What Can We See With Our Technology?
Mt. Wilson Observatory 2000-2001
By Patrick K., William R., and Brandon S.
Below are some of the astronomical images we saw during our Telescopes in Education experience with the Mt. Wilson Observatory in California. Their web page is located at: http://www.mtwilson.edu/Science/TIE/
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Black-eye Galaxy/M64/NGC4826: M64 is known as the "Black-eye Galaxy" because of a large dust cloud which obscures the northern edge of the nucleus. The galaxy is at a distance of about 14 million light-years. |
Crab Nebula/M1/NGC1952: A supernova remnant, first recorded by the Chinese Astronomers in 1054 AD. |
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Ghost of Jupiter/NGC3242: A peculiar and interesting structure is shown in larger instruments. There is a bright, strongly elliptical inner ring which strikingly resembles the outline of a human eye; this feature measures 26 x 16 arc seconds. The "eye" is enclosed by a fainter outer shell of nearly spherical form, some 40 arc seconds in diameter. The distance is not accurately known, though it is undoubtedly among the dozen nearest of the planetaries. |
Great Nebula in Orion/M42/NGC1976: Visible to the naked eye as the middle star in the sword of Orion, M42 is a spectacular cloud of gas surrounding several hot stars in a small cluster within the nebula. |
I think Mt. Wilson is a great place for space research. It is a place where they look at and study the planet. It is amazing how Mt. Wilson can use your computer and show you how planets, galaxies, nebulae, etc. look. I like Mt. Wilson because it gives you a first hand tour of outer space. It is amazing that different schools and programs get to do this. My experience with Mt. Wilson helped me to use the computer to find different galaxies and see how they look. Also when we controlled the telescope. we found things all over space. Out of everything we have done, Mt. Wilson was my favorite experience.
By Brandon S.
At Mt. Wilson, we saw beautiful pictures of the universe, like the Milky Way. If you saw the pictures, they would look so cool to you that you would have the same expression on your face that I did. If I ever see the universe up close, I will tell you all about it. I will become a scientist and find the quickest way to get to outer space without taking a ship. Then we will both love science.
By William R.
Mt Wilson was an experience that not anyone should miss. Though it was an opportunity that not all kids could have. It would just amaze anyone by what happens and how it happens. A telescope on the top of a mountain is taking pictures and sending them to us right at our home. The only thing is it is time consuming because the telescope has to move where you want it from the click of your computer. It was amazing how we click the constellation on the computer and the telescope aimed and took a picture of it. I also learned that you need red, blue, and green to get a full color picture. If you look really close on your TV you can see what I mean.
It just amazes me what will happen and what is happening with technology right now. Soon we will obviously have flying cars, palm computers, and cell phones that everyone has and will be used far more than just cell phones. They will be our computers and will have our checking account and everything. To pay for stuff we will just connect our cellphone to the ash register and then type in the amount of money that you spent. You will do your taxes in five simple seconds through your little cell phone.
Everything is soon going to change very much. The world will be looked at in a whole different way. The impossible now will be very possible then. The telescope would probably actually be in space and we would be able to control it through space. Or it would deploy millions of cameras and people could control them.
By Patrick K.
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M65/NGC3623: Inclined at an angle of 20 deg. to the line of sight and has a prominent dust lane along the eastern edge of the spiral disk. M65 has a diameter of 65,000 light-years at an estimated distance of 24 million light-years. |
Ring Nebula/NGC6720/M57: The Ring Nebula was the first planetary nebula discovered. It has a diameter of one-half light-year and is located about 5,000 light-years from Earth. |
Whirlpool Galaxy/NGC5194/M51:
M51 was found in October 1773 by Messier.
This was recorded in 1845 to be the first galaxy
to show a spiral form. M51 has a satellite galaxy
that is not connected to the northern arm.
The corrected radial velocities of the two
objects are fairly comparable: 340 and
390 miles per second in recession.
The distance to the system is estimated to be
25 million light-years.
These are some pictures of our Mt. Wilson Experience.
We love science so much that we want to share our experience with you!
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We are working with Miss Murray to select the stars we want to photograph. We are in Ballwin, Missouri. |
This is a TIE operator taking images with the computer and the 24 inch telescope at Mt. Wilson in California. |
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This is our computer screen that we used to select our constellations and stars. We used the Sky Pro software. |
This is one of our finished images! |
