... M57: The Ring Nebula . ... Its classic appearance is understood to be due to perspective - our view from planet Earth looks down the center of a roughly barrel-shaped cloud of glowing gas. ... Climbing into cloudy skies, the Space Shuttle Orbiter Discovery (OV-103) took off from Kennedy Space Center Tuesday at 7 am local time. ... Antares and Clouds . ... Antares is a huge star. ... Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appears where a whole open cluster of stars is being formed. ...

... Armagh Planetarium . ... Universe . ... Space Flight . ... December . ... No Comments To get the latest on space and astronomy go to Carnival of Space. ... No Comments Carnival of Space, the regular and vital guide to space and astronomy blogs is hosted by a different site every week. ... Newer Entries . Hello, IтАЩm Colin, welcoming you to Astronotes, the PlanetariumтАЩs official blog. Here you will find the latest news and views from the fascinating worlds of astronomy and space exploration. ...

... 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. ...

... 2000 April 24 . Reflection Nebula M78 . ... Explanation: An eerie blue glow and ominous columns of dark dust highlight M78, a bright reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion . The dust not only absorbs light, but also reflects the light of several bright blue stars that formed recently in the nebula. ... M78 belongs to the larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex that contains the Great Nebula in Orion and the Horsehead Nebula . ... About APOD | ...

... 2004 December 22 . Comet, Meteor, Nebula, Star . ... Above Sirius and slightly to the right of the belt of Orion is the red Orion Nebula , one of the most famous nebulas on the sky. Below and to the right of the Orion Nebula streaks a yellow meteor, although moving in the wrong direction to be from the Geminids meteor shower that peaked the night. Finally, above and to the right of the meteor is Comet Machholz , whose coma appears here relatively green. ... About APOD | ...

Astronomy Discussion Forums . ... Atm ћ Astrophotography ћ Blackholes ћ Blackholes2 ћ CCD ћ Celestron ћ Domes ћ Education . ... New model: How do the Sun and Moon appear to move across the sky - mito111 - September 15, 2011 - 04:22 UTC . ... Note the change - rick_crockett - April 19, 2007 - 09:38 UTC . ... A Question Regarding Photons and Absolute Zero - inalitalllane - December 25, 2004 - 22:06 UTC . ... Virtual Space Agency - dupagepilot - November 18, 2003 - 12:03 UTC . ... www.astronomy.net . ...

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . ... Although the comet itself never comes dangerously close to the Earth, the particles of dust that it has shed during its many past passages through perihelion found their way into the Earth's atmosphere, appearing as meteors in the cold December sky. ... Animation 1 . ... An Ursid meteor captured by the Armagh Observatory's NE-facing meteor camera in the early morning of 23rd December. ... Meteor Showers Online . ...

Follow-up astrometry and recoveries are made with the ANU 40 inch (1.0-m) f/8 reflector at Siding Spring Observatory (IAU code 413). ... A routine follow-up of 2003 WY153 on 2003 Dec 15 became much more than routine when a faint object with unusual motion vector was found close to the target asteroid. ... During routine astrometry with the 1.0-m to improve the orbit of the Apollo asteroid 2004 CB, the asteroid was found on March 30 to have a short tail! ... Siding Spring Survey Main Page . ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... SUN MOON MERCURY VENUS MARS, JUPITER SATURN . ... Observing . ... The double star 54 Leonis, spiral galaxy NGC 3198, and emission nebula NGC 3199 . ... Jupiter brightens the December sky . ... The largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter, reaches maximum brightness the night of December 2. ... Only registered members of Astronomy.com are allowed to comment on this article. ... Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly email...

... 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) ...

A team of U.S. and German astrophysicists have made the first ever detection of X-rays coming from a comet. ... Following the initial detection, the team reported repeated X-ray emissions from the comet over the next 24 hours. ... One preliminary theory is that X-ray emission from the Sun was absorbed by a cloud of gaseous water molecules surrounding the nucleus of the comet, and then were re-emitted by the molecules in a process physicists call "fluorescence." ... Comets . ...

... 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. ...

... The blue bubble is a planetary nebula known as Abell 33. Planetary nebulae are created when an aging star blows away its outer layers of gas in a gigantic cosmic bubble. ... Creating the illusion of the cosmic diamond is a bright star along the rim of the nebula. ... The star is about 700 light years away, that is halfway between Earth and the nebula. ... At the centre of the ring, you can see the remains of the star that created this planetary nebula, now a white dwarf . ...

Last modified: 23 December 1997 . Original version 19 December 1998 . Modified: 23 Dec . This WEB page contains the schedule for HALCA observations from January 1 to April 30, 1998. The January schedule is nearly final, and the February schedule may be slightly modified. Additions and changes will be made in the March and April schedules. ... VSOP V123a CYG-A C Socr 107 Fr:Apr-17 06:10 - 20:55 VLBA Percentage of time 2.2 . ...

Seven months ago, on Mar 19, 2008, at 09:12 Moscow time, a new star appeared on the sky. The Sun had already risen over the Russia, but people of the Western hemisphere might be able to see by their eyes a faint starlet near one of Bootes constellation stars. This starlet appeared and faded by an order of magnitude in a minute. Astronomers named it GRB080319B or, informally, the Naked-Eye Burst, as it was twice as bright as human eye can see a star. ... Royal Astronomical Society . ...

... 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. ...

A Brief History of the Discovery of Cosmic Gamma-Ray Bursts - draft april 17, 1995 - J.Bonnell In October of 1963 the US Air Force launched the first in a series of satellites inspired by a recently signed nuclear test ban treaty. ... The event appeared to be a cosmic gamma-ray burst but at the time the constellation of satellites did not have sufficient timing resolution at the trigger to make a good determination of direction to the burst source. ...

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The HST images of GRB 990510. The images were obtained on 8.1 June 1999 (UT), 17.9 June 1999 and 29 April 2000. ... On this page we present the Hubble Space Telescope images of GRB 990510. ... The field of GRB 990510 was imaged by HST on 8.1 June 1999 (UT) 17.9 June 1999 (UT) and 29 April 2000 with the STIS/CCD camera in Open Filter (50CCD) mode. ... The suggestion of a host in the June 1999 image, led us to re-image the field in April 2000. ... The 29 April 2000 image of the field of GRB 990510. ...

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. ...