Weekly Bulletin on Solar and Geomagnetic Activity Highlights on 20 - 26.08.2012, Forecast on 27.08 - 03.09.2012, Carrington Rotation 2127 (15,04.08.2012) SUNSPOT ACTIVITY OF THE SUN REMAINED AT THE AVERAGE LEVEL. ... ON THE VISIBLE SOLAR DISK CONSTANTLY THERE WERE 4-5 SUNSPOT GROUPS ONE OF WHICH, APPEARING ON THE VISIBLE SOLAR DISK ON AUGUST 25, AVERAGE SIZES. NEXT WEEK THE LEVEL OF SUNSPOT ACTIVITY IS EXPECTED TO BE AVERAGE. ... FLARE ACTIVITY WAS ON THE LOW LEVEL IN ALL DAYS. ...

... Psrcat . Data archive . ... PSRCORR receives data from PKCCC1 , and displays, processes and archives them. ... Click on Setup and select WBA and old tape or new tape as appropriate. ... At the end of each observation the raw data files are written to the archive tape and the file details recorded in the tape log which is located in /psr1/runtime/psrcorr/db/tape.log . ... This allows you to select an archive tape and the file(s) to be archived (from PKCCC1 _1) and to write these files to the tape. ...

... About ATMoB . ... The Observing Committee is starting an Observing Awards Program to promote observing among the membership of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston. ... Participant must be a current member of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston . ... To qualify for your Observing Award Certificate, turn in your worksheet and drawings to an ATMoB Observing Committee member or observing@atmob.org . ... This Excel sheet has useful macros. ... Copyright (c) Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston, Inc. ...

This service is intended as an aid to visually observing close-approaching asteroids. ... By clicking on the column headers for "Object Name", "Maximum Brightness", and "Maximum Angular Speed", you can sort the list by those fields. ... When This is the predicted time when the asteroid will be closest to the Earth. ... This field shows red if an asteroid comes as close as the moon. ... PHA (Potentially Hazardous Asteroid) This does NOT mean that this is going to hit the Earth. ...

... Home Links International Sidewalk Astronomy Night . ... Saturday night, April 12, 2008, is the 2nd International Sidewalk Astronomy Night.€а We call on all amateur astronomers to take their telescopes and binoculars out for the public to enjoy the wonders of the night sky.€а A first-quarter Moon will be visible, as will the planets Saturn and Mars.€а More information can be found at http://www.sidewalkastronomynight.com /, where you can register so people will know where to find you. ...

... Here are some tips on how to get the best guiding out of our current system. ... NA2 Guider Tips . ... Optical double stars, late-type galaxies, and bipolar PNs may pose a problem for guiding, as will objects where you desire to observe a position away from the bright center (e.g., SNs near bright galaxies). ... Field Star is good if your object is too faint or asymmetrical for Boresight guiding, or if you need the slit to be off-center. ... Use Field Star guiding almost always. ...

... ESO News . ... Acting on information received from Danish scientists working with an X-ray telescope on a Soviet satellite, astronomers at the ESO La SiIla observatory in Chile have discovered a strange new star in the southern constellation of Musca (the Fly). Preliminary observations with the ESO 3.5-m New Technology Telescope indicate that the object is a nova, most probably a small, very dense star in a binary system whose brightness in a dramatic event has suddenly increased about 1000 times. ...

NMW survey overview . Access image archive . ... The New Milky Way survey aims to detect bright (V<13.5) optical transients near the Galactic plane using an automated wide-field (8x6 deg.) system capable of surveying the whole Milky Way area visible from the observing site in one night. ... All images obtained during the transient search survey are available online (please use the image archive access form ). ... Images per field: . ... Images per night: . ... Milky Way imaging time: . ...

SN 1999aa - A Third Supernova Discovery . Just 9 weeks after the discovery of SN 1998ey a suspect was found 1" east and 28" north from the centre of NGC 2595 on Feb.11.0166 U.T.. ... Further inspection of 6 images of NGC 2595 taken during Feb. and March 1998 showed no object at the position of the suspect. ... Beijing Astronomical Observatory recorded SN 1999aa on Feb. 11.6 and 12.6 UT, the first obervation being only 14 hours after the discovery. ... Back to Supernova 1999aa in NGC 2595 . ...

As a result of preceding actions the File opening dialog box appears and user is suggested to open the file with observations (the file may be created for the first time). ... To see the list of files with desirable extension in chosen folder define the type of extension with the help of File type drop-down list at the bottom of the dialog box. ... The name of the file will appear in File name dialog box. ... In case you want to open the file with new name, type it in the File name dialog box. ...

... Today this year's largest group of sunspots will cross the Sun's central meridian. ... The next day, the number of spots in the group reached five, and the day after, on June 2nd, it was possible to count thirteen sunspots on solar disk, which had been clear prior to this. ... This year's two most powerful active areas, which passed across the solar disk at the beginning of May, 2009, are set to appear in the Sun's eastern sector in two days, on June 6th. ...

You Can Make Stellar Images Brighter . Articles | ... A few months ago I wrote an article titled "You Can’t Make Them Brighter". So why am I now writing that you can make them brighter. ... The image of a focused star is actually a small disk called the Airy disk, named after the 19 th century scientist Sir George Airy. ... For a given aperture, a smaller Airy disk means that the light is focused to a smaller disk and is therefore brighter. ... www.astronomy.net . About Astronomy Net | ...

... Spherical aberration, coma, and astigmatism are also easily observed using the star test. ... Off-axis images are complex. ... Fig. ... Diffraction by a circular aperture as a function of defocus for no aberration Airy Disk 1 wave defocus Less than 1 wave defocus Fig. ... Diffraction by a circular aperture as a function of defocus for third-order spherical aberration Paraxial Focus Small distance inside paraxial focus Moderate distance from marginal focus Immediate neighborhood of marginal focus Fig...

... SS433 is a close binary system, one star is a supergiant, a second one is a black hole. ... Even a black hole cannot accept such an enormous mass flux, a supercritical accretion disk appears, all the excess gas glows up to several tens of thousands degrees and is ejected off the disk with enormous velocities. ... SAO researchers have found an evidence of the supercritical accretion onto a black hole in SS433, which follows from a brightness variability of the SS433 disk. ...

... Calibration and analysis of this observation posed very interesting challenges for the authors, in particular dealing with an exciting new instrument whose on-orbit calibration was not yet well defined. ... Five mosaic positions were observed during five consecutive orbits as well as observations for dark and flat calibration. ... Darks and flats had to be created from contemporaneous reference observations and problems within the calibration process had to be resolved. ...

RELATIVE SUNSPOT NUMBERS Description of Data from SGD Explanation of Data Reports: Relative Sunspot Numbers -- The relative sunspot number is an index of the activity of the entire visible disk of the Sun. ... The provisional daily Zurich relative sunspot numbers, Rz, were based upon observations made at Zurich and its two branch stations in Arosa and Locarno and communicated by M. Waldmeier of the Swiss Federal Observatory. ... This indicates the uncertainty above and below the predicted number. ...

The Second International Meeting on WARNING Mission . Kyiv, Ukraine on April 15-17, 1998. ... PROTOCOL OF THE INTERNATIONAL MEETING ON "WARNING" MISSION . ... Tel/fax . ... 380 44 2262167 +380 44 4443420 Fax : +380 44 4441020 . ... National Space Agency of Ukraine . ... 380 572 451009 and 441127; Fax: +380 572 476506, Telex 311-039 SPACE UA . ... 380 572 448462 Fax: +380 572 476506, Telex 311-039 SPACE UA . ... 380 572 322016 and (home) 306125 fax: +380 572 322293 Telex: 311039 SPACE SU, . ...

... From the peculiar shape of the light curve in the visible spectral region (a long phase interval of light constancy was observed by Hensberge et al. in 1981 ), HD 56022 had been expected to show unambiguously the nonequatorial symmetry of its surface brightness distribution. However, analysis of the light curve has yielded a possible equatorial position of a spot. ... A solution seems only possible, if the light constancy over the long phase interval in the visible is not observed in the UV. ...

... INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION . VIDEOARCHIVE . THE SECOND PRIME MISSION . TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION . 04/30/2001. ... Being launched from Baikonur cosmodrome on April 28, 2001, the Russian Soyuz TM-32 transport spacecraft has been docked with the International Space Station (ISS) following a 2-day free flight in near-earth orbit and upon completion of all the required rendezvous and berthing operations in an automated mode with respect to the Orbital Complex. ... SEA LAUNCH | ...