APOD 2.2

This week’s apod blog post surrounds the Leonid meteor shower that I happened to observe. This photo is taken from the shore of Mono Lake. The salty and mineral-laden lake is situated in California’s eastern Sierra Nevada mountain range. The brightest star that is located to the right of the meteor streak is called: Arcutrus. The reports for the meteor shower were about 120 meteors per hour, but rates were typically lower for many other locations.

Observations

On November 17^th starting at 12 A.M. Pine View held a astronomy night down at the end of the service road. The Leonid Meteor Shower proved to be the first shower that I actually saw a meteor within. I saw about 7 meteors that night, and had a really good time. The sky was not too cloudy for the majority of the night, and some good meteors could be observed. When I was on my way back home I even got a glimpse of the biggest meteor of the night for myself. It was around 4:20 A.M. I had about 4 hours of observations, and all in all it was a successful night in my opinion

APOD 2.1

On the night of Halloween: November 2^nd deputed a bright Full Moon. Known in the northern hemisphere as a Hunter’s Moon. The photo was snapped in Sobreda, Portugal. This photo is actually playing a little trick on the viewers. The photo is actually a 2 digital photo, one short and one is long exposure. The reason for the combination was to bring out the details of the bright lunar surface as well as the fainter features in the dark surrounding clouds of the other photo. This photo is awesome in my own opinion, and since last quarter I ended on a photo of the moon, I thought it was only fair to start this quarter off with a photo of the moon. The photo is beautiful, and it makes it even cooler to know that this is a photo made of in fact two photos combined.