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Showing posts from May, 2013

arXiv : "A Zoo of Galaxies" by Karen L. Masters

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" A Zoo of Galaxies " by Karen L. Masters is a good place to start for an amateur astronomer interested in contributing to astronomy. The author discusses the Morphology of Galaxies and human efforts over the last couple of decades in classifying the galaxies. Our understanding of the universe and our milky way galaxy in general have changed over the last couple of decades - from thinking that earth was the center of the universe to understanding that the earth revolves around the sun, - from thinking that sun was the center of the galaxy to realizing that the sun was ~8 kpc away from the center of the milkyway galaxy and - from thinking that the bright objects and halos visible in the night sky belong to our galaxy to understanding that the our galaxy is just one of the many galaxies visible in the night sky, that galaxies interact with each other, move in clusters, collide with each other, and it's all for us to see, understand and observe in awe. On the journey

The Summer of 2013 will be legen - wait for it - dary...

Very well, a post after 3 months, well 4 months if you don't count the one in feb. And what a semester has it been. The trip to nainital, weekly arxiv papers on astrophysics, the end semester exams, running around looking for a summer project and now that the summer project is confirmed - running around deciding on a project for the next semester. I guess (my) life will always be fast paced (read as awesome). The reason why i've finally come around to writing again is not because i haven't had free time - nope, that argument is always moot unless you're an astronaut on the apollo 13. It's because my mind is finally calm again, now that my end semester exams are over. And in general, now that my semester is over. Alas, the summer of 2013 is upon us. I have always looked forward to the summer, my expectations for a summer haven't always been met (the last one was okay ) and my plans hardly ever worked. Well, probably because most of my plans started with me i