... Gamma Ray Earth . ... The pixelated planet above is actually our own planet Earth seen in gamma rays - the most energetic form of light. ... Located 4,000 light years away in the disk of our Galaxy, NGC 6188 is home to the Ara OB1 association, a group of bright young stars whose nucleus forms the open cluster NGC 6193. Simulated Gamma ray Sky . ... NGC 1579: Trifid of the North . ... About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is a captivating study in color. ...

... 2006 December 20 . Star Forming Region NGC 6357 . ... Explanation: For reasons unknown, NGC 6357 is forming some of the most massive stars ever discovered. Near the more obvious Cat's Paw nebula, NGC 6357 houses the open star cluster Pismis 24 , home to these tremendously bright and blue stars. The overall red glow near the inner star forming region results from the emission of ionized hydrogen gas. ... About APOD | ... NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply . ...

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! ...

... STScI-PRC00-08 HUBBLE OPENS ITS EYE ON THE UNIVERSE AND CAPTURES A COSMIC MAGNIFYING GLASS Scanning the heavens for the first time since the successful December 1999 servicing mission, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a giant, cosmic magnifying glass, a massive cluster of galaxies called Abell 2218. ... The cluster is so massive that its enormous gravitational field deflects light rays passing through it, much as an optical lens bends light to form an image. ... Blue pinpoints hot young...

... A Snapshot Survey of The Most Massive Clusters of Galaxies . Abstract . ... Distances to Eclipsing M Dwarf Binaries . ... Asteroseismology of Extrasolar Planet Host Stars . ... Globular clusters are the oldest structures within the Milky Way that are directly accessible to observation. ... The present program aims to use the Fine Guidance Sensors on HST to measure the pulsational modes in the star HD 17156, an 8th magnitude G-type subgiant at a distance of ~ 78 parsecs from the Sun. ...

3) Planets and Brown Dwarfs . ... By its nature, this method is most sensitive to massive planets orbiting close to their stars. ... That means that some of the more massive extrasolar planets could actually be brown dwarfs (although the statistics of the finds suggest that most of them are not). ... Another possible difference between brown dwarfs and massive planets is how they are born. ... They would base the fundamental definition on the mode of formation: a planet is built from planetesimals. ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Mad Science . ... The Nine Planets . ... Keep Bad Astronomy close to your heart, and help make me filthy rich. ... Does the discovery of dark matter account for the missing light? ... Now, when I look at your question, I think you may be confusing Olbers' paradox with another issue, called the Missing Mass problem. ... In other words, most (perhaps as much as 90%) of the mass of the cluster must be dark-- matter that literally did not emit light. ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...

... Feeding the Monster: Gas Caught in its Death Spiral into a Massive Black Hole . ... Stromlo Professor Mike Dopita have used the Hubble Space Telescope to discover how a massive Black Hole in a nearby galaxy feeds itself. ... Earlier Hubble Telescope data obtained by another team member, Professor Holland Ford of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, had found a disk of gas rushing around the Black Hole at a speed of 500 kilometers a second. ...

. Similar to an optical lens bending light to form an image, the galaxy cluster Abell 2218 is so massive and compact that light rays passing through it are deflected by its enormous gravitational field. This process (called gravitational lensing) magnifies, brightens, and distorts images of objects that lie far beyond the cluster. The thin arcs are distorted images of distant galaxies roughly 5-10 times farther than the cluster. A. Fruchter / STScI / NASA

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . ... Aurora . ... Corona . Fireballs . ... Zodiacal Light . ... The first thing to do is get acquainted with what the night sky looks like. ... The National Schools Observatory web site has very good horizon views of the sky for the current night. ... If the object is moving slowly across the sky then it may be one of the larger satellites. ... Cloudbait Observatory - October 2002 . ... October 2003 Aurora at Armagh . ...