight one of the deep-sky objects from…
esiegel | January 16, 2013“Aristotle taught that stars are made of a different matter than the four earthly elements— a quintessence— that also happens to be what the human psyche is made of. Which is why man’s spirit corresponds to the stars. Perhaps that’s not a very scientific view, but I do like the idea that there’s a little starlight in each of us.” -Lisa Kleypas
Ah, but what if you did want the scientific view of starlight? After all, it's through the very stars themselves that we've unveiled some of the greatest secrets of the Universe.
Image (mosaic) credit: Nick Risinger.
But while the stars of the night…
esiegel | January 14, 2013"The ruins were just a reminder that what had been was no longer. That everything we are will be gone someday. That I will be forgotten." -Megan Miranda
Some four-and-a-half billion years ago, a ultra-massive cloud of cold gas and dust collapsed, giving rise to thousands of stars of all different types, from hot, massive, quick-burning blue stars down to low-mass, cool red dwarfs. And within a few hundred million years, that open star cluster dissociated, flinging the individual stars that once made it up throughout the galaxy. The lone remnant of that cluster known to us lights up our…
catdynamics | January 7, 2013On the Blues and the Lifestyles and Fates of the Hottest Stars as they Cluster in the Heavens: or, why aging gracefully depends on your lifestyle and environment...
The Stellar Dynamical Clock
- is a Nature paper that came out in the Christmas double issue, always my favourite and very good value, might I add.
This paper is from a long term collaboration lead by Prof. Francesco Ferraro which over many cycles has built up a systematic sample of Hubble Space Telescope images of Galactic Globular Clusters, focusing, in partiular, on the blue and UV emitters in the dense cores of clusters, but…
esiegel | January 7, 2013"These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after." -Natalie Babbitt
The dog days may come at the tail end of summer, but it's the winter months that brings us the best views of the Dog Star, Sirius, the brightest star in all the night sky.
Image credit: Yuuji Kitahara.
And if you look towards the southeast in the early evening -- or towards due south around midnight -- you'll find Sirius twinkling wildly in the sky, brighter than all other stars (over three times brighter than Arcturus, the next brightest star visible…
esiegel | January 2, 2013"Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others." -Timothy Leary
Here we are, on planet Earth, the product of generations of civilization-building, maybe four-billion years of evolution on our world, around 13.7 billion years into the existence of our observable Universe.
Image credit: Paranal Observatory, ESO / Babak Tafreshi.
The Universe, quite possibly, didn't have to be exactly the way it is. It didn't have to have the laws of physics be exactly what they are, with the masses and charges…
esiegel | December 31, 2012"I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are;
because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star.
I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far;
for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are." -Milton Berle
Welcome to Messier Monday, where we pick one of the 110 spectacular deep-sky objects of the Messier catalogue each week and learn a little more about it.
Image credit: Paul Gitto's Messier Marathon.
This week, to usher in 2013, I'd like to take a look at Messier 13, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, which is visible to northern skywatchers both…
esiegel | December 26, 2012"We have been forced to admit for the first time in history not only the possibility of the fact of the growth and decay of the elements of matter. With radium and with uranium we do not see anything but the decay. And yet, somewhere, somehow, it is almost certain that these elements must be continuously forming. They are probably being put together now in the laboratory of the stars." -Robert Millikan
The Universe has been around for a long time, but without the Big Bang, we'd never have any of the matter or starlight that gives rise to practically all of our experiences in the entire…
esiegel | December 24, 2012"This holiday season is about remembering that the greatest gift was not laid under a tree, but in a filthy manger." -Unknown
But it isn't the manger you're thinking of that I want to share with you this Messier Monday. Although Charles Messier's catalogue of 110 deep sky objects -- designed to pinpoint nebulae that could possibly be confused for potential comets -- is composed mostly of objects only visible through a telescope, a few of them are visible under good seeing conditions to the naked eye, and have been known since ancient times.
Image credit: Finotto Enrico, 2011 / flickr user…
esiegel | December 20, 2012"I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again." -Eric Roth, screenwriter
Forget the prognosticators, the fortune-tellers and the mediums. Pay no mind to the soothsayers, the prophets, the augurs and diviners. The seers see no more than any other sighted person, the omen-interpreters have been superseded by the ornithologists, the psychics made obsolete by the scientists.
Because if doomsday ever does approach, we won't be…