... Comet Ikeya-Zhang has become bright enough to stand out in the night sky. Discovered February 1, the comet has now just rounded the Sun and has likely attained its peak brightness. The comet appears.. ... Known to some as the Elephant's Trunk Nebula, parts of gas and dust clouds of this star formation region may appear to take on foreboding forms, some nearly human. ... The Cats Eye Nebula . ... In the heart of the Rosette Nebula lies a bright open cluster of stars that lights up the nebula. ...

... 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 . ...

... Editor's choices for the most educational Astronomy Pictures of the Day about Comet Hyakutake: . APOD: 1996 February 8 - Hyakutake: The Great Comet of 1996? ... Unknown before its discovery by Yuji Hyakutake on 30 January 1996, the fuzzy spot in the above photograph is a comet now predicted to become bright enough to see without a telescope. ... They follow very elongated orbits which carry them from the frozen, remote outer reaches of the Solar System to close encounters with the Sun . ...

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. ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... The Magazine . ... Observing . ... The double star 54 Leonis, spiral galaxy NGC 3198, and emission nebula NGC 3199 . ... Astronomy for Kids . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... Bright planets meet at dusk . ... Astronomy magazine subscribers can read the full article for free. ... Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ... Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly email newsletter....

... 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. ...

... 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) ...

... Comet Animation . ... Comet structures are diverse and very dynamic, but they all develop a surrounding cloud of diffuse material, called a coma, that usually grows in size and brightness as the comet approaches the Sun. ... As comets approach the Sun they develop enormous tails of luminous material that extend for millions of kilometers from the head, away from the Sun. ... The evaporated molecules boil off and carry small solid particles with them, forming the comet's coma of gas and dust. ...

I was wondering what conditions should be met to have the "darkest" sky .. ... Upon the above publication of the Southern Galactic hemisphere, TunГ Tezel started seeking opportunities to create the Northern counterpart image. ... So, the initial quest of having the darkest possible sky have delivered us these two all-sky images of the two galactic hemispheres as seen from Planet Earth. Zoomable and 'full-screenable' fisheye view of the "darkest sky" Southern Galactic Hemisphere image. ...

... Its perihelion would occur on April 1, 1997, at which point the comet would be only 0.92 astronomical units from the Sun, just within the orbit of Earth. ... Taken in April 1993, the photo showed the comet over 13 astronomical units from the Sun, well beyond the orbit of Saturn. ... Hale, as in Comet Hale-Bopp, has written a book, Everybody's Comet (available through the ASP Catalog) and coordinated an Internet project, "Hale-Bopp: Live in the American Classroom." ... Anatomy of a comet. ...

... July 13, 1999 . The Flame Nebula in Infrared . ... Explanation: What lights up the Flame Nebula? Fifteen hundred light years away towards the constellation of Orion lies a nebula which, from its glow and dark dust lanes, appears like a billowing fire. ... Rather the bright star Alnitak , the easternmost star in the Belt of Orion visible to the nebula's right, shines energetic light into the Flame that knocks electrons away from the great clouds of hydrogen gas that reside there. ...

ESO PR 06/96; 16 February 1996 . ... In the early morning of January 31, 1996, Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake made his second comet discovery within five weeks. ... Information about some earlier comet encounters may be found in the Appendix at the end of this Press Release. ... By a straightforward extrapolation of the current brightness, it would appear that Comet Hyakutake will reach magnitude 1 on March 25, 1996, at the time of the closest approach to the Earth. ...

... Home Education Classes AAA Spring Astronomy Class: The Physics of Astronomy тАУ February ? March 2016 . ... Classes . ... AAA Spring Astronomy Class: The Physics of Astronomy тАУ February - March 2016 . ... This MonthтАЩs Sky тАУ March 2016 . ... Observing Resources for Amateur Astronomers - Part 1: Beginning Observers . ... A History of the First Forty Years of the Amateur Astronomers Association . ... 2016 Amateur Astronomers Association of New York Designed by Press Customizr Powered by . ...

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 . ...

Astronomy Terms - To Help You Study The Universe . Articles | ... Learning about the universe, or the study of astronomy, can be fun for the individual or for the whole family. ... Learning a few simple terms will help you with this fascinating study. ... You will use a telescope or binoculars for your observation of the sky at night. ... Celestial Terms . ... Meteor or a shooting star – the light caused when a meteoroid burns up in Earth's . ... www.astronomy.net . About Astronomy Net | ...

... The FOC suffers from various types of background, the most important of which are thermal electrons, Cerenkov radiation from high energy particles, geocoronal emission lines, zodiacal light, and light scattered within HST from the bright Earth or Moon. ... From on-orbit measurements using the f /96 camera, the former background has been found to vary with solar zenith distance (ZD); see Sections 6.4, 6.5, and 7.0 of the FOC Instrument Handbook , version 7.0, for more details. ...

MAIN PAGE . ... Nova Cygni August 1975! ... 1975/76: Comet West! ... Dr. Richard West (4th from left) & AAL members visiting SES Betzdorf on occasion of our club's 25th anniversary - October 1996 . Comet West Information . ... It was the brightest comet visible from Earth since Comet West in 1976. ... 1997: Comet Hale-Bopp! ... Thus Comet Hale-Bopp never got closer to Earth than Earth gets to the Sun. ... Comet Hale-Bopp JPL Page . ... 1999: Total solar eclipse over Luxembourg! ...

... Centaurus A : 15,000,000 light years away, in the constellation Centaurus, the closest AG to Earth . ... Astronomers think that the reason for the unusual shape of this galaxy is because hundreds of millions of years ago two galaxies, one dusty spiral and one bright ellipictal, collided causing a massive black hole in the middle and bright emmision of light. ... Andromeda galaxy: 2.8 million light years away, closest spiral galaxy to earth, farthest object one can see without a telescope. ...

... The ancient chronical said about the colour rings around the Sun and the Moon, about three suns in the sky, light columns, bright lightning, different "comets" rushing to the Earth, moving among the stars or round the Earth with the sky. All these occurrences may be divided into three categories: one that occur in the near or far space, processes going on in the Earth atmosphere under the influence of cosmic factors and at last the occurrences connected with the Earth atmosphere. ... Rainbow . ...

... This is usually defined as the direction pointing toward the center of the primary body. ... NODE: The place where the plane of one orbit crosses the plane of another. ... ORBITAL PLANE: The flat surface that would result if every point on the orbit of a body was connected to the center of its primary. ... PENUMBRA: The edge of the primary body's shadow. ... PERIOD : The time required for one body to orbit the primary body. ... PROBE: A vessel designed to pass and observe an astronomical object. ...