Astronomy

• Most Topular Stories

• Evening Treats

  StarDate Online

  damonddb

  17 Jun 2013 | 10:00 pm

  The evening sky offers up a couple of nice conjunctions tonight. One of them disappears quickly, but the other lingers awhile. The early pairing is the planets Venus and Mercury. The two worlds are quite low in the west at sunset, and drop from view about the time it gets good and dark. If you have a clear horizon, though, you should be able to pick them out because Venus is the brilliant “evening star.” It’s far brighter than any of the other planets or stars in the night sky, so it stands out. In fact, the main problem is that you might not realize that it’s a planet — Venus is…

• Black Hole Naps Amidst Stellar Chaos

  Astronomy Cmarchesin

  16 Jun 2013 | 8:10 pm

  The Sculptor galaxy (NGC253) is seen in a new light, in this composite image from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European Southern Observatory in Chile. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHU.  › Full image and caption    › NuSTAR view onlyNearly a decade ago, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory caught signs of what appeared to be a black hole snacking on gas at the middle of the nearby Sculptor galaxy. Now, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), which sees higher-energy X-ray light, has taken a peek and found the black hole…

• NASA-Led Study Explains Decades of Black Hole Observations

  Astronomy Cmarchesin

  17 Jun 2013 | 8:00 pm

  A new study by astronomers at NASA, Johns Hopkins University and the Rochester Institute of Technology confirms long-held suspicions about how stellar-mass black holes produce their highest-energy light. "Our work traces the complex motions, particle interactions and turbulent magnetic fields in billion-degree gas on the threshold of a black hole, one of the most extreme physical environments in the universe," said lead researcher Jeremy Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. By analyzing a supercomputer simulation of gas flowing into a black…

• Cosmic Giants Shed New Light on Dark Matter

  Astronomy Cmarchesin

  16 Jun 2013 | 8:00 pm

  An international team of astronomers (Note) from Taiwan, England, and Japan has used the Subaru Telescope to measure the distribution of dark matter in fifty galaxy clusters and found that its density gradually decreases from the center of these cosmic giants to their diffuse outskirts. This new evidence about the mysterious dark matter that pervades our Universe conforms to the predictions of cold dark matter theory, known as "CDM".Few scientists seriously doubt the existence of dark matter, which researchers discovered almost eighty years ago. Nevertheless, astronomers cannot directly see…

• Painting a Planet

  StarDate Online

  damonddb

  16 Jun 2013 | 10:00 pm

  The crater Degas displays a bright blue color in this image of Mercury from the MESSENGER spacecraft. The blue material, which has been enhanced in this image, is actually quite dark. The craters on Mercury are named for painters, writers, musicians, and other artists. Earlier this year, the International Astronomical Union approved names for nine more craters. Among others, they honor Estonian novelist Betti Alver, horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, and Hawaiian guitarist Charles Pahinui. [NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Inst.-Washington] Text ©2013 The University of Texas at Austin McDonald…

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  Local Group

• Sarah preps for flights on SOFIA

  Sarah Scoles

  17 Jun 2013 | 11:21 pm

  [caption image="http://cs.astronomy.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-00-51-Missions/7206.sofia1.jpg" position="right" targeturl="http://cs.astronomy.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-00-51-Missions/7206.sofia1.jpg"]Tomorrow night, SOFIA will take some thirty technicians, scientists, pilots, engineers, educators, and flight attendants into the stratosphere to collect infrared light from space. Just kidding — there are no flight attendants. // Sarah Scoles[/caption]Today, I arrived in Palmdale,…

• Sarah takes a trip on SOFIA, the flying infrared observatory

  Sarah Scoles

  14 Jun 2013 | 12:07 pm

  [caption image="http://cs.astronomy.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-00-51/5432.weltraum_5F00_missionen_5F00_sofia.jpg" position="right" targeturl="http://cs.astronomy.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-00-51/5432.weltraum_5F00_missionen_5F00_sofia.jpg"]SOFIA in action. // NASA[/caption]If you’re going to decline an invitation, it’s best to have a good excuse. A few days ago, I was able to say, “You know what, I’d love to go see live music on Tuesday, but I’ll be on a plane in…

• Visit MMT Observatory in new video

  Liz Kruesi

  11 Jun 2013 | 9:23 am

  Want to know what a night of observing at a major observatory is like? Jason Davis, a graduate student at the University of Arizona, has created a great video of a typical evening at the MMT Observatory, south of Tucson, Arizona. This 6.5-meter telescope sits 8,550 feet above sea level atop Mount Hopkins. If you don’t have the opportunity to spend a night observing at a major telescope facility, Davis’ great video gives you a sense of life as an astronomer and explains some of the research going on with MMT. (And it has impressive narration and editing, too.) Check it out below!

• Results from a big sidewalk astronomy event in Philadelphia

  Michael Bakich

  11 Jun 2013 | 6:54 am

  [caption image="http://cs.astronomy.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-00-51-Outreach/7457.Philly_2D00_Science_2D00_Carnival_5F00_01.jpg" position="right" targeturl="http://cs.astronomy.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-00-51-Outreach/7457.Philly_2D00_Science_2D00_Carnival_5F00_01.jpg"]Elaine Feldman of West Chester, Pennsylvania, won a Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ telescope at the 2013 Philadelphia Science Carnival. // All photos: Derrick Pitts[/caption]Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the Franklin…

• American Astronomical Society meeting: The last full day

  Sarah Scoles

  5 Jun 2013 | 2:26 pm

  Today is the last full day of the American Astronomical Society's (AAS) 222nd conference. Before you cry about that, remember that the discoveries will continue to roll out, even if the astronomers aren't having mid-morning coffee breaks with 500 of their closest friends. Their probing questions and productive collaborations will continue after the hotels' mandatory 11 a.m. check-out times. The first speaker of the day was Steve Howell, an astronomer with a ponytail, who is the Deputy Project Scientist for Kepler at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. When you think of…

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  Astronomy Today

• Astronomy’s Magnitude Scale

  Kelly

  27 May 2013 | 7:15 am

  At magnitude -26.7, the Sun is too bright to look at without optical aid. Credit: ESO In astronomy, the brightness of objects is measured by a term called “magnitude”. The lower the number, the brighter the object. The category of first magnitude objects are those that range from magnitude 0.51 to 1.50, with second magnitude 1.51 to 2.50, and so forth. Certain objects are even brighter than first magnitude, peaking in negative numbers at their brightest. Without optical aid, the human eye can see objects to around 6th magnitude. There are ten natural solar system objects you can see with…

• Observing by Degrees

  Kelly

  18 Apr 2013 | 10:41 am

  In this image of Jupiter, the Moon, and Venus taken on February 26, 2012, Jupiter and the Moon are less than five degrees apart and the Moon and Venus (below) are about 12 degrees apart. Credit: Kelly Kizer Whitt Often when I’m discussing what gorgeous sky events you should be on the lookout for, I describe them in terms of degrees. Perhaps Jupiter is just three degrees away from the Moon, or Saturn and Venus have a close encounter placing them only a half degree apart in the sky. But what, exactly, is a degree? The sky is split up into 360 degrees. To get a general idea of how to measure…

• Catching Comet Panstarrs

  Kelly

  14 Mar 2013 | 7:01 am

  This photo was taken by Michael Rael on March 12, 2013 in Conejos, Colorado, USA. The elusive comet had started edging into northern skies days earlier, but every sunset brought solid clouds. It wasn’t until March 13 that the day was perfectly clear (and cold), leaving me optimistic for a chance to grab the comet that night. The Sun was setting as I was having dinner with my kids, and even though I knew I had a bit of time, I got up regularly to look out the window with my binoculars in case it showed early. A layer of distant clouds hung like a curtain across the lowest edge of the…

• Russian Meteors and Near Earth Asteroids

  Kelly

  15 Feb 2013 | 6:50 am

  Perhaps it’s because Russia is the biggest country on Earth, or perhaps meteors just look at it from above and find it might be a nice place to visit, but another meteor has exploded over the skies of Russia. On the morning of February 15, 2013, a meteor estimated at 1 meter across and 10 tons, barreling into Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of at least 54,000 kph, is believed to have exploded above the Ural Mountains of Russia, 29 to 51 kilometers above the ground, according to the Russian Academy of Sciences. Hundreds of people were injured when they rushed to their windows in the cold…

• Best Night Sky Objects for Binoculars

  Kelly

  30 Jan 2013 | 9:54 am

  The Beehive Cluster is a dim patch to the left of Venus and the Moon in this photo by John Chumack. Observing nights are few and far between during winter where I live. Not only is it unbearably cold, it is usually cloudy, too. So on an evening that has temperatures above freezing, it’s worth hauling the telescope out for clear skies or stepping out with binoculars on partly cloudy nights to jump from target to target. With bright comets predicted to light up our skies this year, it’s an especially good time to locate those binoculars. You can get a peek at the comets in advance and be…

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  Tom's Astronomy Blog

• America’s First Woman in Space

  Tom

  18 Jun 2013 | 10:31 am

  Click here to view the embedded video. Sunday we had the 50th anniversary of the first woman in space: Valentina Tereshkova. Today we have the 30th anniversary of America’s first woman in space: Sally Ride. Sally Ride was a mission specialist aboard the Shuttle Challenger launching 30 years ago today June 18, 1983. Ride went to space a second time in 1984 again aboard the Challenger on mission STS 41G. She logged more than 343 hours in space. Have a look at NASA’s bio on Sally. Sally Ride succumbed to Pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012. Source

• Degas Crater

  Tom

  17 Jun 2013 | 10:08 am

  Degas Crater on Mercury photographed by the MESSENGER spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington Here’s an image of Degas crater on the planet Mercury. The RGB -Red, Green, Blue- image was obtained with the Wide Angle Camera portion of the MESSENGER spacecraft dual imaging system. Degas is 32 miles (~52k) in diameter. It’s a little unclear what exactly the dark material on the crater floor is, it’s just called “low reflective material”. The crater floor has cracks not uncommon on Mercury. The…

• Valentina Tereshkova

  Tom

  16 Jun 2013 | 10:47 am

  Click here to view the embedded video. Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Vostok 6 and the first woman in space: Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. Tereschkova orbited the Earth 48 times over almost three days and she logged more flight time than the combined flight times of all American astronauts before that date. It is doubtful if the time in space was in part a bit of intended one-upmanship, however there can be no question she certainly did her part in developing a very robust space program. Her call sign for the flight was Chaika, which translates to Seagull and was…

• Black Forest Fire

  Tom

  15 Jun 2013 | 10:51 am

  A MODIS image of the Black Forest Fire on June 12, 2013 from the Terra Satellite.NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Lynn Jenner The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra Satellite provides a great planning tool for fighthing fires like this. It sounds like the fire fighters are starting to get a handle of sorts on this one according to the Denver Post. I sure hope so. From NASA click for the original and a larger image: The Royal Gorge fire which began on June 11 has now consumed 3,100 acres. Twenty structures…

• The Ghostly Ring

  Tom

  14 Jun 2013 | 10:48 am

  Cassini finds structure in Saturns’s D ring? Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute The structure of the faint D ring has always been elusive and I have to confess, for me it still it. I need to do what the JPL Cassini site suggest by way of the title and give it A Long, Hard Stare. Here’s the caption from the JPL site: Saturn’s D ring may be faint and difficult to observe, but it rewards our patience. In this image, the Cassini spacecraft has captured some of the structure of the tenuous ring, appearing here as light/dark banding in the upper-right of the image.

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  Universe Today

• Say Cheese: Cassini to Snap Another “Pale Blue Dot” Picture of Earth

  Jason Major

  18 Jun 2013 | 1:21 pm

  Mosaic of Saturn seen in eclipse in September 2006. Earth is the bright dot just inside the F ring at upper left. (CICLOPS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI) Citizens of Earth, get ready for your Cassini close-up: once again the spacecraft is preparing to capture images of Saturn positioned between it and the Sun, allowing for incredible views of the ring system and its atmosphere — and also a tiny “pale blue dot” in the distance we call home. (...)Read the rest of Say Cheese: Cassini to Snap Another “Pale Blue Dot” Picture of Earth (491 words) © Jason Major for Universe…

• Book Review: The Milky Way, An Insider’s Guide

  Elizabeth Howell

  18 Jun 2013 | 9:46 am

  About 70 pages into The Milky Way, An Insider’s Guide, a strange craving for hamburgers overtook me. (...)Read the rest of Book Review: The Milky Way, An Insider’s Guide (550 words) © Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Book Reviews, the milky way: an insider's guide, william h. waller Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

• Venus’ Winds Are Mysteriously Speeding Up

  Jason Major

  18 Jun 2013 | 9:32 am

  Over the past six years wind speeds in Venus’ southern atmosphere have been steadily rising (ESA) High-altitude winds on neighboring Venus have long been known to be quite speedy, whipping sulfuric-acid-laden clouds around the superheated planet at speeds well over 300 km/h (180 mph). And after over six years collecting data from orbit, ESA’s Venus Express has found that the winds there are steadily getting faster… and scientists really don’t know why. (...)Read the rest of Venus’ Winds Are Mysteriously Speeding Up (473 words) © Jason Major for Universe Today,…

• Will Comet ISON Dazzle our Skies? An Expert Weighs In

  David Dickinson

  18 Jun 2013 | 9:16 am

  ISON as seen by Hubble earlier this spring. (Credit: NASA/ESA/Z. Levay/STScl). Comets are the big “question marks” of observational astronomy. Some, such as Comet Hyakutake and the Great Daylight Comet of 1910 present themselves seemingly without warning and put on memorable displays. Others, such as the infamous Comet Kohoutek or Comet Elenin, fizzle and fail to perform up to expectations after a much anticipated round of media hype. And then there’s the case of Comet C/2012 S1 ISON.(...)Read the rest of Will Comet ISON Dazzle our Skies? An Expert Weighs In (884 words) © David…

• Uranus Is Being Chased By Asteroids!

  Elizabeth Howell

  18 Jun 2013 | 7:57 am

  Image Credit: Lawrence Sromovsky, (Univ. Wisconsin-Madison), Keck Observatory As Uranus speeds in its orbit in the solar system, there are three large space rocks that are in lockstep with the gas giant, according to new simulations. Two of them are wobbling in unstable “horseshoe” orbits near Uranus, while the third is in a more reliable Trojan orbit that is always 60 degrees in front of the planet. The largest of this small group is the asteroid Crantor, which is 44 miles (70 kilometers) wide. Its horseshoe orbit, and that of companion 2010 EU65, means the space rocks seesaw…

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  Astroblog

• The Sky This Week - Thursday June 20 to Thursday June 27

  18 Jun 2013 | 1:30 am

  Earth is at solstice on Friday June 21. The Full Moon is Sunday June 23. At this time it will be closer to Earth than any other time this year (a so called "Super Moon"). Mars rises in the morning twilight. Venus and Mercury are close together in the evening twilight. Saturn is high in the evening skies. The Moon occults the bright star alpha Librae 2 on the 20th.The Full Moon is Sunday June 23. At this time the Moon will be at perigee, when it is closest to the Earth. This is the closest perigee for 2013 at 356989 km. A full Moon at perigee has been called a "SuperMoon", this is not an…

• The "Super Moon" of June 23, 2013

  17 Jun 2013 | 1:35 pm

  The Full Moon is Sunday June 23 in Australia. At this time the Moon will be at perigee, when it is closest to the Earth. This is the closest perigee for 2013 at 356989 km. A full Moon at perigee has been called a "Super Moon", this is not an astronomical term, but an astrological one (see also here). While the Moon is close, it will have no real effect (or be distinguishable without a telescope and a good memory).The Moon at Perigee and apogee as seen through a telescope. With the unaided eye, the Moon only appears half a finger-width wide, so the difference is much harder to see. This months…

• Carnival of Space #306 is Here!

  17 Jun 2013 | 5:10 am

  Carnival of Space #306 is now up at the Urban Astronomer. There is a Black Hole Bonanza, science outreach in libraries, Martian Streambeds, robotics for space development and more! Clank on over and have a read.

• Occultation of alpha2 Librae (Zubenelgenubi) by the Moon, June 20, 2013

  17 Jun 2013 | 4:39 am

  The evening sky facing east in Sydney on June 20 at 5:05 pm AEST showing the waxing Moon just about to cover alpha2 Librae (Zubenelgenubi). (similar views will be seen from other locations at a similar local time eg 5:08 AEST Canberra). The inset shows a telescopic view of the Moon at 5:05 pm AEST, with alpha2 Librae about to go behind the Moon.The waxing Moon passes in front of the bright alpha2 Librae in the constellation of Libra on the evening of June 20. Alpha2 Librae, which rejoices in the name Zubenelgenubi, is a bright white star readily visible to the unaided eye (magnitude 2.8). The…

• Don't Forget CosmoQuest Hang-out-a-thon on Now!

  16 Jun 2013 | 6:52 am

  The CosmoQuest Hangout-a-thon is on now! just to remind you: Faced with governmental funding cuts to science education and research, we have decided to go old school with a twist: On June 15-16, we are hosting a telethon using Google Hangout on Air – a Hangout-a-thon – to raise money to support public engagement in science.If you want to be part of this awesome hangout here's where you find out more.- Blog post: http://bit.ly/18U733k- Schedule of Events: http://bit.ly/15VFNgv- FB Event: http://on.fb.me/15VNyTDAnd you can donate here…

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  Hogg's Research

• exoSAMSI day seven, injection and recovery

  18 Jun 2013 | 12:56 pm

  While Baines (Davis) and Dawson (CfA) worked on the statistics of the amplitudes of wavelet-tranform elements (to build intuition for our likelihood function), the rest of the team, including especially Montet (Caltech), Barclay (Ames), and Foreman-Mackey worked on doing approximate one-dimensional (lightcurve-level) injections of Earth-like planets on year-like orbital periods into a set of Solar-type stars chosen for us by Matijevic (Villanova). At time of writing (day isn't over), team is trying to close the loop of running an approximate search ("box least squares" or equivalent) on the…

• exoSAMSI day six, likelihood function

  17 Jun 2013 | 8:59 pm

  We had the big battle about the form for a likelihood for exoplanet search and characterization late in the day, with Baines (Davis) leading the discussion. There was a huge disagreement about the realism of the model—as there always is—with some saying we should split stellar and spacecraft contributions to the lightcurve variability, and some wanting to mush them together. The former is the Right Thing To Do (tm) when you are going hierarchical, because it permits you to pool data from multiple stars on the same part of the detector (for the instrument model) and multiple stars…

• exoSAMSI day five, wavelets

  14 Jun 2013 | 4:56 pm

  Wavelets. Yes, you thought they were cool in the 1980s. Apparently they are back. Almost every statistician at this workshop has mentioned them to me, and after two days of hard work, I am convinced: If you wavelet transform the space in which you do your inference, you can lay down an independent (diagonal) Gaussian Process but still produce exceedingly nontrivial covariance functions. We are looking at whether we can model the Kepler data this way. The idea is to use the wavelets to make it possible to marginalize out all possible stellar variability consistent with the data.Baines (Davis)…

• exoSAMSI day four, centroids

  13 Jun 2013 | 8:54 am

  Barclay (Ames) blew us away this morning by pointing out the incredibly useful fact that the Kepler sensitivity to a star is a very strong function of the centroid position of the star in the pixel space, and that the data from Kepler include this information (both measured and predicted). Awesome! I think this is going to have a big impact on our activity. Indeed, Montet (Caltech) pointed out that this alone is a publishable idea. Foreman-Mackey and Montet went off to build a model of this effect. As my loyal reader might guess, I have been pushing my working group hard with the idea that…

• exoSAMSI day three, likelihood function, wavelets

  12 Jun 2013 | 8:59 pm

  We generated a scope for the detrending working group at SAMSI, which is to concentrate on small planets on long periods around quiet G-type stars. That is, the signals that are most likely to make us famous. We put deliverables for each Friday for the next three Fridays. We began the discussion about what kinds of instrumental and astrophysical effects we would need to consider and also how to test methods that we want to consider.In the afternoon, Baines (Davis) and a bunch of other statisticians convinced me that wavelets are a great tool for modeling non-parametric, stochastic processes.

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  Astronomy Cmarchesin

• NASA-Led Study Explains Decades of Black Hole Observations

  17 Jun 2013 | 8:00 pm

  A new study by astronomers at NASA, Johns Hopkins University and the Rochester Institute of Technology confirms long-held suspicions about how stellar-mass black holes produce their highest-energy light. "Our work traces the complex motions, particle interactions and turbulent magnetic fields in billion-degree gas on the threshold of a black hole, one of the most extreme physical environments in the universe," said lead researcher Jeremy Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. By analyzing a supercomputer simulation of gas flowing into a black…

• Black Hole Naps Amidst Stellar Chaos

  16 Jun 2013 | 8:10 pm

  The Sculptor galaxy (NGC253) is seen in a new light, in this composite image from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European Southern Observatory in Chile. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHU.  › Full image and caption    › NuSTAR view onlyNearly a decade ago, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory caught signs of what appeared to be a black hole snacking on gas at the middle of the nearby Sculptor galaxy. Now, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), which sees higher-energy X-ray light, has taken a peek and found the black hole…

• Cosmic Giants Shed New Light on Dark Matter

  16 Jun 2013 | 8:00 pm

  An international team of astronomers (Note) from Taiwan, England, and Japan has used the Subaru Telescope to measure the distribution of dark matter in fifty galaxy clusters and found that its density gradually decreases from the center of these cosmic giants to their diffuse outskirts. This new evidence about the mysterious dark matter that pervades our Universe conforms to the predictions of cold dark matter theory, known as "CDM".Few scientists seriously doubt the existence of dark matter, which researchers discovered almost eighty years ago. Nevertheless, astronomers cannot directly see…

• Stacking up a clearer picture of the Universe

  14 Jun 2013 | 8:00 pm

  Jacinta studies distant galaxies like those shown in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope, using the new 'stacking' technique to gather information only available through radio telescope observations. Credit: NASA, STScI, and ESA. Full resolution available for download externally (Wikimedia Commons.) Stacking up a clearer picture of the Universe from ICRAR on Vimeo.As more galaxies are added to the stacked radio spectrum, the signal rises out of the noise, providing valuable information to Jacinta Delhaize about the Universe’s history. Credit: Jacinta Delhaize, ICRAR. Jacinta Delhaize…

• Hubble Uncovers Evidence for Extrasolar Planet Under Construction

  13 Jun 2013 | 8:10 pm

  TW HydraeCredit: NASA ESA, J. Debes (STScI), H. Jang-Condell (University of Wyoming), A. Weinberger (Carnegie Institution of Washington), A. Roberge (Goddard Space Flight Center), G. Schneider (University of Arizona/Steward Observatory), and A. Feild (STScI/AURANearly 900 extrasolar planets have been confirmed to date, but now for the first time astronomers think they are seeing compelling evidence for a planet under construction in an unlikely place, at a great distance from its diminutive red dwarf star.The keen vision of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected a mysterious gap in a vast…

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  The Urban Astronomer

• Hercules

  15 Jun 2013 | 12:58 pm

  The Stars of HerculesThe early summer skies feature a fascinating constellation that climbs high into the night sky and provides several interesting features to see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. Hercules is the Roman mythological hero that is adapted from the Greek hero Heracles. In the night sky, he is kneeling in the sky with a club overhead, engaged in battle with other mythological enemies throughout the heavens. Similar to Orion the Hunter, Hercules has a distinctive shape; in stark contrast to Orion, Hercules has no bright stars - no first magnitude stars, and only one…

• Transitions in the Evening Twilight

  2 Jun 2013 | 6:42 am

  Every night, the sky appears a bit different to us, and in June as the long days of summer unfold, the sunset sky changes more rapidly than usual. The trio of planets that dominated dusk are now a pair, as Mercury and Venus climb higher into the west, and the bright stars and constellations of winter rapidly fade from view.June's evening skyThe bright twin stars Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini are dropping gradually into the western sky after sunset, and the later and later onset of darkness combine with the change in position to speed these two stars out of view over the coming…

• The Dance of the Planets - a spectacular celestial alignment

  22 May 2013 | 10:45 pm

  This week is the culmination of a spectacular celestial alignment, creating a rare and beautiful triangle of three planets on Sunday 26th. The planets will be low in the west after sunset, and as the glare of the sunset fades, the three bright dots of light will emerge from that glare, and if you have a good western view, you'll see them for a short window of time before they set.The Triangle of PlanetsJupiter has been dominating the night sky for months, but each successive night has brought it closer to the time when it slips 'behind' the Sun, from our vantage point, and is shielded from…

• Planetary Trio 'Warm Up Act'

  10 May 2013 | 4:18 pm

  During the month of May, three planets are going to move into a very close alignment, and the set up begins this week with the Moon adding some color to the scene for a few days. The two fast-moving inner planets, Mercury and Venus, are going to be coming into view in the west shortly after sunset, joining the massive Jupiter as it slowly fades out of view into the twilight. The dynamics of these changes is not easy to explain in a short blog post, but because of the fact that inner and outer planets appear to move differently from our Earth-bound perspective, the planets will all appear to…

• SkyWeek video - an excellent online astronomy resource

  30 Apr 2013 | 10:23 pm

  There are many astronomy resources on the web that help you to better understand the night sky. One of the finest is the 5 minute video from Sky & Telescope Magazine entitled SkyWeek. Hosted by associate editor Tony Flanders, I find these weekly videos to be quite illuminating, combining the highlights of the night sky with science and understanding of the things you are seeing. Tony delivers all of this with a great sense of wonder and enthusiasm, without talking down to the audience. I always feel like I am being taught something new and interesting, combining simple observations with…

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  Astronomy with Inc

• Silver Rock Photoshoot

  6 Jun 2013 | 7:13 pm

  Below are few of my first snaps of the Moon taken on April 3rd, 2013, using Nikon D5100 along with my M42 (Orion StarSeeker 130 Telescope). Also used a Moon Filter. These photos were taken using afocal method and so the images are not properly focused.

• Spotting the ISS

  12 May 2013 | 8:42 am

  It was on the evening of 2nd of May, I was riding on my way to work. Just as I was climbing Kattipara Jn, I saw a bright red object in the sky, quite close to Jupiter. I was quite surprised as there couldn't be any object so close to the Jupiter. I looked up again and realized it was moving slowing past the giant planet. I knew it had to be a satellite. After a week, I was checking the Stellarium to find out what that satellite was and I was surprised to know it was none other than ISS (International Space Station). Below is a screen shot from Stellarium.

• Milky Way - A Magic Beyond Imagination

  17 Mar 2013 | 7:21 pm

  Living in the heart of the city, it is impossible for us to see the beauty of the Milky Way. But we can see this natural beauty with the help of a digital camera. Last month, I went to the Marina Beach as early as 4:00 in the morning with my friend's DSLR (Nikon D5100). Using the Sky Map Android App, I identified the spot where the Milky Way would be at its brightest and took a few snaps of the night sky. And below is the result I got.The above picture was an epic failure. At first I tried to take the photos with different settings of ISO, aperture and shutter speed. After taking about 8…

• Airplane near Orion

  10 Mar 2013 | 12:34 pm

  Above is a picture I clicked a few months ago. I was trying to take a picture of the Orion Constellation when I realized an airplane had traveled right through the frame. After using the Photoshop to remove the sky noise (noise formed due to the city lights) the trail of the Airplane was visible clearly.The almost straight line in the bottom-middle of the picture is formed by the Airplane due to the 20-sec exposure. The White dots and the red dots around the line are caused by the flickering navigation lights of the Airplane.Apart from the Airplane we can also see the Orion Nebula…

• Comet Pan-STARRS - First Look

  5 Mar 2013 | 8:39 pm

  Below is the first picture of the Comet Pan-STARRS. The Comet looks really bright and promising. The Comet is currently visible in the Southern Hemisphere during the evening after sunset. In the Northern Hemisphere, the comet is still very close to the Sun and it cannot be seen yet.Comet Pan-STARRS illuminates the evening sky with a spectacular tail in Buenos Aires, Argentina on March 2, 2013The Comet is expected to make an appearance in the Northern Hemisphere by March 10th. Keep your binoculars and DSLRs ready.

• 

  The Imaging Source Astronomy Cameras Blog

• Annular Solar Eclipse from Gilbert Islands

  6 Jun 2013 | 3:00 pm

  Joanne and I travelled to the northern Tarawa island, Kiribati (Gilbert Islands) to witness the annular solar eclipse of 10 May 2013. The pictures at flickr are taken during the entire annular solar eclipse, and are a few of the 3000 images taken with the Lunt35 H-Alfa telescope and DMK 41AU02.AS CCD camera on EQ2 mount. The weather conditions were excellent and overall we missed only 10 minutes of coverage between contact I and contact IV due to some clouds. The observation with H-Alfa prolonged the annularity duration from 6 to 7 minutes. You can see the prominences and Bealy’s beads near…

• Lunar Astrophotography from the South of Germany

  29 May 2013 | 3:00 pm

  In the night of October 3rd 2012 I recorded a series of moon videos with my DMK 41AU02.AS camera which was mounted to a Celestron C11 OTA and a 2x Barlow (1/15s exposure time per frame, 15 fps). Seeing conditions were good (7/10). The pictures were taken in a rural area around 50 km north of Munich, Germany. The videos were processed with AviStack 2.0, Registax 6.1 (Wavelet Sharpening) and Adobe Photoshop CS5 (final processing). The enclosed picture shows the westward "coastline" of Mare Crisum and the prominent crater Macrobius (left upper corner). Michael Schuster

• Quiescent Prominence and Limb Flare/surge

  27 May 2013 | 3:00 pm

  2013 solar max' has not been as dramatic as the last, but it has certainly had its moments. Here are some images of a quiescent prominence that was quite active and a massive limb flare that produced a stunning surge prominence shot with a 4" ED refractor, Daystar ION 0.8A H-alpha filter and workhorse DMK 21AU618.AS. Jim Ferreira, Livermore CA. http://www.lafterhall.com/astro.html

• The Sun on April 1st, 2013

  3 Apr 2013 | 3:00 pm

  The Sun from 01-04-2013. Scope Lunt ls35, camera DMK 21AU618.AS, mount Skywatcher eq 6 pro. 9 frames of 30 sec, processing in Registax and Photoshop CS6. Gain 550, Exposure 1/10000, Auto max value 1/60 sec, Brightness 0. Leon KijkindeVegte, The Netherlands.

• Lunar Mosaic

  2 Apr 2013 | 3:00 pm

  Recent lunar mosaic. Equipment: Orion EQ-G Atlas Mount, Orion 80mm Apo Doublet scope, Camera DFK 21AU04.AS, Software IC Capture.AS, Registax 6. 350 frames of 1500. Corel PaintPro Shop X2. Mosaic comprised of 8 images. Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Please note that I started imaging when the moon still was low in the horizon. I was afraid of clouds invasion. Manuel Guerrero

• 

  sci.astro

• speed of gravity

  18 Jun 2013 | 1:18 pm

  All forces get more strong as they travel.  Gravity gets more strong asit travels - there is not any dark matter.God will punish people of the U.S. if they let bad people be judges,district attorneys and police.  Good people will look at my video manytimes to increase number - replay does not

• NO PHYSICS IS POSSIBLE WITHOUT CONSTANT SPEED OF LIGHT

  18 Jun 2013 | 12:55 am

  Einsteiniana's fundamental lie: At the end of the 19th century the Michelson-Morley experiment invalidated the principle of the addition of speeds established by Newton's theory so "it will no longer be possible to add two speeds without the intervention of c. No kinematics will be possible without

• Star Creation by Spiral Galaxy

  14 Jun 2013 | 7:54 am

  Star Creation...In the following treads we have discussed about the indication that  aspiral galaxy has the ability to generate an Hydrogen Atom:"What is a feasible way to generate an Atom?".http://www.spacebanter.com/showthread.php?t=196513 "The hydrogen "bridge" between Andromeda Galaxy and

• GEOMETRIZED GRAVITY: THE FUNDAMENTAL RED HERRING IN EINSTEINIANA

  11 Jun 2013 | 11:21 pm

  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9825/1/Lehmkuhl_Einstein_Geometrization.pdf Why Einstein did not believe that general relativity geometrizes gravity, Dennis Lehmkuhl: "I argue that, contrary to folklore, Einstein never really cared for geometrizing the gravitational or (subsequently) the electromag

• NO HOPE FOR SPECIAL RELATIVITY

  8 Jun 2013 | 11:10 am

  http://www.hep.man.ac.uk/u/roger/PHYS10302/lecture18.pdf Roger Barlow, Professor of Particle Physics: "The Doppler effect - changes in frequencies when sources or observers are in motion - is familiar to anyone who has stood at the roadside and watched (and listened) to the cars go by. It applies

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  uk.sci.astronomy

• Re: Lidl 8x60 bins

  17 Jun 2013 | 12:40 pm

  I'd already spent some time studying one of their battery chargers,checking the bins would have meant taking the soft case out of the boxand the bins out of the soft case. They're certainly bigger and heavierthan the 10x50s from the same source. I may try again in a day or two,there may be one

• Re: Lidl 8x60 bins

  17 Jun 2013 | 9:53 am

  a look.Did you take a look at them today?--The quick brown FF jumps over the lazy dog

• Lidl 8x60 bins

  11 Jun 2013 | 2:11 am

  £29.99, available from 2013-06-17 (Mo).If they're as good as their even cheaper 10x50s they could be worth a look.http://www.lidl.co.uk

• Re: Night light

  24 May 2013 | 8:31 am

  Silly boy. All meteorites come down at an hell of an angle, don't youever watch Hollywood films?All except the ones that hit the moon of course -and those gianormouscraters that kill dinosaurs. They invariably fall very close to theperpendicular. Everyone knows that. Even dinosaurs.

• Re: Night light

  23 May 2013 | 8:03 am

  IF the object was comming directly towards you and did not penatrate theatmosphere to far you may not have seen the trail

• 

  Big Picture Science

• Exoplanets

  17 Jun 2013 | 12:00 am

  You may be unique, but is your home planet? NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has uncovered thousands of planetary candidates, far far beyond our solar system. Some may be habitable and possibly even Earth-like. But now a failure in its steering apparatus may bring an abrupt end to this pioneering telescope’s search for new worlds. But Kepler has a massive legacy of data still to be studied. Many new worlds will undoubtedly be found in these data. Hear why the astronomer who has discovered the greatest number of exoplanets is hopeful about the hunt for alien life, and meet the next generation of…

• This Land Is Island

  10 Jun 2013 | 12:00 am

  There are many kinds of islands. There’s your iconic sandy speck of land topped with a palm tree, but there’s also our home planet – an island in the vast seas of space. You might think of yourself as a biological island … until you tally the number of microbes living outside – and inside – your body. We go island hopping, and consider the Scottish definition of an island – one man, one sheep – as well as the swelling threat of high water to island nations. Also, how species populate islands … and tricks for communicating with extraterrestrial islanders hanging out elsewhere…

• Cosmos: It's Big, It's Weird

  3 Jun 2013 | 12:00 am

  ENCORE It’s all about you. And you, and you, and you and you… that is, if we live in parallel universes. Imagine you doing exactly what you’re doing now, but in an infinite number of universes. Discover the multiverse theory and why repeats aren’t limited to summer television. Plus, the physics of riding on a light beam, and the creative analogies a New York Times science writer uses to avoid using the word “weird” to describe dark energy and other weird physics. Also, people who concoct their own theories (some would say fringe) of the universe: is all matter made up of tiny…

• ZZZZZs Please

  27 May 2013 | 12:00 am

  We’ve all hit the snooze button when the alarm goes off, but why do we crave sleep in the first place? We explore the evolutionary origins of sleep … the study of narcolepsy in dogs … and could novel drugs and technologies cut down on our need for those zzzzs. Plus, ditch your dream journal: a brain scanner may let you record – and play back – your dreams. And, branch out with the latest development in artificial light: bioluminescent trees. How gene tinkering may make your houseplants both grow and glow. Guests: Emmanuel Mignot – Professor of psychiatry and behavioral…

• Skeptic Check: Hostile Climate

  20 May 2013 | 12:00 am

  It’s a record we didn’t want to break. The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere hits the 400 parts-per-million mark, a level which some scientists say is a point of no return for stopping climate change. A few days later, a leading newspaper prints an op-ed essay that claims CO2 is getting a bad rap: it’s actually good for the planet. The more the better. Skeptic Phil Plait rebuts the CO2-is-awesome idea while a paleontologist paints a picture of what Earth was like when the notorious gas last ruled the planet. Note: humans weren’t around. Plus, our skit says NO to O2 ……

• 

  StarDate Online

• Evening Treats

  damonddb

  17 Jun 2013 | 10:00 pm

  The evening sky offers up a couple of nice conjunctions tonight. One of them disappears quickly, but the other lingers awhile. The early pairing is the planets Venus and Mercury. The two worlds are quite low in the west at sunset, and drop from view about the time it gets good and dark. If you have a clear horizon, though, you should be able to pick them out because Venus is the brilliant “evening star.” It’s far brighter than any of the other planets or stars in the night sky, so it stands out. In fact, the main problem is that you might not realize that it’s a planet — Venus is…

• Venus and Mercury

  damonddb

  16 Jun 2013 | 10:00 pm

  It takes a lot of hard work to explore the worlds of our solar system. Over the last five years, for example, scientists have analyzed thousands of pictures of Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, snapped by the Messenger spacecraft. Those pictures have revealed mountains, canyons, craters, and other features — many of which had never been seen before. But once you find all those features you have to name them — a job that’s not much easier than the exploration itself. Before Messenger, the only craft to visit Mercury had seen just half of the planet. Scientists came up with more…

• Painting a Planet

  damonddb

  16 Jun 2013 | 10:00 pm

  The crater Degas displays a bright blue color in this image of Mercury from the MESSENGER spacecraft. The blue material, which has been enhanced in this image, is actually quite dark. The craters on Mercury are named for painters, writers, musicians, and other artists. Earlier this year, the International Astronomical Union approved names for nine more craters. Among others, they honor Estonian novelist Betti Alver, horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, and Hawaiian guitarist Charles Pahinui. [NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Inst.-Washington] Text ©2013 The University of Texas at Austin McDonald…

• Breaking Ground

  damonddb

  15 Jun 2013 | 10:00 pm

  RADIO MOSCOW: This is Radio Moscow. Here is a special announcement. For the first time in history, a woman has gone up into outer space. A Soviet citizen, Tereshkova. Valentina Tereshkova was a 22-year-old textile worker when she decided to take up a hobby — skydiving. She became so good at it that a couple of years later she earned the attention of the Soviet Union’s space program. She was one of five women selected to train for a trip to orbit. And 50 years ago today, she became the only one of them to fly — the first woman in space. At the time, space travel was a powerful symbol of…

• Galactic Thief

  damonddb

  14 Jun 2013 | 10:00 pm

  About two dozen satellite galaxies orbit the Milky Way, which is a giant among galaxies. By far the brightest of these satellites is the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is best seen from the southern hemisphere. There’s evidence that it owes some of its luster to galactic thievery: It stole some of its stars from another galaxy. The Large Magellanic Cloud is about 160,000 light-years from Earth, making it one of our nearest galactic neighbors. It’s only about one-tenth as bright as the Milky Way, and just one-hundredth as heavy. It’s easily visible to the unaided eye — but only from…

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  Remanzacco Observatory - Comets & Neo

• New Comet: C/2013 L2 (CATALINA)

  Team

  9 Jun 2013 | 2:03 am

  Cbet nr. 3548, issued on 2013, June 09, announces the discovery of an apparently asteroidal object (discovery magnitude ~19.6)  by R. A. Kowalski on CCD images obtained with the Catalina Sky Survey 0.68-m Schmidt telescopeon June 02.  After posting on the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP webpage, this apparently asteroidal object as been found to show cometary features by by astrometric observers elsewhere. The new comet has been designated C/2013 L2 (CATALINA).We performed follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the neocp. Stacking of 18 R-filtered exposures, 30-sec…

• Possible Nova in Sco - PNV J17335943-3606216

  Team

  3 Jun 2013 | 11:40 am

  Following the posting on the Central Bureau's Transient Object Confirmation Page about a possible Nova in Sco (TOCP Designation: PNV J17335943-3606216) we performed some follow-up of this object remotely through the 0.50-m f/6.8 astrograph + CCD + f/4.5 focal reducer of iTelescope network (MPC Code  Q62 - Siding Spring, AU).On our images taken on June 03.7, 2013 we can confirm the presence of an optical counterpart with unfiltered CCD magnitude 11.5 at coordinates:R.A. = 17 33 59.44, Decl.= -36 06 20.7(equinox 2000.0; UCAC-3 catalogue reference stars).Our annotated confirmation image…

• Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) - Update May 20, 2013

  Team

  20 May 2013 | 12:06 pm

  Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) was discovered on September 21, 2012 by Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok on CCD images obtained with a 0.4-m f/3 Santel reflector of the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) near Kislovodsk, Russia. Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) will get to within 0.012AU of the Sun (extremely close) at the end of  November 2013 and then to ~0.4AU from Earth at the end of December 2013! According to its orbit, this comet might become a naked-eye object in the period November 2013 - January 2014. And it might reach a negative magnitude at the end of November 2013. For more…

• Close Approach of Asteroid (285263) 1998 QE2

  Team

  17 May 2013 | 12:23 pm

  Asteroid (285263) 1998 QE2 was discovered on Aug. 19, 1998, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid  Research (LINEAR) program.1998 QE2 has an estimated size of 1.3 km - 2.9 km (based on the object's absolute magnitude H=16.6). It was observed by the Spitzer Space Telescope by Trilling et al. (2010), who estimated that it has a diameter of 2.7 km and a dark optical albedo of  0.06. This asteroid will have a close  approach with Earth at about 15.2 LD (Lunar Distances = ~384,000 kilometers) or 0.0392 AU (1 AU = ~150 million kilometers) at …

• New Comet: C/2013 G9 (TENAGRA)

  Team

  19 Apr 2013 | 1:39 pm

  Cbet nr. 3478, issued on 2013, April 19, announces the discovery of a apparently asteroidal object (discovery magnitude ~19.6) by M. Schwartz and P. R. Holvorcem on CCD images obtained with the Tenagra II 0.41-m f/3.75 astrograph located near Nogales, AZ, U.S.A.After posting on the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP webpage, this apparently asteroidal object as been found to show cometary features by our team. Stacking of 12 R-filtered exposures, 50-sec each, obtained remotely from Haleakala-Faulkes Telescope North on 2013, April 18.4, through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD (operated by…

• 

  365 Days of Astronomy

• June 18th: GRAIL and the Mystery of the Mascons

  avivah yamani

  18 Jun 2013 | 5:44 am

  Podcaster: Nancy Atkinson, Dr. Jay Melosh Title: GRAIL and the Mystery of the Mascons Organization: NASA Lunar Science Institute ; http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/ Links: NLSI Music:  “Amelia” by Ben Bedford from his “Land of the Shadows” CD. http://benbedford.com/ Related press release from NASA; http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-184 Description:  The lunar gravity field is rather lumpy and bumpy, affecting spacecraft orbits and making landing on the Moon a tricky challenge. Scientist have known the cause of the lumpy gravity since 1968, when they discovered areas…

• June 17th: Astronomy Cast talk about Planetary Motion in the Sky

  avivah yamani

  17 Jun 2013 | 5:48 am

  Podcaster: Fraser Cain and Dr Pamela Gay Title: Astronomy Cast eps 302 : Planetary Motion in the Sky Organization: Astronomy Cast – http://www.astronomycast.com Link :  http://youtu.be/nFdekBL_OTs The video has been aired live on google hangout June 6th, 2013 Description:  Even the ancient astronomers knew there was something different about the planets. Unlike the rest of the stars, the planets move across the sky, backwards and forwards, round and round. It wasn’t until Copernicus that we finally had a modern notion of what exactly is going on. Bio: Fraser Cain is the publisher…

• June 16th: Space Stories presents Chocolate Zombies

  avivah yamani

  16 Jun 2013 | 4:00 am

  Podcaster:  Pamela Quevillon Title: Space Stories presents Scott Sigler’s “Chocolate Zombies” Organization: Speak Easy Narration Link :  http://speakeasynarration.com ; http://freewifionmars.com Description: A tale  of what’s happened when wrong radiation gets involved with the wrong object.  One of the short stories on Free WIFI on Mars Bio: Pamela Quevillon is a voice actress who most often lends her voice to science and science fiction content. You can find her work on the “Escape Pod” and “365 Days of Astronomy”, as well as on her site Today’s sponsor: This…

• June 15th: All Aboard the Mars Express

  avivah yamani

  15 Jun 2013 | 5:00 am

  Podcaster:  Pamela Quevillon Title:  All Aboard the Mars Express Organization: Speak Easy Narration Link :  http://speakeasynarration.com ; http://www.unawe.org/kids/unawe1343/ Featured image credited to : ESA Description:  This is the 3rd audio from Space Scoop, a product of “Universe Awareness”. Our goal is to inspire every child with our wonderful cosmos. Bio: Pamela Quevillon is a voice actress who most often lends her voice to science and science fiction content. You can find her work on the “Escape Pod” and “365 Days of Astronomy”, as well as on…

• June 14th: Weekly Space Highlight : From Pulsars to Soyuz

  avivah yamani

  14 Jun 2013 | 5:34 am

  Podcaster:  Fraser Cain, David Dickinson, Jason Major Title:  Weekly Space Hangout: Astronomy Highlight on June 7th Link : http://cosmoquest.org You can watch the video in: http://youtu.be/fSxl-v6teMA This audio has been aired in live streaming on June 7th, 2013 Description:   The Weekly Space Hangout is your round-up of the top news stories in space and astronomy from our expert journalists, scientists, and space aficionados. Bio: Fraser Cain, Publisher of Universe Today; David Dickinson, the astroguyz and writer in Universe Today; Jason Major from Light in the Dark Today’s sponsor:…

• 

  Internet Archive

• ATMsig June 2013

  5 Jun 2013 | 7:33 pm

  TelescopeMan records the June 2013 ATMsig meeting of the Texas Astronomical Society of Dallas. This month's meeting features, a binocular chair, a Sonotube for a Dobsonian mounted telescope, and an ambitious member who is melting his own glass for a telescope mirror....This item has files of the following types: Animated GIF, Archive BitTorrent, Flash Video, Metadata, Ogg Video, Thumbnail, h.264

• Astro Day May 2013

  30 May 2013 | 8:11 am

  The Texas Astronomical Society holds Astronomy Day at the Russell Planetarium in Mesquite, Texas.  www.texasastro.orgwww.telescopeman.org.This item has files of the following types: Animated GIF, Archive BitTorrent, Flash Video, Metadata, Ogg Video, Thumbnail, h.264

• ATMSIG March 2013

  27 Mar 2013 | 4:49 pm

  Amateur Telescope Makeing Meeting.This item has files of the following types: Animated GIF, Archive BitTorrent, Flash Video, Metadata, Ogg Video, Thumbnail, h.264

• KWM 2 Receive Mode

  9 Mar 2013 | 12:08 pm

  TelescopeMan performs one of the first receive tests on the old Collins KWM 2 transceiver. The radio setup for receiving signals is shown in this video.Clear skies and 73.www.telescopeman.orgwww.telescopeman.uswww.tel;escopeman.info.This item has files of the following types: Animated GIF, Archive BitTorrent, Flash Video, Metadata, Ogg Video, Thumbnail, h.264

• Skynet

  8 Mar 2013 | 7:39 pm

  TelescopeMan discusses the SKYNET Astronomy radio broadcast; which is sponsorered by the Dallas Amateur Radio Club. See their web site at  www.w5fc.org  for links to the shows audio feed. SKYNET is broadcasted every Saturday night at 9PM, Central Time.www.telescopeman.orgwww.telescopeman.uswww.tel....This item has files of the following types: Archive BitTorrent, Metadata, Ogg Vorbis, VBR MP3

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  Andromeda Child

• What's The Matter With Dark Matter?

  2 Jun 2013 | 1:20 pm

  ByJUDITH E BRAFFMAN-MILLER Our bewitching sky at night is blazing with fiery luminous objects, such as stars and galaxies. However, most of the matter in our Universe is "dark"--or, more precisely, invisible--and scientists are "in the dark" about its alluring and mysterious nature--hence its name, "dark matter"! This bizarre substance is believed to be composed of exotic non-atomic particles that do not interact with light--which is why it is invisible. Although scientists are in the process of rapidly closing in on the elusive identity of this weird and abundant stuff, its nature is still…

• Skylights Bite Size 29 - June 2013 Night Sky Guide

  2 Jun 2013 | 1:08 pm

  By ANDY FLEMING Full Moon in June is on the 23rd.  This superb photograph was taken just hours before such a full phase in delightfully clear skies over Nottingham. It features eye-catching bright rays extending from the prominent young crater Tycho in the Moon's southern hemisphere. The slightly colour enhanced image also brings out subtle shades of blue, a real characteristic of terrain with a high content of titanium oxide and iron. The blue lunar terrain on the right includes the dark flat expanse of the Sea of Tranquility and the Apollo 11 landing…

• Jumping Jupiter! It's "Einstein's Planet"!

  27 May 2013 | 1:46 pm

  ByJUDITH BRAFFMAN-MILLER  This artist's concept shows the huge, scorching-hot "Einstein's planet," formally known as Kepler-76b, orbiting its host star, which has been tidally distorted into a slight football shape (exaggerated here for effect). The planet was detected by David A. Aguilar (CfA) The search for planets in orbit around stars other than our own Sun has proven to be a long and difficult quest, and their ultimate discovery almost a generation ago is certainly one of humanity's greatest achievements. The first extrasolar planet orbiting a star like our own Sun was detected back…

• Skylights Bite Size 28 - NASA's Voyager Spacecraft

  27 May 2013 | 1:21 pm

  By ANDY FLEMING It's August 20 1977 and the NASA/JPL Voyager 2 spacecraft launches atop a Titan IIIE/Centaur heavy lift booster from the NASA Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It's trajectory, that encompassed the famed 'grand tour' of the planets of the outer solar system, their rings and moons was planned to exquisite levels of accuracy using the centuries-old Newtonian Laws of Motion and Universal Gravitation. Credit: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA-Marshall Spaceflight Centre). We take a look at NASA's veteran spacecraft Voyagers 1 an 2 and their amazing tour of the…

• Skylights Bite Size 27 - April 2013 Night Sky Guide

  8 Apr 2013 | 1:46 pm

  By ANDY FLEMING The ringed world Saturn is looking particularly stunning at opposition this month. (Image courtesy, NASA/JPL). Our night sky guide for April 2013. Highlights this month are Saturn, Venus, The Moon, The Pleiades and The Hyades. MP3 DOWNLOAD FOR YOUR FAVOURITE MEDIA PLAYER Skylights Bite Size 27 - April 2013 Night Sky Guide Download this episode (right click and save) Podcast also available on Skylights is featured on Solid Gold Sunday each Sunday afternoon at 1425h UTC on 102.4FM in Hartlepool/East Durham, UK and live around the world online at…

• 

  Andromeda Child

• What's The Matter With Dark Matter?

  2 Jun 2013 | 1:20 pm

  ByJUDITH E BRAFFMAN-MILLER Our bewitching sky at night is blazing with fiery luminous objects, such as stars and galaxies. However, most of the matter in our Universe is "dark"--or, more precisely, invisible--and scientists are "in the dark" about its alluring and mysterious nature--hence its name, "dark matter"! This bizarre substance is believed to be composed of exotic non-atomic particles that do not interact with light--which is why it is invisible. Although scientists are in the process of rapidly closing in on the elusive identity of this weird and abundant stuff, its nature is still…

• Skylights Bite Size 29 - June 2013 Night Sky Guide

  2 Jun 2013 | 1:08 pm

  By ANDY FLEMING Full Moon in June is on the 23rd.  This superb photograph was taken just hours before such a full phase in delightfully clear skies over Nottingham. It features eye-catching bright rays extending from the prominent young crater Tycho in the Moon's southern hemisphere. The slightly colour enhanced image also brings out subtle shades of blue, a real characteristic of terrain with a high content of titanium oxide and iron. The blue lunar terrain on the right includes the dark flat expanse of the Sea of Tranquility and the Apollo 11 landing…

• Jumping Jupiter! It's "Einstein's Planet"!

  27 May 2013 | 1:46 pm

  ByJUDITH BRAFFMAN-MILLER  This artist's concept shows the huge, scorching-hot "Einstein's planet," formally known as Kepler-76b, orbiting its host star, which has been tidally distorted into a slight football shape (exaggerated here for effect). The planet was detected by David A. Aguilar (CfA) The search for planets in orbit around stars other than our own Sun has proven to be a long and difficult quest, and their ultimate discovery almost a generation ago is certainly one of humanity's greatest achievements. The first extrasolar planet orbiting a star like our own Sun was detected back…

• Skylights Bite Size 28 - NASA's Voyager Spacecraft

  27 May 2013 | 1:21 pm

  By ANDY FLEMING It's August 20 1977 and the NASA/JPL Voyager 2 spacecraft launches atop a Titan IIIE/Centaur heavy lift booster from the NASA Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It's trajectory, that encompassed the famed 'grand tour' of the planets of the outer solar system, their rings and moons was planned to exquisite levels of accuracy using the centuries-old Newtonian Laws of Motion and Universal Gravitation. Credit: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA-Marshall Spaceflight Centre). We take a look at NASA's veteran spacecraft Voyagers 1 an 2 and their amazing tour of the…

• Skylights Bite Size 27 - April 2013 Night Sky Guide

  8 Apr 2013 | 1:46 pm

  By ANDY FLEMING The ringed world Saturn is looking particularly stunning at opposition this month. (Image courtesy, NASA/JPL). Our night sky guide for April 2013. Highlights this month are Saturn, Venus, The Moon, The Pleiades and The Hyades. MP3 DOWNLOAD FOR YOUR FAVOURITE MEDIA PLAYER Skylights Bite Size 27 - April 2013 Night Sky Guide Download this episode (right click and save) Podcast also available on Skylights is featured on Solid Gold Sunday each Sunday afternoon at 1425h UTC on 102.4FM in Hartlepool/East Durham, UK and live around the world online at…