Astronomy Picture of the Day . ... At the Sun's surface, sunspots are known to be dark, planet-sized regions of intense magnetic fields. ... In the Center of Spiral Galaxy M83 . ... What's happening at the center of spiral galaxy M83? ... M83, visible in the inset image on the upper left, is one of the closest spiral galaxies to our own Milky Way Galaxy and from a distance of 15 million light-years, appears to be relatively normal. ... Leonids from Leo . ... Is Leo leaking? ... M87 s Energetic Jet . ...

... 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. ...

... February 10, 1997 . The Gamma Ray Moon . ... EGRET , Compton Observatory , NASA . ... This startling notion is demonstrated by this image of the Moon from the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET) onboard NASA's orbiting Compton Gamma Ray Observatory . The most sensitive instrument of its kind, even EGRET can not see the quiet Sun which is faint at extreme gamma-ray energies. Why is the Moon so bright in gamma rays? ... About APOD > . ...

... 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 . ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Space Flight . ... Earth Satellites . ... Leonid meteors seen from 13 km altitude aboard an aircraft during the 1999 Leonids Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (Leonid-MAC). Comet Tempel-Tuttle provides the cometary debris for the Leonid meteor shower. ... Every 17-19 November Earth crosses Tempel-TuttleтАЩs orbit and the Leonids become visible. With clear, dark skies observers may see 10 to 15 Leonid meteors every hour on those mornings. ...

... HST . WF/PC-1 Instrument Science Reports . ... Data . ... Annual Reports . ... HST Overview . ... Cycle 24 Announcement . ... Retrieving HST Data . ... HST Science Year in Review . ... Calibration Products . ... We examine the history of hot pixels in the WF/PC-1, and suggest improvements to the present dark calibration scheme. ... For long exposures of faint targets, substantial improvement in dark calibrations can be obtained by using calibration data taken near the time of the science data. ...

... The Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is a conspicuous object in the night sky with a prominent place in ancient mythology . ... The stars in the Pleiades are thought to have formed together around 100 million years ago, making them 1/50th the age of our sun, and they lie some 130 parsecs (425 light years ) away. ... Data for these stars are listed in a table below. ... Yes . ... WEBDA Pleiades cluster data . ... M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster (2007 November 18) ...

... Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2000 February 28 . The Sombrero Galaxy from VLT . ... FORS1 , VLT ANTU , ESO . ... Reasons include the Sombrero 's unusually large and extended central bulge of stars, and dark prominent dust lanes that appear in a disk that we see nearly edge-on. Billions of old stars cause the diffuse glow of the extended central bulge. ... About APOD | ...

... Science User Portal . ... ESO, the European Southern Observatory . ... Travel and Contacts . Travel to ESO Headquarters . ... Travel to E-ELT Armazones . ... ESO . ... Survey Telescopes . ... Galaxies . ... Star Clusters . ... Stars@ESO . ... ESO Science Newsletter . ... These two optical images from the Anglo-Australian Telescope in Australia show the Circinus galaxy before (February 1995) and after (March 1996) the supernova explosion of SN 1996cr was visible. ... Circinus Galaxy , SN 1996cr . ...

... Astronomy news . ... NASA's Spitzer Images Out-of-This-World Galaxy . ... It is spiral-shaped like our Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars. The "eye" at the center of the galaxy is actually a monstrous black hole surrounded by a ring of stars. In this color-coded infrared view from Spitzer, the area around the invisible black hole is blue and the ring of stars, white. ... The ring around the black hole is bursting with new star formation. ...

Jean Ballet, CEA/SAp 01 February 2005 Column rejection in the MOS The core of soft sources is removed by the standard emchain. Due to very large fluctuations in count rate from one column to the next at low energy. ... New columns with very bad (too low) energy were discovered in 1E 0102. ... 0831_0125911901, MOS 1, CCD 1, GD 153 (SW mode) Standpixeas alotsrs moved Bad ard l n n y ie The columns running through the source core are rejected by embadpixfind 1.20 in SAS 6.1. ...

... SUN MOON MERCURY VENUS MARS, JUPITER SATURN . ... Moon . ... Moon Maps . ... Is Jupiter's Moon Amalthea ever visible in amateur instruments? If so, what aperture and magnification are needed, and when is a good time to try? ... American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard discovered Amalthea on September 8, 1892, using the 36-inch refractor at Lick Observatory in California. ... Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ... Pluto's largest moon may have once had an ocean . ...

... On the morning of Thursday, 26 February, amid the Gal pagos Islands, the Sun will fade from view. Not the culmination of ancient prophecy, but none less mystical, Earth's small Moon will be executing a slow slide past the enormous Sun. ... And anyone living in southern North America, Central America, northern South America, or on islands and cruise ships in the Caribbean Sea will, weather permitting, have the opportunity to experience the wonder of a solar eclipse. ...

... The IB_TAIL magnetic conjugations with the others Spacecraft . ... ASCII file description | Plot description | ... ASCII file | real time plot . ... The IB_TAIL magnetic conjugations with the groundbased magnetic observatories . ... The IB_TAIL magnetic mapping polar diagram, and ASCII files for each decade of month: . ... ASCII files description | DEC 1 (ASCII file, size more then 350Kb!) ... Back to the IB_TAIL Home page. ... INTERBALL mission  ...

Particles, Energy, and Cosmology Particles, Energy, and Cosmology Eugene Rotary Jim Brau February 5, 2008 1 The End of Physics "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote." ... Creation of massive matter (E=mc2) Particles, Energy, and Cosmology Eugene Rotary Jim Brau February 5, 2008 8 What is matter? ...

... EXPN DNO D A T E UT TIME FQ SOURCE CORR-Telescopes VT734 355-MO Dec 21 08:00-21:00 C TAU-A Pointing VT735 356-TU Dec 22 08:00-21:00 C TAU-A Pointing VT736 358-TH Dec 24 09:00-20:00 K ORIONKL Pointing VT737 359-FR Dec 25 09:00-20:00 K ORIONKL Pointing VT738 360-SA Dec 26 09:00-20:00 C 0528+134 Mitk-UD KA SH W018c 364-WE Dec 30 06:00-15:00 L 0552+398 Socr-VLBA W071n 6-WE Jan 06 10:00-17:00 L J0745+10 Mitk-AT HO MP UD SH KA W059e 7-TH ...

... Laboratory for Spectroscopy of Molecular Structures . ... News . ... A new article entitled Description of optical properties of cholesteric photonic liquid crystals based on Maxwell equations and Kramers-Kronig relations has appeared in Physical Review E. Congratulations to Grigoriy Ksyonz on his first publication! . 25 th February 2013 . ... 22 nd November 2012 . ... 22 nd February 2012 . 4 th Workshop on Liquid Crystals for Photonics 2012 will take place in Hong Kong December 9-11, 2012. ...

spaceweb@oulu.fi - last update: 18 February 1997, 1100 UT (RR) . Black aurora is a lack of auroral emission in a small, well-defined region within an otherwise uniform, diffuse background or within auroras exhibiting a degree of shear behaviour intermediate between that of diffuse and discrete aurora (e.g., Davis, 1978). It appears to be a common feature of the midnight sector during late substorm recovery phase (Trondsen and Cogger, 1997). ... 30 , 371-380, 1978. ... 102 , 363-378, 1997. ...

... Exposure Time Calculator (ETC) . Survey processing . ... VISTA is a 4-m class wide field survey telescope for the southern hemisphere, equipped with a near infrared camera (1.65 degree diameter field of view at VISTA's nominal pixel size) containing 67 million pixels of mean size 0.34 arcsec and available broad band filters at Z,Y,J,H,K s and a narrow band filter at 1.18 micron. A wide field visible camera, if constructed, could also be used on VISTA. ... Tile . ... ESO VISTA Public Surveys . ...

The AstroGuide . ... AstroGuide | ... AstroGuide Listing . ... See many more Astronomy Listings by: Category or Alphabet . From the inexpensive ST-4 to state of the art ST-8, SBIG has made possible CCD imaging for amateurs and professionals. SBIG also has an adaptive optics accessory for its cameras. ... Listed Since February 16, 1999 . ... Santa Barbara, CA 93117 . ... 805) 571-7244 . ... 805) 571-1147 . Web Site . ... Web . ... dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET" . ...