The night sky brightness, together with number of clear nights, seeing, transparency, photometric stability and humidity, are some of the most important parameters that qualify a site for front-line ground--based astronomy. ... Night sky at ESO-Paranal (Chile). ... Night sky brightness data . ... UBVRI night sky brightness at ESO-Paranal during sunspot maximum (A 2003, PDF) . ... The Dancing Sky: six years of night sky observations at Cerro Paranal (Starlight 2007 conference proceedings, PDF) . ...

... spectrum . ... sfit . ... define >macro_name< : define a macro . ... meth_range <w1> <w2>: Set wavelength range for fit . data_spectrum <name> : data in "spectrum" format . ... data_sigma <sigma> : define mean standard error in data . ... data_line_set | ... NB: synth uses multiple calls to spectrum , so various Spectrum commands may also be required. synth : find optimum fit by adjusting abundances, v turb , v sin i , and v rad . ... save <fit> : Save the spectrum and best fit from synth . ...

... Scientific data acquisition. Control of scientific instruments. ... The scientific data acquisition systems are designed to ensure the flexible control and optimal operation of various scientific instruments and, on the other hand, to comply with the standard interface of spacecraft service systems. ... Currently IKI develops scientific data acquisition systems for various spacecraft: . ... SSRNI                          CORONAS- Ph oton           2007 . ... onboard time etc. ... data bit rate . ...

Images and text 2003 Paul Valleli . While up at Stellafane for pre-convention preparations, I spent some early morning times, experimenting with different videography setups on the 13" F/10 Schupmann at the McGregor Observatory. ... Mars was too bright and would have required neutral density filters. ... Next time, I will try 12mm and 9mm projections. ... I aquired about ten thousand frames by 3AM, at which time a breeze picked up and the seeing went to Hellas! ... 2003 Paul Valleli . ...

... col_hsb_slice_to_rgb_array . Generate a table of RGB values from a slice of HSB space. void col_hsb_slice_to_rgb_array (unsigned long rgb_array[65536], unsigned long red_mask, unsigned long green_mask, unsigned long blue_mask, float min_brightness, float max_brightness, float start_hue, float stop_hue, float saturation) . ... The HSB slice covers a range of hue and brightness at a fixed satutation. ... The valid range is 0.0 to 1.0 . ... The valid range is 0.0 to just under 6.0 . ...

... Apollo 17 s Moonship . ... Credit: Apollo 17 , NASA (Image scanned by Kipp Teague) Explanation: Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module Challenger was designed for flight in the vacuum of space. This sharp picture from the command module America , shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit. ... This spaceship performed gracefully, landing on the moon and returning the Apollo astronauts to the orbiting command module in December of 1972 - but where is Challenger now? ...

... They are concerned with Attitude Control System of the spacecraft, satellite visibility from tracking stations, limits on the satellite autonomous operations during the orbit, and needs for auxiliary operations with the spacecraft. ... Among the operational constraints the most important one is the number of programmed slews per orbit, which determines the maximum number of radio sources to be observed during one orbit. ... System temperature (K) . ... Progress of the RadioAstron Project in Pictures...

... Preprocessor Compiler Control . ... This directive includes a file into code. ... include <file> or #include ``file'' . ... As another example if running program on MSDOS machine we want to include file msdos.h otherwise a default.h file. ... This is most often used with programs that translate other languages to C. For example, error messages produced by the C compiler can reference the file name and line numbers of the original source files instead of the intermediate C (translated) source files. ...