To satisfy all of my geeky needs, I joyfully joined the Science Olympiad team. Participating in the two fields of Astronomy and Anatomy- My brain is having a field day. More than any other part of my brain, the occipital lobe is particularly excited because of the amazing images that I've been looking at of quasars, black holes, massive blackholes, supermassive blackholes (which are different things...scientists are just as good at naming things as musicians- seriously, who names their child Moon Unit, Pixie, Apple, Peaches (I'm especially baffled by the plural of peaches), who names there child a tangible noun? Period. Answer: Musicians), globular clusters, supernovas, and eclipsing binaries! The best site for star gazing within ones own home is Chandra- The X-ray Observatory. Go check out the gallery of amazing objects. I'm particularly smitten with our own milky way...
Ain't she pretty...y'all. Here's a couple more that I liked.
Ain't she pretty...y'all. Here's a couple more that I liked.Centaurus A- About 1 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. It's the fifth brightest galaxy and one of the closest to Earth. It's called a radio galaxy because it's believed that there is a relativistic jet which extracts energy from the vicinity of a possible supermassive blackhole at the center of the galaxy that is responsible for the emission of radio wavelengths.
Epsilon Aurigae- An eclipsing binary system that is approximately 2000 light years from earth. It is unusually dim for a star of its size and is suspected to be surrounded by a massive cloud of dust which obscures its light. It's the subject of a nation wide observing campaign for 2010 and 2011.
Perseus A (NGC 1275) - Located around 273 million light years away, Perseus A is situated around the large Perseus cluster of galaxies. Long gaseous filaments made up of threads of gas stretch out beyond the galaxy, into the multimillion-degree, X-ray–emitting gas that fills the cluster. The amount of gas contained in a typical thread is approximately one million times the mass of our own Sun. 
Thanks to Wikipedia for making me sound smarter than I actually am :) When I make sense of the gaseous filaments of Perseus A, I'll let you know.
Epsilon Aurigae- An eclipsing binary system that is approximately 2000 light years from earth. It is unusually dim for a star of its size and is suspected to be surrounded by a massive cloud of dust which obscures its light. It's the subject of a nation wide observing campaign for 2010 and 2011.Perseus A (NGC 1275) - Located around 273 million light years away, Perseus A is situated around the large Perseus cluster of galaxies. Long gaseous filaments made up of threads of gas stretch out beyond the galaxy, into the multimillion-degree, X-ray–emitting gas that fills the cluster. The amount of gas contained in a typical thread is approximately one million times the mass of our own Sun. Thanks to Wikipedia for making me sound smarter than I actually am :) When I make sense of the gaseous filaments of Perseus A, I'll let you know. 
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