... 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. ...

... 10.12.2001 . Venus, second planet from the Sun, appears above imaged for the first time ever in x-rays (left) by the orbiting Chandra Observatory. ... Stars, like bees, swarm around the center of bright globular cluster M15. ... But only since 1999 have observers seen elusive optical flashes on the lunar surface - likely explosions resulting from impacting meteoroids. ... Comet Linear (WM1) Brightens . ... Dueling Auroras . ... Will it be curtains for one of these auroras? ... First page ] Prev. ...

... The target list of 127 NLTT stars was selected using preliminary colour-magnitude selection criteria, which result in the inclusion of stars up to 30-40 parsecs from the Sun. Of the 127 targets, 28 are known late-type dwarfs and 29 have suspect 2MASS magnitudes (bright star diffraction spikes, unresolved companions etc.) ... Figure B2.1: Calibrating relations for computing spectral type from VO and TiO5 indices. ... Figure B2.3: Abundance calibration for M dwarfs. ... NStars proper motions index . ...

Once students get the hang of it, they can find and measure the brightness of Delta Cephei in a few minutes. ... of Delta Cephei . ... Oct. ... The following table lists the measurements of Delta Cephei made by one amateur astronomer in autumn 1990. ... 4.0 . ... This activity is a simplified version of one that appeared in Hands-On Astrophysics, a series of activities prepared by the American Association of Variable Star Observers with support from the National Science Foundation. << previous page | ...

... 2010 November 29 . Dark Belt Reappearing on Jupiter . Credit: NASA's JPL , U. Oxford , UC Berkeley , Gemini Obs. ... Explanation: Why are planet-circling clouds disappearing and reappearing on Jupiter? ... Earlier this year, unexpectedly, Jupiter's dark Southern Equatorial Belt (SEB) disappeared. ... Detailed professional observations revealed that high-flying light-colored ammonia -based clouds formed over the planet-circling dark belt. ... About APOD | ... A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC . ...

... V838 Mon is a member of a new class of eruptive variables which appear as a peculiar novae having late K-M type spectra in their outburst. Before its outburst, it was a wide binary system of B3V type stars. ... The B3V companion was seen in the outburst in the UV spectrum taken with HST (Rauch et al., ... In the latest spectra, the light of B3V companion was predominating in the short-wave photometric bands. ... CCD blue frames of V838 Mon before the eclipse (left) and in the eclipse (right). ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Space Flight . ... Earth Satellites . ... Leonid meteors seen from 13 km altitude aboard an aircraft during the 1999 Leonids Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (Leonid-MAC). Comet Tempel-Tuttle provides the cometary debris for the Leonid meteor shower. ... Every 17-19 November Earth crosses Tempel-TuttleтАЩs orbit and the Leonids become visible. With clear, dark skies observers may see 10 to 15 Leonid meteors every hour on those mornings. ...

... STScI-PRC00-34 A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF A GALAXY COLLISION What appears as a bird's head, leaning over to snatch up a tasty meal, is a striking example of a galaxy collision in NGC 6745. ... However, the situation is quite different for the interstellar media in the above two galaxies - material consisting largely of clouds of atomic and molecular gases and of tiny particles of matter and dust, strongly coupled to the gas. ... The hot blue stars in this image are evidence of this star formation. ...

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . See also images taken on November 22nd . Image taken by Andy McCrea who says, . To me the comet appears yellowish and it has gone from star-like to a . ... More images from Andy McCrea here . ... The true explanation is that a very faint comet, known as periodic comet Holmes, produced a massive outburst of material and became a million times brighter than it was just a day earlier. ... More images from Andy McCrea . ...

XMM-Newton Calibration Technical Note MOS optical loading XMM-SOC-CAL-TN-0043 Issue 1.1 B.Altieri November 13, 2003 1 Abstract The MOS optical PSF has been analyzed with diagnostic frames acquired on the RGS calibration star AB Doradus in the THIN lter, with the aim to assess the MOS optical loading. ... The MOS1 and MOS2 optical PSFs though the THIN lter are shown in gures 1 & 2 respectively (averaging of all diagnostic frames after deglitching). ...

Crater Gassendi . ... I made this drawing was made on the 26th of november 2001. If you compare this one with the previous drawing of Gassendi (below) the differences are clear. ... This drawing was made on the 28th of september 2001. After nearly a full month without observations I had a one hour gap between the thicker clouds. ... This drawing was made on the 29th of august 2001. ... This drawing was made on the 27th of august 2001. ... This drawing was made on the 25th of august 2001. ...

... It provides long range planning information to the scheduling team; it provides bright object, timing, and orientation information to the observation planning team; and it provides graphical description of the observations and their constraints. ... The GUI graphically displays the constraints that are computed by Spike and stored in the description files and in the database. ... BOAS processes all bright objects that have entered th