Galaxies and Moons and Planets! Oh my!

I found this site a few months ago; it's fairly interesting. It's a decent mixture of famous photos you've probably seen before and some you might not have. Most images are fairly high resolution so I recommended only clicking on "original resolution" if your computer has a fair bit of free RAM. My browser memory usage shot to 2.5Gb when viewing one of the pages with the images set to their highest resolution.

I've linked the photostream as well as some of the pictures in their full resolution below.

rvision "Space" photostream

[Selecting "flickr" view style allows full resolution viewing without heavy memory use]

 

Selected images in original resolution:

Dawn before the first ever launch of a Saturn V rocket

Bruce McCandless II performs the first ever untethered EVA

Mosaic of Jupiter's "Great Red Spot" by Voyager 1

Victoria Crater a dune field, Mars (Aerial)

Victoria Crater, Mars (Ground)

True color mosaic of Jupiter by Cassini in 2000

Infrared Mosaic of the Milky Way's Galactic Core, Spitzer 2006

Remaining Fall Semester Schedule

POSSE blog hasn't been updated in a while so I thought I would put up a Fall schedule. I might dedicate a new section of the blog to schedules eventually but for now it'll just be a regular post.

2011 Fall Semester (remaining) Schedule:

October 6th: POSSE Meet & Greet. Come meet POSSE officers and talk about planned field trips, day outings and space! Free food! [JGB 3.120 NOT 3.116]

October 22nd: Professor Emeritus Dr. Yosio Nakamura will be speaking with a talk entitled "A new look at old data". Dr. Nakamura has tons of experience in lunar and planetary seismology and has worked with lunar seismic data since the Apollo missions.

November 3rd: Research Associate at the Bureau of Economic Geology Bruce Cutright will be presenting "Near Earth Asteroids as the First Step on the Way to Mars."

Novermber 17th: Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Britney Schmidt will be presenting a talk on her recent research using ice penetrating radar to study Jupiter's moon Europa.

December 1st: Assistant Professor in the Astronomy department Dr. Sally Dodson-Robinson (topic TBA).

The little things

Hello all.  Hope you're having a wonderful start to your weekend!  I found this little gem and thought I would share it with you.

While not entirely related to space-related things, there are some nice time-lapses of the cosmos.  A short break to appreciate nature's beauty.  Enjoy!

Cheers - M

POSSE election meeting

Good afternoon!

Today is another wonderful POSSE meeting day!  We will be starting up elections, talkin bout t-shirts, getting the low-down on quasars, and eating some super delicious Plucker's chicken.

Dr. Gregory Shields will be giving his talk "Binary Quasars: Two Black Holes are Better than One" at 5:15 pm in JGB 2.102.

Join the POSSE!

-M

And the Ugliest Planetary Body award goes to...

Sorry, Saturn, but yo moon is UGLY.

















Cheers - M.

Giant Magellan Telescope yeah!

Yes.  It sounds awesome.

"Largest telescope ever"? Check. 

Baller location in Chile? Check. 

Excessively expensive? DOUBLE check.  But still, totally and absolutely worth it.  I, for one, am also SUPER glad to see (certain, particular, not naming any names) universities spend their money on something academic related rather than making the buildings slightly cooler on campus...but that's just me.

This new telescope will be a partnership between the University of Texas at Austin, the Carnegie Institute, Texas A&M University, Harvard University, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the University of Arizona, and the University of Chicago, the Australian National University, Astronomy Australia Ltd., and the Korea Astronomy and Space Sciences Institute.

Big 'ole step for mankind y'all.

Cheers - M.

Weeeelll.....uhhhh

Sometimes I like to put things into perspective.

Cheers - M