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 Unit Telescopes Overview - This page is outdated, an update is in process.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 Secondary mirror (M2 Unit) - This page is outdated, an update is in process.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 Coating Unit - This page is outdated, an update is in process.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

... Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2011 May 9 . Wonder and Mystery above the Very Large Telescopes . ... Explanation: What's that bright orange dot above the large telescope on the right? ... The image was taken during a total lunar eclipse when the normally bright full moon turned into a faint orb tinted orange by the intervening Earth's atmosphere. ... About APOD | ...

... Credit Copyright: Yuri Beletsky ( ESO ) Explanation: What's that bright orange dot above the large telescope on the right? Even seasoned sky enthusiasts might ponder the origin of the orange orb seen by scrolling across this panoramic image , taken last December. ... To start, on the far left is a diagonal band of light known as zodiacal light , sunlight reflected off of dust orbiting in the inner Solar System. ... Publications with keywords: VLT . ... Earth Rotating Under Very Large Telescopes . ...

... 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. ...

M1 image More About M1 Nice Color Picture . ... M16 image More About M16 HST image . ... M31 image More About M31 Nice Color Picture . ... M42 image ; M43 image More About M42/43 Nice Color CCD Picture . M51 image More About M51 Color Image of M51 M51 Supernova . M57 image More About M57 Nice Color CCD Picture Very Deep M57 Image . ... M81 image More About M81 M81 Supernova Ultraviolet Image of M81 More about Ultraviolet Imaging . M82 image More About M82 M82 False Color M82 True Color . ...

... Today this year's largest group of sunspots will cross the Sun's central meridian. ... The next day, the number of spots in the group reached five, and the day after, on June 2nd, it was possible to count thirteen sunspots on solar disk, which had been clear prior to this. ... This year's two most powerful active areas, which passed across the solar disk at the beginning of May, 2009, are set to appear in the Sun's eastern sector in two days, on June 6th. ...

... Jupiter Eyes Ganymede . Credit: Cassini Team , U. Arizona , JPL , NASA . ... This moon, visible on the lower right, is Ganymede , and the planet it orbits, Jupiter , seems to be keeping a watchful eye, as its Great Red Spot appears serendipitously nearby. This recently released enhanced-contrast image from the robot spacecraft Cassini captures new details of the incredible intricacies of Jupiter's complex cloud patterns. ... Tomorrow's picture: Manicouagan Impact Crater . ...

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . Armagh Observatory, 1st December 2015: This year s Geminid meteor display, the best of the annual meteor showers, will be visible from approximately the 7th to 17th December, peaking on the evening of the 14th. ... Unlike most meteor showers, however, which originate from dust grains ejected into space by comets, the Geminid meteors originate from an unusual near-Earth asteroid, namely (3200) Phaethon. ...

... To be read in conjunction with Section 4.11 of the WFPC2 Instrument Handbook , -Version 4.0. ... 1 The second study found evidence that CTE loss for faint stars has increased with time (Whitmore, 1998). The primary observational consequence of CTE loss is that a point source at the top of the chip appears to be fainter than if observed at the bottom of the chip, due to the loss of electrons as the star is read out down the chip (see Figure 1 ). ... Last updated: 06/16/98 10:38:00 . ...

... The expansion is measured as a number called the Hubble Constant . ... Our value is about 20% lower than the one got with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1994," said Dr Jim Lovell, leader of the team that made the measurement. The Hubble Constant is named after American astronomer Edwin Hubble, who in the 1920s found that other galaxies were moving away from ours. ... The Hubble Constant links the galaxy's distance with its speed." ... A short run-down on the Hubble Constant: . ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Stars . ... Monthly Sky Notes . ... March . ... Posted on May 9, 2012 | 9 Comments €аA globular cluster is made of hundreds of thousands or even millions of stars packed together in a pretty compact ball. ... Continue Reading.. ... 15 Comments Today Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky is an unmistakable blue-white in colour although it does twinkle a lot and can appear to change colour. ... Posted on March 29, 2012 | ... What are the stars? ...

U mbriel ("UM bree el") is the thirteenth of Uranus 's known satellites and the third largest: orbit : 265,980 km from Uranus diameter : 1170 km mass : 1.27e21 kg U mbriel is a character in Alexander Pope 's The Rape of the Lock . ... All of Uranus' large moons are a mixture of about 40-50% water ice with the rest rock, a somewhat larger fraction of rock than Saturn 's large moons such as Rhea . ... It has far more and larger craters than do Ariel and Titania . ... Uranus .. Ariel .. ...

XMMNewton EPIC MOS MOS1 CCD1 Hot Column Tony Abbey ­ University of Leicester Tony Abbey afa@star.le.ac.uk XMM Cal/Ops meeting - ESAC, Spain ­ 3 Oct 2005 XMM impacts history XMMNewton EPIC MOS XMM was launched on 10 December 1999 into a highly elliptical orbit and each revolution takes 2 days. ... This was done on rev 1044 ? Review level of column 324 at 3 month intervals and adjust as necessary Tony Abbey afa@star.le.ac.uk XMM Cal/Ops meeting - ESAC, Spain ­ 3 Oct 2005 ...

You Can Make Stellar Images Brighter . Articles | ... A few months ago I wrote an article titled "You Can’t Make Them Brighter". So why am I now writing that you can make them brighter. ... The image of a focused star is actually a small disk called the Airy disk, named after the 19 th century scientist Sir George Airy. ... For a given aperture, a smaller Airy disk means that the light is focused to a smaller disk and is therefore brighter. ... www.astronomy.net . About Astronomy Net | ...

A 1 channel wide spike was found in the center of sbc 1, polB using the interim correlator. ... spike in center of the band, 1 channel wide. ... It was seen in 3 level (and stokes) and 9 level configurations. ... 12aug11 13:00 problem went away. ... problem went away. ... The large spike is causing the Tsys to increase. ... A large spike in the center of the band (5 times Tsys) occurred for: . ... A spike in the center of the band has been seen before (sep 2002) but at a much weaker level. ...

... From the chain visibility point of view, it is very recommended to look at the Javascript movies , especially if the frame rate can be not regulated in your MPEG player. ... The non-CH-associated large-scale chains visible on the SOHO/EIT images at three wavelengths of 171, 195 and 284 as well as on the MLSO/HAO He I 10830 spectroheliogram of December 16, 1997. ... The SOHO/EIT movies at 171 and 195 show the chain dynamics on June 1-3, 1998. ... Javascript movie (230 KB), SOHO/EIT, 171 . ...

Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system, larger even than the planets Pluto and Mercury. ... Ganymede's surface consists of two main types of terrain: old, dark polygonal units, and young, bright valleys and ridges (see figure 11 ). ... In a similar way, hitting a large block of ice with a hammer makes white marks. ... Ganymede as seen by Voyager 2. ... Because Voyager couldn't spot any large impact craters, scientists have concluded that the moon's surface is young. ... Moon . ... Europa . ...

The Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at ESO s Paranal Observatory in Chile has obtained the sharpest view ever of the dusty disk around the close pair of aging stars IRAS 08544-4431. For the first time, such disks can be compared to the disks around young stars and they look surprisingly similar. ... The inset shows the VLTI reconstructed image, with the brighter central star removed. The background view shows the surroundings of this star in the constellation Vela the Sails. ...

Supernova 1987A in LMC . One day in 1987, an astronomer by the name of Ian Shelton was making observations of the Tarantula Nebula in Large Magellanic cloud at Las Campanas Observatory, and he noticed something strange on his image. ... SN 1987A got as bright as 2.7, the only other recent SN even to come close was 1885A in M31 which got up to mag 6. ... Mag 4.5 . ... IAUC 4318 2/25/87 Type II? ... IAUC 7354 2/1/00 New structure in the inner ring . ... IAUC 7360 2/7/00 HST observation of new spot . ...

... Quasar catalog and survey parameters. ... ) Grade Seeing Direct / Prism min -------------------------------------------------------------- F823 00 00 +00 00 J7940 GG395 60 27 Jul 1982 A2 2.5 UJ6543P NONE 45 07 Nov 1980 AE3 2.0 F824 00 20 +00 00 J8202 GG395 60 05 Nov 1982 AI3 2.5 UJ11474P NONE 60 01 Nov 1986 BI4 2.5 SGP 00 53 -28 00 J9766 GG395 70 23 Nov 1984 A 2.5 UJ3682P NONE 70 17 Oct 1977 A 2.0 F826 01 00 +00 00 J7915 ...