https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog daily 0.75 2026-03-31 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/astronomy-abcs-e-is-for-electromagnetic-radiation monthly 0.5 2026-03-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/5f4f9077-9acf-4e54-b02e-0302abe030dc/Water_wave_diagram_NOAA.jpg.webp Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: E is for Electromagnetic Radiation - Make it stand out Diagram of a water wave. Image credit: NOAA https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/b26c2384-eaaa-4ea2-9e1e-bd8fb342c258/anatomy7-jpg.jpg Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: E is for Electromagnetic Radiation - Make it stand out An illustration of how frequency and wavelength reflect the energy of an EM wave. Image credit: NASA https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/0453ce11-5272-4dcc-8dfc-81fa91afcd63/4yuNJJpeSAbAWkAHpZSh2b-1200-80.jpg.webp Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: E is for Electromagnetic Radiation - Make it stand out A diagram of the electromagnetic spectrum. Image credit: Getty Images https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/67f7fe43-3bac-48ba-8d7f-33e2bf019b75/Atmospheric_electromagnetic_transmittance_or_opacity.jpg Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: E is for Electromagnetic Radiation - Make it stand out Stylized graphical representation of which electromagnetic wavelength regions are blocked by Earth's atmosphere. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/13d747db-121e-46f9-b2f8-649f8150c888/PIA21474-CrabNebula-5Observatories-Animation.gif Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: E is for Electromagnetic Radiation - Make it stand out The Crab Nebula in 5 different wavelength bands. Red is radio, yellow is infrared, green is optical, blue is ultraviolet, and purple is x-rays. Image credit Wikipedia https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/elon-showed-me-that-i-can-just-delete-my-account monthly 0.5 2026-02-27 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/i-cant-write-about-astronomy-right-now monthly 0.5 2026-01-30 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/astronomy-abcs-d-is-for-debris-disk monthly 0.5 2025-12-30 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/astronomy-abcs-c-is-for-cepheids monthly 0.5 2025-11-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/1c28a687-4101-4939-96c7-596b851be2b7/hubble-xtrem.jpg Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids - Make it stand out Nearly everything in this image is a galaxy. Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/7a330a55-b78d-46da-bb69-c2e252e0df2c/Screenshot+2025-11-19+at+2.49.09%E2%80%AFPM.png Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids - Make it stand out You see the tree relative to the background mountain. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/d273091e-0bf1-40db-8d83-1b17c1f41463/Screenshot+2025-11-19+at+2.49.24%E2%80%AFPM.png Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids - Make it stand out Your point of view has changed! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/e835d8d2-434f-4d07-a80d-8046b3ecf122/Screenshot+2025-11-19+at+2.49.39%E2%80%AFPM.png Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids - Make it stand out Your point of view changes again! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/2a241c21-5274-4930-93c6-f46c8ba6cbca/parallax.jpg Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids - Make it stand out Stellar parallax diagram, showing how the 'nearby' star appears to move against the distant 'fixed' stars when Earth is at different positions in its orbit around the Sun. Credit: Alice Hopkinson, LCO https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/bb35bb9e-5b98-45c7-b4c2-3643f487d428/delta-cephei.png Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids - Make it stand out This plot shows how the brightness of the prototypical Cepheid - Delta Cephei - changes with time. The change is brightness is very regular, peaking every 5.4 days. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/14813449-ab03-4c68-9ad0-77008044c506/OG-leavitt-law.jpg Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids - Make it stand out Plot from Leavitt's 1912 paper. The horizontal axis is the logarithm of the period of the corresponding Cepheid, and the vertical axis is its apparent magnitude. The lines drawn correspond to the stars' minimum and maximum brightness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/aee16a8b-907a-43e9-b12f-7e9360468d68/periodlum.gif Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids The modern Leavitt Law takes into account the two types of Cepheids. Plot from the lecture notes on pulsating stars from Ohio State. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/63db0c4c-e695-4d3d-b285-98c7d0e437f3/inverse_square_law.width-1280.jpg Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids - Make it stand out Illustration of the Inverse Square Law. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/429a4a5d-0411-496d-838f-0bff57bf8051/Extragalactic_Distance_Ladder_en.svg.png Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids - Make it stand out The Extragalactic or Cosmic Distance Ladder shows the various ways astronomers can tell how far away something is. It’s complicated! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/cedd685a-0ea4-4561-853f-5aaada016dbd/OBS_H335H_VARplate_19231005.jpg.webp Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: C is for Cepheids - Make it stand out Edwin Hubble’s plate image of Andromeda. “VAR!” indicates the found a variable star in the nebula, which meant he could calculate distance using Leavitt’s Law. https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/astronomy-abcs-b-is-for-blackbody-radiation monthly 0.5 2025-10-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/dc20eb0a-98cd-4382-8f82-4601211ebc76/bbrad.webp Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: B is for Blackbody Radiation - Make it stand out Blackbody radiation illustrated for several temperatures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/4d37c7f8-9f49-4b59-a346-162687124b77/Screenshot+2025-10-31+at+9.35.43%E2%80%AFAM.png Ad Astra Blog - Astronomy ABCs: B is for Blackbody Radiation - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/astronomy-abcs-a-is-for-astronomy monthly 0.5 2025-09-05 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/untitled-venus-project monthly 0.5 2025-05-13 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/paper-flowers monthly 0.5 2024-12-31 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/eclipse-story monthly 0.5 2023-09-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/0d6ef97b-1aa9-40a6-a65b-f0e0c31a2a8e/IMG_0776.JPG Ad Astra Blog - You Need to See the Total Eclipse in April - Make it stand out Making the best of it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/ba840401-9607-4a51-8dd6-1174fd863638/IMG_0777.JPG Ad Astra Blog - You Need to See the Total Eclipse in April - Make it stand out Those aren’t clouds! Just my terrible smartphone camera! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/465d972e-308d-4e19-b510-35c35f25fee6/IMG_0778.JPG Ad Astra Blog - You Need to See the Total Eclipse in April - Make it stand out Watching totality. https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/my-bike-is-not-taking-me-on-a-weight-loss-journey monthly 0.5 2023-08-09 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/welcome-to-my-blog monthly 0.5 2023-07-14 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/category/Astronomy monthly 0.5 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/tag/New+Years+Resolutions monthly 0.5 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/tag/Venus monthly 0.5 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/tag/science monthly 0.5 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/tag/astronomy monthly 0.5 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/tag/explainers monthly 0.5 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/tag/explainer monthly 0.5 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/ad-astra-blog/tag/STEM monthly 0.5 https://www.ad-astra-per-esquire.com/about daily 0.75 2024-05-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/69494195-a41d-4302-af82-74fb2b3e731d/JmOOR1p4RveN3SeD%25bQNAg.jpg About - My name is Mindy Townsend. I’m an astrophysicist and public astronomy educator. I received my PhD from the University of Kansas in 2022. I am the Dudley Astronomer at Siena College, where I work with students and the public to make astronomy fun and accessible. My dissertation was on the growth of massive galaxies under the supervision of my dissertation advisor, Gregory Rudnick. My research involves the study galaxies and how their environment affect how they evolve. But that’s not all. 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Taken with a Pentax 17. Kodak Gold. ISO 400. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/a312b9b5-75dc-47ed-837b-0590fa17d48b/976z000_976z000-R1-E031.jpg Photography Bridge over the Mohawk. Taken with a Pentax 17. Kodak Gold. ISO 400. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/4fd9788d-ee33-41e0-a5e8-b7e9197eb14a/976z000_976z000-R1-E044.jpg Photography Waterford, NY. Taken with a Pentax 17. Kodak Gold. ISO 400. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/a2ba9738-a3f8-4e95-9ba5-2ed5afa7b397/976z000_976z000-R1-E045.jpg Photography Cohoes, NY. Taken with a Pentax 17. Kodak Gold. ISO 400. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/ce9fbfb1-4754-462c-8971-5d0cd8d028e6/976z000_976z000-R1-E053.jpg Photography Peebles Island. Taken with a Pentax 17. Kodak Gold. ISO 400. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/c0c9558f-901c-4d6b-9bdc-ce1adb3f3bef/976z000_976z000-R1-E055.jpg Photography Peebles Island. Taken with a Pentax 17. Kodak Gold. ISO 400. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/1a307c2f-021e-48ad-b790-d37b138cce25/976z000_976z000-R1-E062.jpg Photography Accidental Portrait. Burlington, VT. Taken with a Pentax 17. Kodak Gold. ISO 400. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/ff10bb52-75e9-46b9-bfde-be020ca542f9/044z000_044z000-R1-022-9A.jpg Photography Phoenix, AZ. Taken with a Pentax 17. Kodak Gold. ISO 400. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6090a18f017ac31a59945489/0fbb9e30-67d0-4533-bd07-aed797a5d40e/044z000_044z000-R1-064-30A.jpg Photography The Egg. Taken with a Pentax 17. Kodak Gold. 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