Mars to Appear Normal this August . ... October is the best month to see Mars this year. ... As Earth catches up to Mars in their respective orbits around the Sun, Mars will keep rising earlier in the night. On 2005 October 30, Earth will have caught up to Mars and the planets will be the nearest to each other in their orbits -- this time around. On October 30, Mars will be nearly opposite to the Sun, rise at sunset, set at sunrise, and appear highest and brightest around midnight. ...

... 2005 August 8 . Mars to Appear Normal This August . ... Regardless of numerous urban legends circulating, Mars will appear relatively normal in August. October is the best month to see Mars this year. ... As Earth catches up to Mars in their respective orbits around the Sun, Mars will keep rising earlier in the night. On 2005 October 30, Earth will have caught up to Mars and the planets will be the nearest to each other in their orbits -- this time around. ... About APOD | ...

... 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. ...

... August was noteworthy by having the least number of hours of bright sunshine for at least 128 years, that is, since sunshine records began at the Observatory in 1880. ... The month was also exceptionally wet, with rainfall totaling 151.4mm (5.96 inches), nearly twice the average figure (around 81 mm) for August and the seventh wettest August at Armagh since rainfall records began at the Observatory in 1838. In order to find a wetter August we have to go back 52 years, to August 1956. ...

... The TRACE images may be used without restrictions in publications of any kind. ... These two images, taken on 18 November 2000 at 15:54UT and 16:11UT, respectively, show such an event: the red circle in the image to the left shows a region where many loops are cooling, with bright loop tops (the intensity scales with the square root of the image to reduce the dynamic range). ... See also a collection of images related to the Sun, other cool stars, and solar-terrestrial effects . ... Images | ...

... Circumstellar disc of beta Pictoris: constraints on grain properties from polarization. To appear in the Astronomy & Astrophysics . abs , src , ps ] . ... Dust influx to Titan from Hyperion . ... abs ] . ... Characteristics of bulges and disks in interacting galaxies . ... Dust grains around Herbig Ae/Be stars: porous, cometary-like grains? ... To appear in the Astronomy & Astrophysics Supplement . ... Finally, Links may lead you to more options (e.g. via the LANL preprint system). ...

SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE Summary: 17 August - 9 October 1995 TIPS: 12 October 1995 FOS Keyes Instrument : Nominal operation; three reports of noisy diodes; one valid Acquisition: 27 successful; 1 failure; 1 affected by GS Acq problem Science : 22 GO/GTO programs; 1 lost due to ACQ/BIN failure Calibration: 3 programs (Cycle 5 darks, YBASEs, and wavelengths) Publications ...

In this image by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, an unusual, ghostly green blob of gas appears to float near a normal-looking spiral galaxy. The bizarre object, dubbed Hanny's Voorwerp (Hanny's Object in Dutch), is the only visible part of a 300,000-light-year-long streamer of gas stretching around the galaxy, called IC 2497. ... This Hubble view uncovers a pocket of star clusters, the yellowish-orange area at the tip of Hanny's Voorwerp. ... NASA/ESA/W. Keel (Univ. of Alabama)/the Galaxy Zoo Team ...

... Planets . ... Earth Satellites . ... Monthly Sky Notes . ... As the sun sets in the west each evening, Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System, is rising in the east in the constellation of Aries, where it is visible throughout the night setting just before sunrise. ... On 28 October the Earth comes between the Sun and Jupiter, in opposition, meaning as the Sun sets in the sky Jupiter will rise. ... Also this month rising into the sky in the early hours of the morning is Mars the Red planet....

... SEARCH ASP SITE: Match ALL words Match ANY word . ... ASP Conference Series . ... Accidental Astrophysics: The Devil's In the Magnitudes, Part II . ... The star second to the Sun in brilliance is Sirius. ... Recall the magnitude system, passed down to us through a hundred generations of sky watchers, as a means of quantifying stellar brightness ("Accidental Astrophysics," May/June, p. 9). ... Yes, it is a magnitude difference, but that difference is due to the distance between us and the star. ...

We present a time-lapse sequence of 20 near-infrared ( J and K band) snapshots of the central 20 20 of the Crab pulsar wind nebula, taken at subarcsecond resolution with the Hokupa`a/QUIRC adaptive optics camera on the Gemini North Telescope and sampled at intervals of 10 minutes and 24 hr. It is observed that the equatorial wisps and polar knots in the termination shock of the pulsar wind appear to fluctuate in brightness on kilosecond timescales. ...