... Irregular Galaxy Sextans A . ... Their newly formed, bright, blue star clusters found along beautiful, symmetric spiral arms are guaranteed to attract attention. But small irregular galaxies form stars too, like this lovely, gumdrop-shaped galaxy, Sextans A. Hot Gas In Hydra A . ... But individual galaxies are too cool to be recorded in this false-color Chandra Observatory X-ray image which shows only the 40 million degree gas that permeates the Hydra A cluster. ... Spot The Planet . ...

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 Unit Telescopes Overview - This page is outdated, an update is in process.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 Secondary mirror (M2 Unit) - This page is outdated, an update is in process.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 Coating Unit - This page is outdated, an update is in process.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

... 2000 December 8 . Abell 1795: A Galaxy Cluster's Cooling Flow . ... Astronomers have realized since the early 1970s that the larger swarms, immense clusters of galaxies millions of light-years across, are immersed within tenuous clouds of hot gas which glow strongly in x-rays. ... This Chandra Observatory x-ray image reveals a striking cooling flow in the central regions of the galaxy cluster cataloged as Abell 1795. ... About APOD | ...

... 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. ...

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! ...

... Telescopes . ... The time requests are accepted in an electronic version with on-line form in Russian or English. ... Unregistered request will be disregarded by the Large Telescopes Programm Committee. In exclusive cases the secreatry of the Committee is entitled to accept an observational time request given permission of the Chairman of the Committee or the director of the SAO RAS. The Program Committee considers generally one time request submitted by the principal applicant. ...

... Observing . ... Subscriber Extras . ... Web Extras . ... Globular cluster NGC 2808, elliptical galaxy NGC 2986, and the Sextans Dwarf . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... Web Extra: Astronomers animate one of the largest galaxy clusters ever observed . ... At the center of the Phoenix Cluster, a large elliptical galaxy lurks where the hot gas is ejected, giving off unprecedented levels of X-rays, which have been observed by the orbiting Chandra X-ray telescope. ...

... 2000 January 12 . NGC 6791: An Old, Large Open Cluster . ... Explanation: NGC 6791 is one of the oldest and largest open clusters of stars known. ... Open star cluster NGC 6791 , however, contains thousands of stars recently measured to be about 8 billion years old. ... This enigma makes NGC 6791, pictured above , one of the most studied open clusters and a possible example of how stars might evolve in the centers of galaxies. ... About APOD | ...

... R. Michael Rich, University of California - Los Angeles . HST Imaging of UV emission in Quiescent Early-type Galaxies . Abstract . ... The Difference Between Neutral- and Ionized-Gas Metal Abundances in Local Star-Forming Galaxies with COS . ... Since then, there have been numerous other observations, including Hubble's images of proplyds (protoplanetary disks) in the Orion Cluster, and Hubble and Spitzer observations of edge-on disks in other young stars. ... Past weeks: . ...

... Two Kinds of Non-Baryonic Dark Matter: Cold vs Hot . Non-baryonic dark matter comes in two basic forms: hot and cold. ... A cold dark matter (CDM) universe gives rise to much different structure formation modes than a hot dark matter (HDM) universe. ... Unlike CDM, HDM has one real particle candidate, the neutrino . ... At the point where kT = neutrino rest mass the universe has some horizon size, r hor and variations in neutrino density can only occur on scales larger than r hor . ...

home publications > mercury . ... Big Clusters, Tiny Galaxies . ... Astronomers struggle to understand why giant star clusters form in the tiniest of galaxies . ... These clusters are probably young versions of globular clusters, but they are commonly called super star clusters. Seven dwarf galaxies within 16 million light-years have formed super star clusters, with one of these galaxies, NGC 1569, possessing two young clusters. ... Super star clusters have a lot to tell us about star formation. ...