... Many bright nebulae and star clusters in planet Earth's sky are associated with the name of astronomer Charles Messier, from his famous 18th century catalog. ... This colorful cosmic portrait features glowing gas and dark dust clouds in IC 1795, a star forming region in the northern constellation Cassiopeia. ... The Double Cluster . ... Also cataloged as NGC 869 (right) and NGC 884, both clusters are about 7,000 light-years away and contain stars much younger and hotter than the Sun. ...

... January 27, 1996 . M8: An Open Cluster in the Lagoon . ... Formed only several million years ago in the nebula is the open cluster known as NGC 6530, whose young stars show their high temperature by their blue glow. The nebula, also known as M 8 and NGC 6523, is named " Lagoon " for the band of dust seen to the left of the open cluster's center. A bright knot of gas and dust in the nebula's center is known as the Hourglass Nebula . ... About APOD | ...

... Observing . ... Subscriber Extras . ... Web Extras . ... Globular cluster NGC 2808, elliptical galaxy NGC 2986, and the Sextans Dwarf . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... Web Extra: Astronomers animate one of the largest galaxy clusters ever observed . ... At the center of the Phoenix Cluster, a large elliptical galaxy lurks where the hot gas is ejected, giving off unprecedented levels of X-rays, which have been observed by the orbiting Chandra X-ray telescope. ...

... ESO is building what will be the World's largest optical telescope array, The Very Large Telescope (VLT). The VLT Project organisation is responsible for the design and construction of the Unit Telescopes, including enclosures, optics, adapter-rotators and coating unit. ... Unit Telescopes Overview - This page is outdated, an update is in process. ... Secondary mirror (M2 Unit) - This page is outdated, an update is in process. ... Coating Unit - This page is outdated, an update is in process. ...

... April 2, 1999 . Stars of NGC 206 . ... Explanation: Nestled within the dusty arms of the large spiral galaxy Andromeda (M31), the star cluster NGC 206 is one of the largest star forming regions known in our local group of galaxies. The beautiful bright blue stars of NGC 206 betray its youth - but close, systematic studies of variable stars in and around NGC 206 will also accurately reveal its distance. ... About APOD > . ...

... The large field size of UIT is ideal for studies of globular clusters. ... Very metal poor clusters are conducive for the formation of very hot horizontal branch stars which radiate most of that energy in the UV part of the spectrum. ... M31 is the nearest large spiral galaxy to us. ... These are small dwarf galaxies and NGC 205 is a bit unusual because it still has retained some gas for star formation despite its low mass. M33 is an actively star forming spiral galaxy in the local group. ...

home publications > mercury . ... Big Clusters, Tiny Galaxies . ... Astronomers struggle to understand why giant star clusters form in the tiniest of galaxies . ... These clusters are probably young versions of globular clusters, but they are commonly called super star clusters. Seven dwarf galaxies within 16 million light-years have formed super star clusters, with one of these galaxies, NGC 1569, possessing two young clusters. ... Super star clusters have a lot to tell us about star formation. ...

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! ...

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. ...

GALAXIES cenA .tiff 40 Bright Radio Galaxy M31.tiff Nikon Andromeda Galaxy (note HII regions in spiral arms) ngc6744.tiff 40 NGC 6744 a face-on spiral clouds_20d.tiff H'blad The Magellanic Clouds our nearest neighbours Lmc_7.tiff Nikon The Large Magellanic Clouds Lmc_zoom.tiff Nikon Detail of previous image smc_7.tiff Nikon The Small Magellanic Clouds smc-zoom.tiff Nikon Detail of previous image 30dor_40_BVR.tiff 40 The 30 Dor ... B [OIII] Halpha trifid.tiff 40" The Trifid Nebula. ...

... Impact craters and associated concentric rings are about the only features to be found on Callisto. ... It has a bright central region that is 600 kilometers in diameter, and its rings extend to 3000 kilometers in diameter. ... This image shows the heavily cratered surface of Callisto. ... Also visible is a fresh, sharp-rimmed crater some 90 km (56 miles) across named Igaluk (center left third of picture), and a bright zone in the south polar area (bottom of image) which could be an impact scar. ...

Henize 206 is a region of star formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud of the approximate scale of the Orion belt and sword. Our Spitzer Space Telescope infrared images and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) optical images show that the region is experiencing very energetic star formation. ... A few percent of the total flux from this brightest region in Henize 206 emanates from infrared peaks of subparsec scale. ...

... 11 Yellow-Green (78% transmission): Contrasts well with the red and blue characteristics of surface features on Jupiter and Saturn. ... 82A Light Blue (73% transmission): Useful on the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, this subtle pale blue filter enhances areas of low contrast while avoiding significant reduction of overall image brightness. ... Meade Series 4000 Photo-Visual Color Filters may be ordered individually or in the following sets: . ... Meade Series 4000 Broadband Nebular Filters . ...

J/AstL/vol/page SAI Open Clusters Catalog (Glushkova+, 2009) ================================================================================ Automated search for star clusters in large multiband surveys. ... Color excesses E(B-V), distance moduli and ages were determined for 141 new and 27 known, but poorly studied clusters. We present the Sternberg Astronomical Institute Open Clusters Catalog (SAI OCL Catalog) of coordinates, diameters and main physical parameters of these clusters. ...

. F IGURE . 8. Relations between GC parameters and the horizontal-branch color index. The open circles correspond to the old halo, filled circles to the young halo (large filled circles correspond to clusters with (B-R)/(B+V+R)>0.32 ), and filled triangles to the corona. discussion in the text | privious figure | next figure .

... Telescopes . ... The time requests are accepted in an electronic version with on-line form in Russian or English. ... Unregistered request will be disregarded by the Large Telescopes Programm Committee. In exclusive cases the secreatry of the Committee is entitled to accept an observational time request given permission of the Chairman of the Committee or the director of the SAO RAS. The Program Committee considers generally one time request submitted by the principal applicant. ...

... All previous such superstars have been found along with many companion stars in the centres of crowded star clusters. The star is known as VFTS 682 from the VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey catalogue of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) located at Paranal in Chile by means of the attached FLAMES instrument. ... Although VFTS 682 seems to be alone now it is not very far away from a very rich star cluster known as RMC 136 that contains several similar superstars. ...

Class 1 Introduction, Background History of Modern Astronomy The Night Sky, Eclipses and the Seasons Kepler's Laws Newtonian Gravity General Relativity Matter and Light Telescopes Class 2 Solar System Characteristics Formation Exosolar Planets Class 3 Stars The Sun Stellar Evolution of Low and High Mass Stars Deaths of Stars Exotic Stars Class 4 Galaxies Galaxy Classification Formation of Galaxies Galactic Evolution ... So far, one planet has been studied by this method. ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... The next step up are true clusters, called open clusters . Open clusters (sometimes misleadingly called "galactic clusters") are groups of stars ranging in size from a few dozen stars up to tens of thousands. ... The youngest is about 1 or 2 million years old, while the oldest is about 6 or 7 billion years, making it just older than our own solar system. ... So by looking at the stars in the cluster we can tell pretty well how old they are. ...

... 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. ...