... 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. ...

... Because of the need to schedule observations as efficiently as possible, the order in which exposures are executed may be different from the order in which they appear in the observer's Phase II submission-unless an explicit special requirement dictates otherwise. ... Data files can then be associated with the corresponding exposure line in the Phase II proposal by comparing exposure information in the Phase II proposal with data file header keywords. ... Time_Per_Exposure . ...

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . Sequence of four video frames captured at 01:05 BST at Armagh Observatory on the night of the 24/25th July 2013, showing the onset, development and demise of the sprite. ... Unlike common lightning discharges, which often jump between clouds or between the clouds and the ground, sprites are associated with similarly powerful electrical fields that occur high above the clouds of the EarthтАЩs atmosphere. ...

... Meta Index / Home Page / Errors . ... warning . ... For instance, if the PROPOSAL information record is missing the user can add a fake one to the SOSF without this having any effect on the data reduction. corrective action: Continue. ... For a certain exposure in the ODF one of the parameters was not found in the housekeeping data. ... RGS, EPN, OM : the current exposure is found to contain more than one distinct calibration mode. corrective action: In the summary file: MODE = UNDEFINED . ... error...

... Dark Belt Reappearing on Jupiter . ... 29.11.2010 . ... North), USC Philippines Explanation: Why are planet-circling clouds disappearing and reappearing on Jupiter? ... Pictured above two weeks ago, far infrared images -- depicted in false-color red -- show a powerful storm system active above the returning dark belt. ... November 2010 . ... 2009 2010 . ... Publications with keywords: Jupiter - clouds - storm - infrared . Publications with words: Jupiter - clouds - storm - infrared . ...

... 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 . ...

... In 1995, two intermittent detector features (aka hotspots) particular to the ROSAT HRI have been noticed on the edge of the HRI field. ... To view the hotspots: . HS #1 > xdisplay "rh123456n00.qp[key=(rawx,rawy)][186:697,230:741]" HS #2 > xdisplay "rh123456n00.qp[key=(rawx,rawy)][3380:3891,297:808]" HS #3 > xdisplay "rh123456n00.qp[key=(rawx,rawy)][2753:3252,3065:3564]" OR > xexamine rh...qp[key=(rawx,rawy)] [HS #1, if present, appears as a spot in the lower left; HS #2 in the lower right.] ...

... The Sun has come all of one day away from breaking its record for the longest period of inactivity for the last decade - reaching a mid-summer low and falling into yet another state of "hibernation". Yesterday, on the first day of autumn, new sunspots appeared on the surface of the Sun following an absence of almost 50 days. ... The first low lasted 51 days, from 21 July until 11 September last year. ... Now, almost a year later, it seems the Sun has hit a new low almost as "deep" as the first. ...

... Primordial theory review : Dick Bond . Defects and the CMB review : Andy Albrecht . ... Gravitational wave contribution to CMB anisotropies : V.B. Lukash and E.V. Mikheeva . C_l from cosmic strings : Lloyd Knox . Some aspects of CMB anisotropies induced from topological defects : Mairi Sakellariadou . ... CMB anisotropies from scaling sources : Ruth Durrer . ... SZ observations I : Sarah Church . ... Holes in the microwave sky? ... Detecting cosmic strings in the CMB : James Robinson . ...

... Values have been scaled arbitrarily. High ratios are shown in blue, corresponding to blue colors, and low ratios are shown in red, corresponding to red colors. ... Noise combined with background subtraction difficulties in the lower left quadrant of the WISP1 data (see Fig. \ref{Fig:wisp_snr_mskd}) make colors in this area very unreliable. ... The values shown here are typically a factor of ~3 less than those calculated for the Schmidt data, shown in Figure \ref{Fig:bj_alpha}. ...

... X-Ray Binaries I . ... In late January 2000 Cygnus X-3 made a transition from a quiescent radio state (low X-ray state) to a radio flaring state (high X-ray state). ... Throughout this activity an extensive multiwavelength campaign was undertaken. These included observations in the hard X-ray (CGRO/BATSE), X-ray (RXTE/ASM/PCA/HEXTE), radio (GBI, Ryle Telescope, VLA, RATAN-600), radio imaging (VLBA), and high resolution X-ray spectroscopy and imaging (Chandra). ...

The run progress pages document the execution of Service Mode and Visitor Mode observing runs carried out at the Paranal Observatory. A summary of the run's characteristics is given, as well as a time-stamped list of all Observation Blocks (OB) that were executed until now. ... If reduced data for the given run exist, those are also reported in both the OB Summary table and in the details. ... Reduced : information shown only if pipeline-processed reduced data exist for the OB . ... OB ID . ...

As a result of preceding actions the File opening dialog box appears and user is suggested to open the file with observations (the file may be created for the first time). ... To see the list of files with desirable extension in chosen folder define the type of extension with the help of File type drop-down list at the bottom of the dialog box. ... The name of the file will appear in File name dialog box. ... In case you want to open the file with new name, type it in the File name dialog box. ...

... the time of observation . ... Observing the Changing Position of the Sun To Establish Cardinal Directions . ... Observations of the Sun's apparent movement across the sky and its pattern of rising and setting in the east and west horizon helped to establish the cardinal directions. ... The final stage of the Sun's return was marked by the observation that the Sun had reached its highest altitude when the full width of your mitted hand could fill the gap between the Sun and the horizon. ...

In 2001, Westerbork observations of the disturbed galaxy named VV-29 (alias Arp-188, UGC-10214) showed that there is second smaller galaxy (named VV-29c) that appears behind the western side of the main body of the distorted galaxy. ... The galaxy was featured as the May 2, 2002 Astronomy Picture of the Day . ... When VV-29 had its 15 minutes of fame in May 2002, it appeared under the name "The Tadpole Galaxy," but based on the images above, we will always think of it as "The CHAINSAW"! ...

... Explanations of the Observation codes and GRT codes are available. ... V codes are for AO1 experiments W codes are for AO2 experiments VS experiment codes are VSOP Survey Observations VT Test/Calibration Observations EXPNO SOURCE FRQ Corr DOY DY: DATE UT RANGE #TEL TELESCOPES W071n J0745+10 L Mitk 6 We:Jan-06 10:00 - 17:00 6 UD SH KA AT MP HO W059e J0811+01 C Socr 7 Th:Jan-07 04:00 - 14:00 10 VLBA VS10a J0842+18 C Pent 8 Fr:Jan-08 13:00 - 18:00 6 CD HO UD SH KA MP VS11r J0909+01 C ...

RTT150 . ... This search system is designed for generating the necessary information on series of pointings (observations of each source consist of sets of exposures with different filters and sometimes with different exposure times) for observed sources. Search results appear at the separate page as a table with the following data: . DATE - real (not evening!) observations date (in YYYY-MM-DD format); . ... Bin - minimal CCD binning mode (may vary during the observations); . ...

This plot shows the projected motion of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri (green line) over the next decade, as plotted from Hubble Space Telescope observations. ... Because Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our Sun, its angular motion across the sky is relatively fast compared to much more distant background stars. This means that in 2014 and 2016 Proxima Centauri will pass in front of two background stars that are along its path. ...

... STScI-PRC96-25 HUBBLE'S 100,000TH EXPOSURE CAPTURES IMAGE OF DISTANT QUASAR The Hubble Space Telescope achieved its 100,000th exposure June 22 with a snapshot of a quasar that is about 9 billion light-years from Earth. ... The fainter object just above it is an elliptical galaxy. ... The quasar and star are separated by billions of light-years. ... Image files in GIF and JPEG format and captions may be accessed on Internet via anonymous ftp from ftp.stsci.edu in /pubinfo. ...

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 . ...