... Open Cluster NGC 290: A Stellar Jewel Box . ... Credit Copyright: E. Olszewski ( U. Arizona ) HST Explanation: Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. Like gems in a jewel box, though, the stars of open cluster NGC 290 glitter in a beautiful display of brightness and color. ... NGC 290 and other open clusters are good laboratories for studying how stars of different masses evolve , since all the open cluster's stars were born at about the same time. ... Bright from the Heart Nebula . ...

... We have made observations of the Perseus cluster with the Westerbork Telescope at 610 MHz. ... Several newly detected sources are identified with cluster galaxies. ... No evidence is found for the existence of the previously reported ~ 65'x25' cluster halo, 3C 84B. Key words: radio galaxies - clusters - tailed radio sources buoyancy The Perseus Cluster of galaxies is one of the most fascinating systems accessible to extragalactic astronomers. ...

... 2014 June 8 . Open Cluster NGC 290: A Stellar Jewel Box . ... Explanation: Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. Like gems in a jewel box, though, the stars of open cluster NGC 290 glitter in a beautiful display of brightness and color. ... NGC 290 and other open clusters are good laboratories for studying how stars of different masses evolve , since all the open cluster's stars were born at about the same time. Best space images: Free APOD Lecture in Paris on June 17 . ...

Stellar Clusters are very useful laboratories for empirically studying stellar evolution. ... All cluster stars are at the same distance . All cluster stars have the same physical age . ... CM diagram Young Cluster In this case we see the Main Sequence fully represented. The blue dots represent massive stars with short main sequence lifetimes. ... Thus, identifying the most massive star which is still on the main sequence is an effective means of determining the age of a stellar cluster. ...

... Primordial theory review : Dick Bond . Defects and the CMB review : Andy Albrecht . ... Gravitational wave contribution to CMB anisotropies : V.B. Lukash and E.V. Mikheeva . C_l from cosmic strings : Lloyd Knox . Some aspects of CMB anisotropies induced from topological defects : Mairi Sakellariadou . ... CMB anisotropies from scaling sources : Ruth Durrer . ... SZ observations I : Sarah Church . ... Holes in the microwave sky? ... Detecting cosmic strings in the CMB : James Robinson . ...

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE DAILY REPORT #1067 PERIOD COVERED: 0700 EST Daily Status Report as of 034/1200Z. 1.0 ACTIVITIES SCHEDULED AND ACCOMPLISHED: 1.1 Completed Three Sets of WF/PC-2 5475 (A Snapshot Survey for Blue Stragglers in Magellanic Cluster Cores) The WF/PC-2 was used to make short exposure snapshot images of the blue straggler stars located in populous clusters NGC-2173, and NGC-458. ... A total of four images were received and displayed. ... Two images were received and displayed. ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Comets and Asteroids . ... Image credit:ESO/J.Emerson/VISTA. ... However others are less pessimistic and it has even been claimed that the mysterious ?Wow! signal? received in 1977 originated from the direction M55.б  Sadly, this still unexplained pulse of radio energy originated from a location rather to the northwest of M55 so I doubt if the source was this cluster (if indeed the signal was genuinely of extraterrestrial origin). ... Mysterious Wow! ...

... Our Milky Way galaxy is host to a number of companions. These companions are gravitationally bound to the Milky Way and are stellar systems in their own right. They include a population of about 150 globular clusters (GCs) and some 30 dwarf satellite galaxies (DSGs). ... These DSGs are more extended and diffuse compared to GCs. In fact the larger satellites of the Milky Way (and other galaxies, for that matter) host their own small systems of GCs. ...

... MAO main . ... The DRAGON globular cluster simulations: a million stars, black holes and gravitational waves . ... simulations of globular clusters with a million stars on the high-performance . ... of stars in globular clusters at unprecedented detail but also shed light into . the dark world of black holes. ... clusters of single and binary black holes. ... of a globular cluster. www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/328833/hl201603 . ... MAO/NASU, 27 Akademika Zabolotnoho St. 03680 Kyiv, Ukraine . ...

... We describe a tool in the PCIPS environment for finishing the job of globular cluster photometry started by DAOPHOT II: starting with the instrumental magnitudes derived by DAOPHOT II, DASHA can automatically produce final color-magnitude diagrams. ... DASHA can automate the whole process of globular cluster photometry, from instrumental magnitude lists produced by DAOPHOT II, to final color-magnitude diagrams. ... DASHA is oriented towards star lists produced by DAOPHOT II as source data. ...

FLAMES multiobject spectroscopy of low mass stars in the "twin" young clusters Ori andOri 1,2 1 3 G.G. Sacco , R. Pallavicini , S. Randich , 1 3 E. Franciosini , F. Palla 1 INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo, Italy 2DSFA UniversitЮ di Palermo, Italy 3 INAF ­Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy ABSTRACT Using FLAMES on VLT/UT2, we obtained spectra of 147 lowmass candidate members of the two young (~5 Myr) and coeval clusters Ori and Ori. ... Results: In Ori we identified 65 members. ...

... We address a question if globular clusters (GC) in a protogalaxy could for some time evolve chemically as isolated systems, enriching themselves with heavy elements produced in first supernova events that follow initial star formation. We determine both the critical mass of a protoglobular cluster that is needed to retain the ejecta of the very first supernova, and the critical energy (i.e., number of supernovae) that is needed to expel the residual gas from a cluster of a given mass. ...

A Canadian and American team of Astronomers have used the 305-m wide Arecibo radio dish, the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope, to uncover a dozen new super-fast-spinning pulsars. The team directed their search for these rare and exotic stars by pointing the Arecibo radio telescope towards massive star clusters, called Globular Clusters, orbiting our Milky Way galaxy. ... One of the most exotic residents in the Globular cluster system are the millisecond pulsars. ...

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... Structure of Data . ... Catalog . ... In SAI OCL Catalog, we introduce our work on investigation of the Milky Way system of open star clusters. The main goal of our study is a search for new clusters using huge surveys. 168 new clusters have been already discovered by us using J,H,Ks data from 2MASS point source catalog. ... For 141 new clusters, we found their physical parameters using J,H,Ks data from 2MASS catalog and, for a number of clusters, our UBVRI CCD observational magnitudes. ...

... Deep ATCA imaging identifies a new black hole candidate in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae . ... Recent observational and theoretical work has suggested that stellar-mass black holes may exist in globular clusters, in contrast to previous theoretical predictions that they should be expelled via mutual gravitational interactions early in the lifetime of a cluster. ... 47 Tuc X9 is shown in purple, lying within the scatter of the black hole correlation. ... today * ATNF | ... ATCA | ...

... BLUE STRAGGLER STARS are unusually hot and bright stars found in the cores of ancient star clusters known as globulars. ... BACKGROUND (from wikipedia): Blue straggler stars are stars in open or globular clusters that are hotter and bluer than other cluster stars having the same luminosity. ... There is evidence in favor of this view, notably that blue straggler stars appear to be much more common in dense regions of clusters, especially in the cores of globular clusters. ...

... This paper ( Burke et al. 2003 ) describes the creation of one such catalogue - the Southern Serendipitous High-redshift Archival ROSAT Cluster (SHARC) survey - which covers an area of 17.7 deg 2 and consists of 32 clusters with redshifts between 0.05 and 0.7 and X-ray luminosities between 7 x 10 42 and 4 x 10 44 erg/s: the high-redshift subsample contains 16 clusters with = 0.3 and X-ray luminosities greater than 2 x 10 43 erg/s (luminosities are quoted for the 0.5 - 2.0 keV energy band). ... 1997 ...

... Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are located in external galaxies, their X-ray luminosities (10 39 - 10 41 erg/s) are thousand times greater than those of brightest black holes in the Galaxy. ULXs may be supercritical accretion disks around black holes of stellar masses (~10 Solar masses) like that in SS433, or they may be a hypothetical intermediate-mass black holes (hundreds - thousands Solar masses) with standard accretion disks. ... 2) The ULX progenitors were ejected from the star clusters. ...

... LMC Project Outline . NGC 1818 Initial Results . ... The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is uniquely suitable for the study of massive star clusters at all stages of evolution. By combining HST observations of these clusters with N-body models we hope to understand the origin and evolution of rich star clusters in our own Galaxy, in the LMC, and beyond. ... We aim to combine our HST observations with N-body models to understand the formation and evolution of globular clusters. ...