Since I started asking my youngest daughter for comments on pictures from the Astronomy Picture of the Day web site, we have had some good discussions about space.
I explained a little about the Emission Nebula in Orion and she said there were little rainbows on the side of the nebula.
The Witch Head Nebula gave us a bit of trouble. I saw a head facing left, using the whole nebula. My youngest saw a upside down witch, also facing left, but only using the bottom half of the nebula.
In looking at the NGC 1055 and M77 galaxies, my daughter thought the one on the top left looked like a shield.
Frequently when we are out at night my second daughter likes to find Orion's belt. My youngest daughter thought the Path To Orion looked more like an arrow, than rocket exhaust.
While explaining the picture of Massive Stars in Open Cluster Pismis 24 my daughter wanted to know how scientists decided that a star was 200 times more massive than our sun. We had a short chat about how it would be hard to put a star on a scale or measure it with a measuring tape. She thought it was funny that a scale or tape would burn up.
My daughter wasn't impressed with Star Forming Region NGC 6357. But from there we checked out the Cat's Paw Nebula, and she thought that picture was cool.
To my daughter the exhaust from a Minotaur rocket in Minotaur Dawn looked more like a crack in the sky. My daughter explained that it was like the light was peaking through the picture.
The Moon Over Andromeda is the most striking picture of this set. My daughter wanted to know who lived in the Andromeda galaxy. I said we don't know. She said we should shot a rocket there. I tried to explain that the distances were too great for us to travel right now.
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Technorati tags: Astronomy, Astronomy Picture of the day
5 comments:
APAD is one of my favorite sites. The only comments I ever get out of my boys are, "hh" or "cool" (not with an !) Maybe I should try to guide the discussion. Thanks for an idea.
Amazing stuff.
I just wanted to stop by and let you know how much I have enjoyed reading your blog this year and to wish you and your family the happiest and most blessed new year yet!
If you haven't seen it yet, check out the Top 10 Astronomy Images of 2006.
To the first Anonymous, you might try checking out Astronmy magazines, or books, or videos. Sometimes a different venue helps.
Thanks Birdie for your kind words and kind wishes.
Thanks to the second Anonymous, I enjoyed the pictures.
Our UFO has landed quietly last night in a densely populated coordinate at a region humans refer to as "Germany."
This particular congregation was generating so much noise we were compelled to study the anomaly.
As we approached the boiling source of haphazard frequencies, our superb training took over. We were well-trained to
investigate any unusual source and level of human commotion and report immediately back to our ZX-879 headquarters.
Turning on our invisibility shield helped us get really close to the subject of examination without being detected.
As we reached the egg shaped concrete container filled with 100,000 or so human subjects, the noise level rose to
such unimaginable heights that we had to shut down our frequency analyzers for fear of damaging their sensitive
circuitry.
When we cleared the top of the concrete structure we were blinded with thousands of light-emitting radiation
sources.
Then we saw them -- 22 voluntary humans darting back and forth in alternating sequences of random and
seemingly-goal-oriented sprints. We have checked our central computer to decipher the modal characteristic of such
kinetic outbursts and we were advised to locate the focal source of coordinated agitation.
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