... 2.3 Establishing the Extragalactic Distance Scale . ... 2.3.2 The Second Rung: Distances to stellar clusters . ... 2.3.4 Distances to Local Group Galaxies . ... The Luminosity Function of Planetary Nebulae . ... 3.2.2 Clusters of Galaxies . ... 4.2 Evidence for Dark Matter as a Function of Scale Size . ... 4.3 Other Dark Matter Indicators for Galaxies . ... What is the nature of the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe as traced by the three-dimensional galaxy distribution? ...

... LMC Project Outline . NGC 1818 Initial Results . ... The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is uniquely suitable for the study of massive star clusters at all stages of evolution. By combining HST observations of these clusters with N-body models we hope to understand the origin and evolution of rich star clusters in our own Galaxy, in the LMC, and beyond. ... We aim to combine our HST observations with N-body models to understand the formation and evolution of globular clusters. ...

Next: Cepheids in NGC Up: HST and the Previous: The Hubble Constant . ... Hubble Space Telescope observations of over a thousand globular clusters in the central region of M87 have been made using the WFPC-2. ... The Hubble Space Telescope offers several important advantages for measuring the globular cluster luminosity function for distant galaxies. ... W. B. Sparks, B. C. Whitmore, R. A. Lucas, F. Macchetto, J. BirettaSparks et al.HST Observations of Globular Clusters in M87 and an Estimate of . ...

... We have made observations of the Perseus cluster with the Westerbork Telescope at 610 MHz. ... Several newly detected sources are identified with cluster galaxies. ... No evidence is found for the existence of the previously reported ~ 65'x25' cluster halo, 3C 84B. Key words: radio galaxies - clusters - tailed radio sources buoyancy The Perseus Cluster of galaxies is one of the most fascinating systems accessible to extragalactic astronomers. ...

Today's APOD | ... Editor's choices for the most educational Astronomy Pictures of the Day about open clusters: . APOD: 2006 January 9 - M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster . ... The Pleiades contains over 3000 stars, is about 400 light years away, and only 13 light years across. ... Two types of star clusters are visible in our Milky Way Galaxy : open clusters and globular clusters . ... Aged 80 million years, M47 is a smaller but looser cluster of about 50 stars spanning 10 light-years. ... Index | ...

... Galactic or open star clusters are relatively young swarms of bright stars born together near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Separated by about a degree on the sky, two nice examples are M46 (upper left) 5,400 light-years in the distance and M47 (lower right) only 1,600 light-years away toward the nautical constellation Puppis . Around 300 million years young M46 contains a few hundred stars in a region about 30 light-years across. ... M7: Open Star Cluster in Scorpius . ...

... About ATMoB . ... The Observing Committee is starting an Observing Awards Program to promote observing among the membership of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston. ... Participant must be a current member of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston . ... To qualify for your Observing Award Certificate, turn in your worksheet and drawings to an ATMoB Observing Committee member or observing@atmob.org . ... This Excel sheet has useful macros. ... Copyright (c) Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston, Inc. ...

... Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are located in external galaxies, their X-ray luminosities (10 39 - 10 41 erg/s) are thousand times greater than those of brightest black holes in the Galaxy. ULXs may be supercritical accretion disks around black holes of stellar masses (~10 Solar masses) like that in SS433, or they may be a hypothetical intermediate-mass black holes (hundreds - thousands Solar masses) with standard accretion disks. ... 2) The ULX progenitors were ejected from the star clusters. ...

... 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 . ...

. F IGURE . 14. Age dependences of (a) metallicity, (b) Galactocentric distance, and (c) distance from the Galactic plane for the globular clusters of Galactic origin. Notation is the same as in Fig. 3 . The dashed lines are rms regression fits for both subsystems taken together, and the solid lines are the individual regression fits for each subsystem. The squares indicate clusters excluded from the regression solutions according to a 3 criterion. discussion in the text | privious figure .

... Subject and Problems of Stellar Astronomy. ... Plane of Galaxy, Methods of Its Location Determination. ... Stars Distances. ... Other Methods of Stars Distances Determination. ... Tangential Velocities, Their Determination by Self-Motions. ... Determination of Solar Apex and Spatial Velocity by Radial and Spatial Velocities of Stars. ... Features of Orientation and Parameters of Peculiar Stellar Velocities Ellipsoid. ... General and Selective Light Absorption in Galaxy. ... Darc Clouds in Galaxy. ...

... The most powerful and widely used methods to calculate the scattering matrix of a fractal cluster are based on the coupled dipoles methods (e.g. the Discrete Dipole Approximation, DDA) and the theory of light scattering by a cluster of spherical particles [2-4]. ... At present the procedure of calculation of the scattering matrix is well developed for both an oriented cluster of spherical particles and for chaotically oriented clusters of such particles [4]. ...

... However, while low mass stars are usually found to form in loose groups with densities of a few stars per cubic parsecs, high mass stars are known to form in dense clusters with up to 10000 stars per cubic parsec. ... We have undertaken a survey of a cospicuous number of fields around intermediate mass young stars (Herbig Ae/Be stars, HAeBe) with the aim of detect and characterize the groups of young stars that may have formed together with the HAeBe star. ... BD +404124 - A rich, compact cluster. ...

... My primary research interests are the formation and evolution of nuclear star clusters. ... Nuclear star clusters are common objects in nearby galaxies. ... Feldmeier-Krause, A. ; Neumayer, N.; SchУЖdel, R.; Seth, A.; Hilker, M.; de Zeeuw, P. T.; Kuntschner, H.; Walcher, C. J.; LУМtzgendorf, N.; Kissler-Patig, M. Astronomy Astrophysics, accepted, 2015 . ... SchУЖdel, R.; Feldmeier, A. ; Neumayer, N.; Meyer, L.; Yelda, S. Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 31, Issue 24, 12/2014 . ... 2014 . ...

Aitoff Projection showing ChaMP Fields . ... Main survey: >20 from galactic plane. ... Galactic Plane Survey: No subarray fields: reduced area and more complicated processing . ... Short exposures included except NGC galaxies . Galactic Plane Survey: > 30 ksecs . ... Galactic Plane Survey: >10% contamination by a diffuse/distributed X-ray or optical source. ... E(B-V)= (B-V) - (B-V) 0 which translates to visual extinction A V via . ... Crudely, E(B-V) can be related to Galactic latitude via . ...

... BLUE STRAGGLER STARS are unusually hot and bright stars found in the cores of ancient star clusters known as globulars. ... BACKGROUND (from wikipedia): Blue straggler stars are stars in open or globular clusters that are hotter and bluer than other cluster stars having the same luminosity. ... There is evidence in favor of this view, notably that blue straggler stars appear to be much more common in dense regions of clusters, especially in the cores of globular clusters. ...

J/AstL/vol/page SAI Open Clusters Catalog (Glushkova+, 2009) ================================================================================ Automated search for star clusters in large multiband surveys. ... Color excesses E(B-V), distance moduli and ages were determined for 141 new and 27 known, but poorly studied clusters. We present the Sternberg Astronomical Institute Open Clusters Catalog (SAI OCL Catalog) of coordinates, diameters and main physical parameters of these clusters. ...

... In 1930, Trumpler noticed that linear diameters (LD) of open clusters increase with distance (D) from the Sun. ... Since that time, the interstellar absorption has become one of the best studied factor in astrophysics, and we may hope that current OCL distance scales are free from this LD-D correlation. To verify if this is the case we have chosen several modern OCL distance scales and test them with the same clusters and the same angular diameters that Trumpler had used back in 1930. ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Comets and Asteroids . ... Image credit:ESO/J.Emerson/VISTA. ... However others are less pessimistic and it has even been claimed that the mysterious ?Wow! signal? received in 1977 originated from the direction M55.б  Sadly, this still unexplained pulse of radio energy originated from a location rather to the northwest of M55 so I doubt if the source was this cluster (if indeed the signal was genuinely of extraterrestrial origin). ... Mysterious Wow! ...

ABSOLUTE PROPER MOTIONS OF 331 OPEN CLUSTERS . ... The proper motions of stars in the fields of 331 open clusters were taken from Four-Million Star Catalog (4M-catalog) of positions and proper motions (Volchkov et al. ... The absolute proper motions for 21 young open clusters have been derived by comparison of precise relative proper motions of individual stars and their corresponding absolute proper motions. ... Sign of proper motions in RA . ... 0.0001 arcsec/yr . ... rms error in RA proper motion . ...