... Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2000 December 3 . Earth's North Magnetic Pole . ... Explanation: A magnetic compass does not point toward the true North Pole of the Earth. ... Evidence indicates that the North Magnetic Pole has wandered over much of the Earth's surface in the 4.5 billion years since the Earth formed. ... About APOD | ...

... Moon, Mars, Venus, and Spica . ... And as a prelude to its close solar alignment, the Moon also completed a lovely celestial triangle, closing with bright planets Mars and Venus on the morning of December 1. ... The Pleiades Star Cluster . ... Open Star Clusters M35 and NGC 2158 . ... Open clusters of stars can be near or far, young or old, and diffuse or compact. Open clusters may contain from 100 to 10,000 stars, all of which formed at nearly the same time. ... December . ...

The link between the tilt of the Earth's axis to the ecliptic and seasons of the year--length of day, effectiveness of sunlight, polar day and night, and seasons south and north of the equator, as well as near it. ... This lesson plan supplements: "Seasons of the Year," section #3: on disk Sseason.htm , on the web . ... Actually, Earth is most distant from the Sun in summer! ... Because of the inclination angle i, sometimes the North Pole of the Earth leans towards the Sun, sometimes it leans away. ...

Discover the cosmos! ... December 6, 1999 . M83: The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy from VLT . ... Explanation: M83 is one of the closest and brightest spiral galaxies on the sky. Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hydra , majestic spiral arms have prompted its nickname as the Southern Pinwheel. Although discovered 250 years ago, only in this century was it appreciated that M83 was not a gas cloud but a barred spiral galaxy much like our own Milky Way Galaxy . ... About APOD > . ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Earth Satellites . ... Sadly C/ 2014 Q2 will probably not be as spectacular a sight as Comet C/ 2011 W3 (Lovejoy), visible near Earth?s horizon in this nighttime image from the International Space Station on 22 December 2011. ... The comet made its closest approach to Earth on 7€а January 2015, at a distance of 72 million km (45 million miles).€а In January the comet will race though the constellations Eridanus, Taurus, Aries and Triangulum. ...

... I fixed the bugs that caused the map_point changes to fail tests. Then I removed the no longer needed dimensional variables from the p structure and got those changes to pass all the tests. ... I put the code under subversion control in a new branch called refactor. ... The code change which processes each drizzle kernel over an entire image rather than a line at a time now passes the unit tests and was checked in. ... I got the keywords argument changes done and got the tests to pass. ...

... ATNF Home . About ATNF . ... About ATNF overview . ... Governance overview . Australia Telescope Steering Committee . ... Australia Telescope User Committee . ... Our people overview . ... Publications overview . ... Careers overview . ... ATNF facilities . ... MRO Support Facility . Parkes radio telescope . Australia Telescope Compact Array . Mopra radio telescope . ... Current telescope status . ... Scientific support of facilities . ... ATNF Operations Overview . ... Meetings . ...

... The European HST Archive has been moved to ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre ( ESAC ), Spain, where most of ESA's Space Science Archives are located and operated from. ... The Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF), jointly operated by ESA and the European Southern Observatory ( ESO ) was, until the end of 2010, the European HST science facility, supporting the European astronomy community in exploiting the research opportunities provided by the Hubble Space Telescope. ...

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. ...

... 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 . ...

... Galileo Probe . The Galileo spacecraft was designed to study Jupiter's atmosphere, satellites, and surrounding magnetosphere for two years. ... From there, Galileo will spend more than five years traveling to Jupiter, where it will become the first spacecraft to make direct measurements from an instrumented probe within Jupiter's atmosphere. ... This image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the predicted site at which the Galileo Probe will enter Jupiter's atmosphere on December 7, 1995. ...

. Previous slide . Next slide . Back to first slide . View graphic version .

... Bad Astronomy . ... I think I will break from my usual format of Bad Astronomy/ Good Astronomy by saying that the way we define seasons currently is not strictly bad, but I feel (in my opinion!) that it could be better. The definition of when the seasons begin is at the moment of solstice or equinox; that is, winter (in the north) starts on December 22 nd and summer starts on June 22 nd . ... Now imagine breaking up the Sun's 46 degree up-and-down yearly swing into 1 day intervals. ...

... Activity 3: Measuring the Position of the Sun in the Sky . Purpose: To give students the opportunity to measure the position of the Sun in the sky using simple tools and methods. ... Alternatively, you may have students devise their own methods of relative measurement and apply them to measuring the position of the Sun in the sky. ... Rangi is the sky, and when the Sun is near Rangi's head it is summer in New Zealand. ... Read the Maori story to students. ... back to Teachers' Newsletter Main Page ...

... Archive for December 2009 . ... Posted by hlee . ... Category: Algorithms , arXiv , Cross-Cultural , Jargon , Methods , Quotes , Stat , Uncertainty | Comment . ... Category: arXiv , Astro , Stat | ... Comments RSS . ... Algorithms arXiv Astro Bad AstroStat Bayesian CHASC Cross-Cultural Data Processing Fitting Frequentist Galaxies gamma-ray High-Energy Imaging Jargon Job Languages MC MCMC Meta Methods Misc News Nuggets Objects Optical Physics Quotes Spectral Stars Stat Timing Uncertainty X-ray . ...

Visiting Days and Hours . ... August 1 to December 14 ) and (January 16 to May 31) . Wednesday - Sunday - Holidays ... 9:00 am - 4:00 pm . Mondays and Tuesdays Closed . Summer Season . ... Monday - Sunday . ... Winter Season . December. 15 - January. ... Closed on the following 8 Holidays . Good Friday, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and Three Kings Day. ...

... The 1 st Asian-Pacific Astronomy Olympiad will held in Siberia (Asian part of Russian Federation) on December 4-11, 2005. ... Among three Siberian cities which were ready to organise the Olympiad city of Irkutsk (near Baikal lake) won this right. ... Saturday December 3 Excursion to Irkutsk (for arrived on 02.12. delegations) . ... Sunday December 4 Excursion to Taltsy and Listvianka (Baikal lake) (for arrived on 02-03.12. delegations) . ... The Asian-Pacific Astronomy Olympiad 2005 - results . ...

... SPECIAL HONORS: Eagle Scout; Sam Houston Area Council 1976 Distinguished Eagle Scout Award ; Presidential Medal for Freedom, 1970; NASA Distinguished Service Medal; two Navy Distinguished Flying Crosses; 1967 FAI De Laval and Gold Space Medals (Athens, Greece); the American Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award ; City of New York Gold Medal in 1969 ; City of Houston Medal for Valor in 1969 ; the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences special Trustees ...

... were entered in the atlas. ... In so doing lines were selected which yielded radial velocities close to the symbiotic velocity of MWC 560 (+35 km/s). ... The visible spectrum of MWC 560 is poor in absorption lines especially near the brightness maximum. In our atlas are visible only the blue-shifted components of , , NaI and FeII(42), interstellar lines NaI, a few diffuse interstellar bands (DIB) and telluric lines of and and, at length, traces of the spectra of the M giant. ...

... Where to eat for 10-15 euros in Moscow: . ... My-My is a self service that you can find anywhere in Moscow, for instance on the Arbat, very close to the Poncelet. Lioudi kak lioudi ( www.ludikakludi.com/ ), where you can eat pirogi and drink beer or tea. This is definitely one of the best cheap places in Moscow, but also one of the smallest. Filial ( www.filialmoscow.com/ ) is a bar close to Lubianka metro station. ... Caf Maiak ( www.clubmayak.ru/ ), close to the Maiakovski theater. ...