Is anyone else here fascinated by astronomy as much as I am? Because I just started taking astronomy in my science class, and I have always been interested in looking through telescopes at the moon, even though I've only really had a cheapy telescope that didn't work very well. I've always wondered about our universe and the constellations and everything. Well, now that I've been learning about the history of astronomy (Galileo, Isaac Newton, the first telescopes, etc.) and about a bunch of other stuff about astronomy, it has been very interesting to me. I was even inspired to make a telescope, which I failed at in the end because I need some more materials...I have a slightly concave glass lense, some flat mirrors, a couple eye pieces savaged from a microscope, etc. But now I know, afetr researching a bit, that I need a concave mirror for me to make a reflecting telescope. A refracting telescope, which uses two glass lenses, would be easier to make, but not as good quality as a reflecting telescope. So for now I will have to wait until I get the chance to find a concave mirror.
Has anyone else ever tried to make a telescope? Did you succeed? Feel free to share!
But anyway, I just find everything about space astonishing...It's just cool to look up at the moon and think that some people were actually up there! Yet it's so far away!
And to look at all the planets through a telescope (if I had one
) and to think how massive and far away they are, and there you are looking at them and sometimes even being able to see details on them such as the craters on the moon...I just find it so interesting.
It's hard to explain, really. I mean, look at this image that the Hubble Space Telescope took:
Just to imagine that that is actually up there in space and it's an actual image is fascinating to me.
Someday, I really want to make my own large telescope to look up at the stars at night and see all the things I could never see before. For now I can only imagine and see what I can see with my own eyes. But when I do make or buy my own telescope, you can bet I will be using it quite often!
Is anyone else here interested in astronomy? If so feel free to share! And if you have any of your own pictures of things in space that you took with a telescope, if you have one, please share!
Thanks!
-77horses
____________________
And I forgot to add...Here's my summary ("learning log") about what I've learned so far. At the end I had to choose an image from the Hubble Space Telescope website photo gallery to write a quick little summary about. It was a class assignment and I hope I get a good grade on it!
It's so much more fun to write about topics that you're really fascinated by.
Learning Log Assessment
The Universe: Then and Now
The universe is constantly evolving. From the day when Galileo first used the telescope to now, it has changed and we have discovered numerous surprises. We can only see 5% of our entire universe, but the more technology is changing and advancing, the more we are discovering and the further we are venturing into figuring out the mysteries in our universe that have pondered astronomers and scientists for years.
It all started in 1609, when Galileo Galilei, an Italian scientist, first used the telescope to look into space. Before then, when the telescope was believed to first be invented by a lens maker named Hans Lippershey, no one had thought to look at the stars at night with a telescope. But when Galileo did, what he saw changed how people thought about the universe forever.
Before Galileo, a german astronomer named Nicolaus Copernicus had a theory about our solar system. He hadn't discovered the moon or any other planets, but he believed that everything revolved around the sun. Galileo, on the other hand, disagreed with this theory. His theory was that the earth was in the center of everything. When he looked through his telescope for the first time and looked at the stars, he saw the moon. No one had ever seen the moon up close. They all believed that the heavenly bodies, which is what they called the moon, the sun, and the stars, were flawless. But when Galileo saw the moon, he noticed that it had many craters and scars on it and was indeed not flawless.
While looking at the moon, Galileo also noticed something else. He discovered another small planet, which turned out to be Jupiter. Jupiter appeared to be moving and Galileo called it a wondering star. And he notices that four dots, which appear to be stars, change position and are always nearby Jupiter. He later discovered that the four dots are moons. It's hard to make out any good details of Jupiter or its moons because all his telescope is made up of is two pieces of glass. The view through the telescope, to Galileo, appeared blurred and distorted. The cause of this was the curve of the glass on the telescope.
Galileo also discovered Saturn. He was the first to see the rings on it, which didn't look like rings to him at all. Because of the distorted image from the glass lenses, the rings looked more like ears or a single, wide ring. But later a man named Giovanni Cassini took a better look at Saturn and discovered that it had many rings going around it. He also discovered that Saturn was he farthest planet in our solar system. Later after that in the future, astronomers found out that the ring going around Saturn was and is made up of many particles from the moon. A telescope was sent into space to orbit around the moon and go straight through one of the geysers that were shooting off the moon. Astronomers believed that the particles from Saturn's ring were from the geysers on the moon. Sure enough, when the telescope tasted the particles from the moon, they were made up of ice, salt, and ammonia, which matched what the particles in Saturn's ring are made up of.
To enhance the view through telescopes, people lengthened telescopes in hope of them being able to see better through them. They believed that if the telescopes were longer, they would be able to see further and better. It did enhance the vision a little, but it was still blurred and not much could be seen through them. After Galileo's discoveries, many people were inspired to look further into space. But the refracting telescopes, or the telescopes that were made with glass lenses, made it hard to do so up until 1668, when a man named Isaac Newton found out why the glass was distorting the view through a telescope. He discovered that the light that shines through the glass lenses is composed of many different colors. After figuring this out, Isaac Newton invented the reflecting telescope, which used mirrors rather than glass. The light from an object would bounce off of the primary and secondary mirrors in a telescope, rather than shining through it like it did with the glass lenses. The use of the mirrors enhanced and defined the view through a telescope and the reflecting telescope became very popular by both amateur and the more professional astronomers. In fact, it is still widely used today. The reflecting telescope was a huge milestone in figuring out more about our universe because it enabled people to see objects in space that no one would have been able to see using Galileo's refracting telescope.
Even after the invention of the reflecting telescope, some people wanted to discover more about the universe. One of those people was a man named William Hershel. He was a musician and not a professional astronomer, but he was still intrigued about the universe. His interest in it would pay off because he made a couple huge discoveries. One was that in 1781, he made a larger version of Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope in an effort to see further into space. He studied the Milky Way and found that it was like a belt that went all the way across the sky. He believed that it was the inner walls of our galaxy, which is part of where the idea of the galaxy looking like a spiral cloud of stars, gas, and dust came from. We've never been out of our galaxy, and so therefore we do not know what it looks like. But after William Hershal took a closer look at it and studied it more, it gave us a better idea of what it probably looked like from the outside.
As for his telescope, William Hershal hand-made his own mirrors, which was difficult to do because of the lack of technology back then. It could take a long time of hard work to make a single mirror. The second discovery was that he discovered Uranus, which is 1,900 miles from the sun. This was both the result of making the larger version of the reflecting telescope and because his sister recorded observations every night when William Hershel studied the sky with his telescope. His sister's written observations were very important and they aided in the future discoveries made by other people.
Another person who contributed to discovering more about our universe was Lord Ross. In 1842, he built the largest telescope at the time. He looked at nebula clouds, which are gas clouds, also believed to be separate galaxies, that no one can really explain yet. Up until then, everyone believed that our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the only galaxy. But after studying different nebula clouds, Lord Ross discovered that it was probable that there were many other galaxies besides our own that we didn't know of. Later on, infrared telescopes were to be built to further look at the nebula clouds.
A little recently, there have been some giant observatory telescopes placed in Mauna Kai, Hawaii. And in 1995, there was a telescope break-through because astronomers believed there were other worlds and galaxies besides ours. Even more recently, on March 16th, 2009, the Kepler rocket was launched into space to look for planets the size of our Earth with life on them in the Milky Way. It collected light from millions of stars and even discovered several gas giants, which are huge planets similar to the Earth but the temperatures on them are really high. Another result of the Kepler Mission was that a super Earth was found. This planet was similar to our Earth because it had an atmosphere and it was covered in water, but temperatures were around 200ºF so it would be too hot for any humans to live on it. The Kepler rocket has gathered numerous amounts of important information and is still gathering data in space today.
One of the important telescopes is the Hubble Space Telescope. It was launched into space to orbit our Earth in 1990 and is still in orbit today. The Hubble is different from all the other telescopes in space because it is the only space telescope close enough to the Earth for astronauts to service it and it has taken many astonishing and helpful pictures. The Hubble Space Telescope is planned to stay until 2014, when another telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, will replace it. The James Webb Telescope is new and has some better and newer features that the Hubble Telescope doesn't have, such as an ISIM, which is a box sensor that collects and processes light. While the Hubble Telescope did gather a lot of information from the day it was launched to now, the James Webb Telescope will hopefully gather even more because of the new technology that it includes.
We still have a countless number of things to discover, much of which we don't even know exist. But the more technology has advanced, the more astronomers around the world have revealed about our universe and everything in it. But these well-known historical figures aren't the only contributors. Amateur astronomers, or everyday people who aren't professionals but still study space often, are vital to the professional astronomers because while the professional astronomers and telescopes are only studying one part of the sky at a time, amateur astronomers have their own telescopes that they can study certain parts of the sky with. The information they gather can then be given to the professionals, so they can continue learning about other parts in space while studying a certain spot at the same time.
I think that space exploration is not a waste of time. It may be very expensive for certain things, such as for building space telescopes, and it takes a lot of time and effort, but in the end it is worth it because when people take the time to explore more of our universe and to try and improve the technology used, they will always learn something new and astonishing about it.
There is still an infinite amount of things that we haven't revealed about our universe. There are still thousands of undiscovered planets and other objects in space. We are still learning about black holes, dark energy, and our galaxy. Whenever astronomers, both professional and amateur, look deeper into space, they find something they never knew before. Some discoveries are more momentous than others, but either way they all help us to attain more information about our galaxy, everything within it, and even the unknown things outside of it.
Picture from Hubble Gallery: Boomerang Nebula
The Boomerang Nebula, also known as the Bow Tie Nebula is a bipolar reflecting nebula from the Centaurus constellation. It is about 5,000 lights years away from Earth. It is the coldest place in the universe that we know of and it is made up of gas. The Hubble Space Telescope took this picture in 1998.
But anyway, I just find everything about space astonishing...It's just cool to look up at the moon and think that some people were actually up there! Yet it's so far away!
Just to imagine that that is actually up there in space and it's an actual image is fascinating to me.
Someday, I really want to make my own large telescope to look up at the stars at night and see all the things I could never see before. For now I can only imagine and see what I can see with my own eyes. But when I do make or buy my own telescope, you can bet I will be using it quite often!
Is anyone else here interested in astronomy? If so feel free to share! And if you have any of your own pictures of things in space that you took with a telescope, if you have one, please share!
Thanks!
-77horses
____________________
And I forgot to add...Here's my summary ("learning log") about what I've learned so far. At the end I had to choose an image from the Hubble Space Telescope website photo gallery to write a quick little summary about. It was a class assignment and I hope I get a good grade on it!
Learning Log Assessment
The Universe: Then and Now
The universe is constantly evolving. From the day when Galileo first used the telescope to now, it has changed and we have discovered numerous surprises. We can only see 5% of our entire universe, but the more technology is changing and advancing, the more we are discovering and the further we are venturing into figuring out the mysteries in our universe that have pondered astronomers and scientists for years.
It all started in 1609, when Galileo Galilei, an Italian scientist, first used the telescope to look into space. Before then, when the telescope was believed to first be invented by a lens maker named Hans Lippershey, no one had thought to look at the stars at night with a telescope. But when Galileo did, what he saw changed how people thought about the universe forever.
Before Galileo, a german astronomer named Nicolaus Copernicus had a theory about our solar system. He hadn't discovered the moon or any other planets, but he believed that everything revolved around the sun. Galileo, on the other hand, disagreed with this theory. His theory was that the earth was in the center of everything. When he looked through his telescope for the first time and looked at the stars, he saw the moon. No one had ever seen the moon up close. They all believed that the heavenly bodies, which is what they called the moon, the sun, and the stars, were flawless. But when Galileo saw the moon, he noticed that it had many craters and scars on it and was indeed not flawless.
While looking at the moon, Galileo also noticed something else. He discovered another small planet, which turned out to be Jupiter. Jupiter appeared to be moving and Galileo called it a wondering star. And he notices that four dots, which appear to be stars, change position and are always nearby Jupiter. He later discovered that the four dots are moons. It's hard to make out any good details of Jupiter or its moons because all his telescope is made up of is two pieces of glass. The view through the telescope, to Galileo, appeared blurred and distorted. The cause of this was the curve of the glass on the telescope.
Galileo also discovered Saturn. He was the first to see the rings on it, which didn't look like rings to him at all. Because of the distorted image from the glass lenses, the rings looked more like ears or a single, wide ring. But later a man named Giovanni Cassini took a better look at Saturn and discovered that it had many rings going around it. He also discovered that Saturn was he farthest planet in our solar system. Later after that in the future, astronomers found out that the ring going around Saturn was and is made up of many particles from the moon. A telescope was sent into space to orbit around the moon and go straight through one of the geysers that were shooting off the moon. Astronomers believed that the particles from Saturn's ring were from the geysers on the moon. Sure enough, when the telescope tasted the particles from the moon, they were made up of ice, salt, and ammonia, which matched what the particles in Saturn's ring are made up of.
To enhance the view through telescopes, people lengthened telescopes in hope of them being able to see better through them. They believed that if the telescopes were longer, they would be able to see further and better. It did enhance the vision a little, but it was still blurred and not much could be seen through them. After Galileo's discoveries, many people were inspired to look further into space. But the refracting telescopes, or the telescopes that were made with glass lenses, made it hard to do so up until 1668, when a man named Isaac Newton found out why the glass was distorting the view through a telescope. He discovered that the light that shines through the glass lenses is composed of many different colors. After figuring this out, Isaac Newton invented the reflecting telescope, which used mirrors rather than glass. The light from an object would bounce off of the primary and secondary mirrors in a telescope, rather than shining through it like it did with the glass lenses. The use of the mirrors enhanced and defined the view through a telescope and the reflecting telescope became very popular by both amateur and the more professional astronomers. In fact, it is still widely used today. The reflecting telescope was a huge milestone in figuring out more about our universe because it enabled people to see objects in space that no one would have been able to see using Galileo's refracting telescope.
Even after the invention of the reflecting telescope, some people wanted to discover more about the universe. One of those people was a man named William Hershel. He was a musician and not a professional astronomer, but he was still intrigued about the universe. His interest in it would pay off because he made a couple huge discoveries. One was that in 1781, he made a larger version of Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope in an effort to see further into space. He studied the Milky Way and found that it was like a belt that went all the way across the sky. He believed that it was the inner walls of our galaxy, which is part of where the idea of the galaxy looking like a spiral cloud of stars, gas, and dust came from. We've never been out of our galaxy, and so therefore we do not know what it looks like. But after William Hershal took a closer look at it and studied it more, it gave us a better idea of what it probably looked like from the outside.
As for his telescope, William Hershal hand-made his own mirrors, which was difficult to do because of the lack of technology back then. It could take a long time of hard work to make a single mirror. The second discovery was that he discovered Uranus, which is 1,900 miles from the sun. This was both the result of making the larger version of the reflecting telescope and because his sister recorded observations every night when William Hershel studied the sky with his telescope. His sister's written observations were very important and they aided in the future discoveries made by other people.
Another person who contributed to discovering more about our universe was Lord Ross. In 1842, he built the largest telescope at the time. He looked at nebula clouds, which are gas clouds, also believed to be separate galaxies, that no one can really explain yet. Up until then, everyone believed that our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the only galaxy. But after studying different nebula clouds, Lord Ross discovered that it was probable that there were many other galaxies besides our own that we didn't know of. Later on, infrared telescopes were to be built to further look at the nebula clouds.
A little recently, there have been some giant observatory telescopes placed in Mauna Kai, Hawaii. And in 1995, there was a telescope break-through because astronomers believed there were other worlds and galaxies besides ours. Even more recently, on March 16th, 2009, the Kepler rocket was launched into space to look for planets the size of our Earth with life on them in the Milky Way. It collected light from millions of stars and even discovered several gas giants, which are huge planets similar to the Earth but the temperatures on them are really high. Another result of the Kepler Mission was that a super Earth was found. This planet was similar to our Earth because it had an atmosphere and it was covered in water, but temperatures were around 200ºF so it would be too hot for any humans to live on it. The Kepler rocket has gathered numerous amounts of important information and is still gathering data in space today.
One of the important telescopes is the Hubble Space Telescope. It was launched into space to orbit our Earth in 1990 and is still in orbit today. The Hubble is different from all the other telescopes in space because it is the only space telescope close enough to the Earth for astronauts to service it and it has taken many astonishing and helpful pictures. The Hubble Space Telescope is planned to stay until 2014, when another telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, will replace it. The James Webb Telescope is new and has some better and newer features that the Hubble Telescope doesn't have, such as an ISIM, which is a box sensor that collects and processes light. While the Hubble Telescope did gather a lot of information from the day it was launched to now, the James Webb Telescope will hopefully gather even more because of the new technology that it includes.
We still have a countless number of things to discover, much of which we don't even know exist. But the more technology has advanced, the more astronomers around the world have revealed about our universe and everything in it. But these well-known historical figures aren't the only contributors. Amateur astronomers, or everyday people who aren't professionals but still study space often, are vital to the professional astronomers because while the professional astronomers and telescopes are only studying one part of the sky at a time, amateur astronomers have their own telescopes that they can study certain parts of the sky with. The information they gather can then be given to the professionals, so they can continue learning about other parts in space while studying a certain spot at the same time.
I think that space exploration is not a waste of time. It may be very expensive for certain things, such as for building space telescopes, and it takes a lot of time and effort, but in the end it is worth it because when people take the time to explore more of our universe and to try and improve the technology used, they will always learn something new and astonishing about it.
There is still an infinite amount of things that we haven't revealed about our universe. There are still thousands of undiscovered planets and other objects in space. We are still learning about black holes, dark energy, and our galaxy. Whenever astronomers, both professional and amateur, look deeper into space, they find something they never knew before. Some discoveries are more momentous than others, but either way they all help us to attain more information about our galaxy, everything within it, and even the unknown things outside of it.
Picture from Hubble Gallery: Boomerang Nebula
The Boomerang Nebula, also known as the Bow Tie Nebula is a bipolar reflecting nebula from the Centaurus constellation. It is about 5,000 lights years away from Earth. It is the coldest place in the universe that we know of and it is made up of gas. The Hubble Space Telescope took this picture in 1998.
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