... 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. ...

... It is so close to its parent star that its heated atmosphere is simply expanding away into space. ... MWC 922: The Red Square Nebula . ... M3: Inconstant Star Cluster . ... And if you can find Venus tonight, you can also easily find the lovely Pleiades star cluster (aka M45) close by. ... Hurtling through a cosmic dust cloud a mere 400 light-years away, the lovely Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster is well-known in astronomical images for its striking blue reflection nebulae. ...

... 2012 February 29 . Moon and Planets Over Catalonia . ... Explanation: Venus and Jupiter will appear unusually close in the sky over the next month. ... In the above image composite taken late last week from Catalonia , Spain , a bright crescent moon appears to the right of Venus, while Jupiter appears near the top of the image. ... A gallery of conjunction images is visible on the Asterisk -- APOD's discussion board. ... The next Jupiter-Venus conjunction will occur in May 2013. ... About APOD | ...

I like a lot astronomical pictures: so I start collecting some appeared in Internet, from various sources as ESO, Nasa, JPL, and many other astronomical sites. ... Some images are copyrighted, so look and enjoy, but do not use for profit. ... Mars and NASA Pathfinder site. Jupiter . ... Shoemaker-Levi impact on Jupiter . Comets and associated images . ... Messier catalog full set of images. ... Ready to print postscript version of some images . My Home Page . Arcetri IR Home Page ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... Observing . ... Sky this Month . ... Astronomy for Kids . ... Can you explain Mercury's retrograde motion? Do other planets appear to do this also? ... When astronomers talk about retrograde motion, generally they refer to the apparent motion outer planets make as Earth passes them while orbiting the Sun. ... Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ... Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly email newsletter. ...

Most of these images were obtained by Mike Bessell, Michelle Buxton, Hwankyung Sung, Ralph Sutherland and Bob Watson at SSO using a 2Kx2K Site CCD behind a Nikon or Hasselblad lens or directly on the 1m telescope. A few images are from the Hubble Space Telescope. Some of the M42 images were obtained with the KPNO 1m and ESO NTT telescope. One image is a mosaic of IRAS images. ... Details of the CCD imaging program at MSSSO. ... antenna.jpg (53KB) . ... ngc6744.jpg (59KB) . ...

Neptune . ... Triton . Neptune 291k gif . Full Disk Neptune 93k gif ; 29k jpg . ... New Dark spot 25k jpg ; 113k gif ; caption ; press release . ... Another thin Crescent of Neptune 166k gif . ... low resolution shot of Neptune, possibly showing great black spot 210k gif . ... Parting view of Neptune and moon Triton 59k gif ; 17k gif ; 23k jpg . ... Small Dark Spot 190k gif ; 133k jpg . Small Dark Spot 55k gif ; 23k jpg . ... The Great Dark Spot 423k gif ; 153k gif ; 97k jpg . ...

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 . ...

. Image created by Miruna Popescu, showing some of the objects displayed in the Armagh Observatory's Human Orrery. Original images from NASA were used.

... This disc of cosmic dust will one day form into planets. ... Just 4.5 billion years ago our very own Earth was born from a similar disc. ... They measured a bitterly cold temperature of ?266њC. Not only is that much colder than they?d anticipated but it?s only 7 њC above absolute zero. Absolute zero is the coldest temperature possible ? ... The coldest temperature ever recorded was in a laboratory on Earth where the temperature dipped to a glacial -273 њC (less than 1 њC above absolute zero!) ...

... How to Spot a Pale Blue Dot in the Night Sky - Signatures of Life on Extrasolar Planets . ... Frame 2: Steamy atmosphere, an ocean is covering the entire planet, no oxygen is present, timeline about four billion years ago. ... Using such telescopes as Kepler, James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Darwin and Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), and masking the star light, the light from small Earth-like planets can be collected and analyzed. ... Copyright (c) Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston, Inc. ...

Name Sun What is wrong with this picture? ... Shadow Name Make this shadow appear below by using the shapes in front of you and a flashlight. How many shapes can make this shadow? ... Why? 2 pm Name Sun Draw in the shadow for each planet. Name 12 1 11 2 10 9 3 8 4 765 12 1 11 2 10 3 9 8 4 765 12 1 11 2 10 3 9 8 4 5 76 12 Noon Boston San Franciso London If it is 12 noon in Boston, Massachusetts, what time is it in the other two cities? ... Name Using a flashlight, how can you make these shapes? ...

... Active Disk Building in a Local HI-massive LIRG . by Michelle Cluver (UCT) . ... However, the mid-infrared uncovers a star-forming disk housing an intense starburst with a star formation rate of approximately 21 Msun/yr (Cluver et al. 2008 , 2010 ).This luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG) appears to be undergoing asymmetric inside-out disk building, with a star formation efficiency comparable to local disk galaxies and quite different to merger-driven starbursts. ... today * ATNF | ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Armagh Planetarium . ... Moon . Planets . ... Space Flight . ... A gorgeous image of the real ?Lord of the Rings? ... Saturn is a big planet, about nine times as wide as the Earth, so the rings are huge. Let me put them into scale, if Saturn and the rings were moved so that one edge of the rings touched the Earth, then the distance across the rings to the opposite edge would extend more than halfway to the Moon. ... Saturn has a lot of moons. ...

Making HST Pictures: Examples and Illustrations . ... These illustrations represent some of the steps and techniques used to produce “pretty pictures” from HST images. ... TIFFs (ftp) . ... Separate images are exposed through different color filters. ... An alternate way to make color images . ... Eight bit (one byte) images contain 256 different values that may be represented by 256 shades of gray or 256 arbitrary colors from a color map (or palette) of all possible colors. ...

... It is only a matter of time before astronomers find an Earth-sized planet orbiting a distant star. We will naturally ask whether the planet is habitable or bears life. But will we be able to tell if there are bacteria, roaming dinosaurs, or even more advanced life? ... In the past twelve years, scientists have discovered more than two hundred large planets orbiting other stars, yet finding Earth-like planets is a fascinating and substantially more technologically demanding endeavor. ...

ALBUM: Human - Death 34:02 @ SONG : Flattening Emotions Where is the person that could have been Who, what took over, when did the end begin Should we not prepare for the uncertain Mysteries of our life , of our destiny See things that are not there Intruding voices What went wrong to their picture perfect life They once knew - Flattening of emotions A mind shared by an uninvited stranger Which ...

The AstroGuide . ... AstroGuide | ... AstroGuide Listing . Login . See many more Astronomy Listings by: Category or Alphabet . ... Listed Since July 15, 1998 . ... Web Site . ... However, you must Login to submit a comment. ... Web . www.astronomy.net . About Astronomy Net | ... Unless otherwise specified, web site content Copyright 1994-2016 John Huggins All Rights Reserved . dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET" . are trademarks of John Huggins ...

... Magnetic Storms . ... Cosmic Rays . ... Energetic Particles . ... Solar fast Particles . We cannot observe the way the distant universe accelerates cosmic rays or produces energetic photons, but acceleration processes also occur on our Sun , though on a much more moderate scale. ... That is why such events are often missed by cosmic ray detectors near the equator, where the lowest energies are excluded by the Earth's magnetic field. ... Should we be concerned about solar energetic radiation? ...

To initiate orbital motion click on any of the icons in tool bar with red sign + or – , permitting also to speed or to slow planet motion by repeated clicking on them. ... Selecting Orbits item in menu bar and by subsequent choosing corresponding items in drop-down menu one can also fulfil the above actions. ... To enter new initial epoch or to change list of minor or major planets which are shown in the picture, select Orbits in menu bar and then select Input data in drop-down menu. ...