... 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 Unit Telescopes Overview - This page is outdated, an update is in process.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 Secondary mirror (M2 Unit) - This page is outdated, an update is in process.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 Coating Unit - This page is outdated, an update is in process. ...

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! ...

... Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted city. ... A Halo Around the Moon . ... Cameras around the globe pointed skyward this week to capture the spectacular conjunction of a crescent Moon and bright planets Venus and Jupiter. ... Venus in the Moon . ... On December 1, bright planets Venus and Jupiter gathered near the young crescent Moon, an inspiring celestial scene in early evening skies around the world....

... Running Rings Around a Planet . ... Saturn's delicate rings have caught human eyes for over three centuries. ... Now we know, thanks to the Voyager space probes, that Saturn's rings consist of thousands of "ringlets," each made of chunks of ice ranging in size from dust to boulders [see "Rally Around the Ring," March/April 1995, p. 10]. ... The appearance of Saturn's rings to us ground-hugging Terrans is changing constantly. ... Saturn's diameter is 120,000 kilometers, so how large are the rings? ...

... Research . ... GPI Data Pipeline . ... GPI . ... My research focuses on high contrast imaging of circumstellar material: disks, envelopes, jets, and substellar companions. ... The second, harder challenge is achieving sufficiently high contrast: scattered light from circumstellar dust is faint, usually less than a percent of the total flux, sometimes far less. ... In addition to planet detection, GPI will also feature a polarimetric imaging mode for studies of circumstellar dust disks. ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... The Magazine . ... Star Atlas . ... An artificial comet holds secrets to Earths life . ... Astronomy for Kids . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... The planet has extreme temperature swings and perhaps active lava flows. ... A digital supplement to Astronomy magazine. ... Join TravelQuest International with Astronomy and Discover magazines on one of three great tour options surrounding this celestial spectacle . ... Astronomy Magazine . ...

. Go Here for Hubble Ultra Deep Field . ___________________________________________________________________ The Electronic Universe Project e-mail: nuts@moo.uoregon.edu

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... Bad Astro Store . ... Slacker Astronomy . ... Keep Bad Astronomy close to your heart, and help make me filthy rich. ... Life Under the Moon . ... Seeing Jupiter's Moons . ... Time Zones and the Spherical Earth . A Companion to the Earth? ... December 19, 1999) . ... Big Moon, Little Moon . ... How Big is the Moon? ... 14, 2000) . ... 2008 Phil Plait. ... Subscribe to the Bad Astronomy Newsletter! Talk about Bad Astronomy on the BA Bulletin Board! ...

Collins School Star Party - Oct. 5, 1999 Presented by the North Shore Amateur Astronomy Club (NSAAC) For more information: NSAAC: http://www.star.net/people/~nsaac 1.0 Using a telescope Close one eye (use your hand if it's easier) and look straight down into the eyepiece. ... Massive stars use up their fuel much faster - in some cases less than 100 million years. ... Jupiter _____. ... With the chart at left and using the brightest stars as a guide, see if you can find Uranus with binoculars. ...

In 2007-2008, the planet Uranus will reach one of its annual equinoxes for the first time since 1966. As a consequence, its five major satellites orbiting in the equatorial plane will undergo a season of mutual eclipses and occultations very similar to the one that Jupiter's Galilean satellites undergo every 6 years. ... Some of these events occur when Uranus is at conjunction, or the satellite is transiting or too close to the limb of the planet. ... Complete table of events . ...

... BLUE STRAGGLER STARS are unusually hot and bright stars found in the cores of ancient star clusters known as globulars. ... BACKGROUND (from wikipedia): Blue straggler stars are stars in open or globular clusters that are hotter and bluer than other cluster stars having the same luminosity. ... There is evidence in favor of this view, notably that blue straggler stars appear to be much more common in dense regions of clusters, especially in the cores of globular clusters. ...

... Prof. J. Hough, dean of Physical Sciences Dept. ... Dr. T. Gledhill . ... PDF file ] . Gledhill T.M., Takami M. (2001) Scattered light models of the dust shell around HD 179821. ... Hough J.H., Aitken D.K. (2003) Polarimetry in the infrared: what can be learnd? Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer , v.79-80, p.733-740. ... Lucas P.W. (2003) Computation of light scattering in young stellar objects. ... 2003) Scattering of light from atmospheric ice analogues. ...

Winer Observatory P.O. Box 797, Sonoita, Arizona 85637-0797, USA . ... Outreach . Projects . ... Science . ... Participating in Project ASTRO, a national program to assist teachers in grades 4 through 12 in teaching astronomy . ... June, 1990: National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Friday Science Lunch Talks: "Engineering Big Science Projects" . ... May 4, 2007: National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Friday Science Lunch Talks: "The Ohio State University KELT Telescope -- Early Results" . ...

NASA's Galileo spacecraft radioed confirmation late this week that it has entered Jupiter's environment, crossing over the boundary from interplanetary space into the giant magnetic cocoon around Jupiter called the magnetosphere. ... On Thursday, December 7, Galileo's previously deployed atmospheric probe will plunge into Jupiter's cloud tops at 5:56 p.m. EST and descend into the giant planet on a parachute. ... Jupiter's magnetosphere is like a giant bubble around the planet. ...

Galileo Crosses Boundary Into Jupiter's Environment . NASA's Galileo spacecraft radioed confirmation late this week that it has entered Jupiter's environment, crossing over the boundary from interplanetary space into the giant magnetic cocoon around Jupiter called the magnetosphere. ... On Thursday, December 7, Galileo's previously deployed atmospheric probe will plunge into Jupiter's cloud tops at 5:56 p.m. EST and descend into the giant planet on a parachute. ... Space History Galileo . ...

... Projects . Data transfer . ... PPTA projects and allocations . ... Time active (d) . ... Not active . ... PPTA data release 2 . ... unallocated Study timing noise in PPTA pulsars . ... unallocated Reprocess P140 data with PPTA pipeline . ... unallocated Consider the optimal observing strategy for PPTA pulsars . ... unallocated Application of cyclic spectroscopy to PPTA pulsars . ... Profile Domain Pulsar Timing: Developing and applying techniques to PPTA data. ... Tue, 24 Nov 15 03:36:53 +0000 . ...

... We also take care to characterise the flat fields, especially their colour dependence, to very high precision which enables high precision photometry even without autoguiding. ... The Blue Diamond Effect The blue diamond effect is caused by surface imperfections on the silicon chip introduced during manufacture, resulting in a repeated large scale pattern in the flat field at blue wavelengths. ... We can remove the blue diamond by using a colour appropriate flat field produced in the lab. ...

... We sometimes use the word "nebula" to refer to galaxies, various types of star clusters and various kinds of interstellar dust/gas clouds. ... Early in this century, there was a great debate as to the nature of the nebulae like this one which at that time could not be resolved into individual stars. ... A typical galaxy is 100,000 light-years in diameter. ... M 42 shown) Reflection nebulae are clouds of dust which are simply reflecting the light of a nearby star or stars. ... M 1 shown) . ...

... 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) ...

... Star parties can be done with naked eye observing, or with telescopes, as long as your site is reasonably dark enough (or can be darkened). Star parties give students the opportunity to put their observational skills to work, and to directly experience astronomy. ... As mentioned earlier, star parties are also great opportunities to involve families, the school, and the community. ... Fun Star Party Ideas . ... Give students "ASTRO Boxes" containing activities or tasks to do during the star party. ...