... Mars to Appear Normal this August . ... October is the best month to see Mars this year. ... As Earth catches up to Mars in their respective orbits around the Sun, Mars will keep rising earlier in the night. On 2005 October 30, Earth will have caught up to Mars and the planets will be the nearest to each other in their orbits -- this time around. On October 30, Mars will be nearly opposite to the Sun, rise at sunset, set at sunrise, and appear highest and brightest around midnight. ...

... 2005 August 8 . Mars to Appear Normal This August . ... Regardless of numerous urban legends circulating, Mars will appear relatively normal in August. October is the best month to see Mars this year. ... As Earth catches up to Mars in their respective orbits around the Sun, Mars will keep rising earlier in the night. On 2005 October 30, Earth will have caught up to Mars and the planets will be the nearest to each other in their orbits -- this time around. ... About APOD | ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... Last week's Snack talked about how black holes can affect the environment around them in such a way as to be very bright . ... It's a common misconception that black holes always have matter swirling into them. ... As this matter gets closer and closer to the black hole it piles up and a large, fairly flat disk forms. This is called the accretion disk , because matter from this disk accretes (that is, falls in) on the black hole. ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . See also images taken on November 22nd . Image taken by Andy McCrea who says, . To me the comet appears yellowish and it has gone from star-like to a . ... More images from Andy McCrea here . ... The true explanation is that a very faint comet, known as periodic comet Holmes, produced a massive outburst of material and became a million times brighter than it was just a day earlier. ... More images from Andy McCrea . ...

... STScI-PRC96-25 HUBBLE'S 100,000TH EXPOSURE CAPTURES IMAGE OF DISTANT QUASAR The Hubble Space Telescope achieved its 100,000th exposure June 22 with a snapshot of a quasar that is about 9 billion light-years from Earth. ... The fainter object just above it is an elliptical galaxy. ... The quasar and star are separated by billions of light-years. ... Image files in GIF and JPEG format and captions may be accessed on Internet via anonymous ftp from ftp.stsci.edu in /pubinfo. ...

... To be read in conjunction with Section 4.11 of the WFPC2 Instrument Handbook , -Version 4.0. ... 1 The second study found evidence that CTE loss for faint stars has increased with time (Whitmore, 1998). The primary observational consequence of CTE loss is that a point source at the top of the chip appears to be fainter than if observed at the bottom of the chip, due to the loss of electrons as the star is read out down the chip (see Figure 1 ). ... Last updated: 06/16/98 10:38:00 . ...

Check out the new images (Jan 18-25) and (Jan 26-Feb 05) of the comet by Rob McNaught. ... Every few years a comet becomes bright enough to be easily seen with the naked eye but only every decade or so are these comparable with comets like Halley. ... Before Jan 13, the comet is not visible in the Australian sky after sunset. ... SOHO images . ... On Jan 12 at approximately 09:00 UT (8pm NSW time), comet C/2006 P1 McNaught appears at the 11 o'clock position in the images. ... STEREO images . ...

... SEARCH ASP SITE: Match ALL words Match ANY word . ... ASP Conference Series . ... Accidental Astrophysics: The Devil's In the Magnitudes, Part II . ... The star second to the Sun in brilliance is Sirius. ... Recall the magnitude system, passed down to us through a hundred generations of sky watchers, as a means of quantifying stellar brightness ("Accidental Astrophysics," May/June, p. 9). ... Yes, it is a magnitude difference, but that difference is due to the distance between us and the star. ...

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. ...

... Planets . ... Earth Satellites . ... Looking in the direction of the constellation Cygnus the Swan and launched by NASA in 2009 is the Kepler Space Observatory.Many previous missions searching for exoplanets mainly detected large giant planets, like large hot Jupiters (it is easier to detect larger planets).However KeplerтАЩs main objective is to search for much smaller planets located in a habitable zone which is not too close nor too far from their star; planets which may be just like our Earth. ...

... Since moonshine is really reflected sunlight, the full Moon is on the average slightly brighter in mid-winter, when Earth is closest to the Sun. In addition, the distance of the full Moon also varies, due to the ellipticity ("eccentricity") of the Moon's orbit. On 22 December, 1999, the two effects combined to produce the brightest full Moon of the century. ... This year will be the first full moon to occur on the winter solstice, Dec. 22nd, commonly called the first day of winter. ...