2.5m Preflight Check . ... Preparations for Science: . ... If not already done, set Az and Alt brakes. Check that nothing is around/on the telescope which would interfere with altitude or rotator motion. Make sure nothing is in the path of the rotating racks, or on/around Az drive disk. ... Re-apply Alt brake when done. ... Make an Alt move. Combine motion test with drive surface checking/cleaning to allow access to entire surface.* ... Set Alt brake. ... Set Az brake. ... Axial A 1.9315 . ...

... On 27jan16 Felix and i found strong rfi coming from the turret control cabinet (huffman box in the gregorian receiver room). Checking the rfi gasket on the inside of the huffman box door, we found high impedance along the gasket (this was the old gasket with rubber impregnated with silver.. we've had problems before with this gasket material oxidizing.. ... start taking data with the huffman box closed, the turret powered on . ... Turn off all power to the turret control box. ...

... First of all, you can obtain a map of the final coordinates of your objects and guide stars by using the command: PLOT/OPTOPUS [table] [label] [EW_flag] , . where [table] is the table output by REFRACTION/OPTOPUS . ... In order to avoid object misidentifications at a later stage, and for a cross identification between object identifiers and hole numbers, it is recommended to bring a printout of the table output created by the command REFRACTION/OPTOPUS to the telescope. ...

... The planet in orbit around 51 Peg has, according to theoretical models, moved into its current position from farther away and its atmosphere may therefore be strongly evaporating. The molecules released by the upper parts of the atmosphere must be rapidly ionized and could form an envelope around the planet. If the planet passes in front of the star, this envelope is in favorable geometric conditions (the inclination angle of the orbit is close to 90?) which allow it to occult the star. ...

... Version 1.21.1 : - 2002-01-27 (CB) Fixed configuration file (SPR 2723). ... Version 1.8: 18 September 1998 Used correct syntax for parameter lists in .par file SPR 517: Version 1.7: 14 August 1998 parse call removed SPR 500 closed : removed cal from test/Makefile Version 1.6: 17 June 1998 SPR 441 closed : test harness now checks some values SPR 440 closed : .par file changed SPR 439 closed : file permissions changed Version 1.5: 21 May ...

... With enough velocity, a spacecraft can break loose from the Earth's gravity and enter an orbit around the Sun, like that of a planet. If it then orbits the Sun with the same period as the Earth--one year--it may keep a fixed position relative to Earth. ... If the distance is just right--about 4 times the distance to the Moon or 1/100 the distance to the Sun--the spacecraft, too, will need just one year to go around the Sun, and will keep its position between the Sun and the Earth. ...

... Aims: Today, large ground-based instruments, like VISIR on the VLT, providing diffraction-limited (about 0.3 arcsec) images in the mid-infrared where strong PAH features appear enable us to see the flaring structure of the disks around Herbig Ae stars. Although great progress has been made in modelling the disk with radiative transfer models able to reproduce the spectral energy distribution (SED) of Herbig Ae stars, the constraints brought by images have not been yet fully exploited. ...

... Figure 8: Can you detect the motion of the near-Earth asteroid 2000PH against the background stars during its close approach to Earth around 27 July 2004? ... Down) observed and imaged the unusual near-Earth asteroid 2000PH during its close approach to the Earth around 27 July 2004. The observations were carried out remotely using the new 2m aperture Faulkes telescope situated on the 10,000-foot summit of Haleakala, on the island of Maui in Hawaii. ...

I was wondering what conditions should be met to have the "darkest" sky .. ... Upon the above publication of the Southern Galactic hemisphere, TunГ Tezel started seeking opportunities to create the Northern counterpart image. ... So, the initial quest of having the darkest possible sky have delivered us these two all-sky images of the two galactic hemispheres as seen from Planet Earth. Zoomable and 'full-screenable' fisheye view of the "darkest sky" Southern Galactic Hemisphere image. ...

... With enough velocity, a spacecraft can break loose from the Earth's gravity and enter an orbit around the Sun, like that of a planet. If it then orbits the Sun with the same period as the Earth--one year--it may keep a fixed position relative to Earth. ... If the distance is just right--about 4 times the distance to the Moon or 1/100 the distance to the Sun--the spacecraft, too, will need just one year to go around the Sun, and will keep its position between the Sun and the Earth. ...

T H E AU S T R A L I A T E L E S C O P E C A M PA I G N T O S T U DY SOUTHERN CLASS I METHANOL MASERS M.A.Voronkov (ATNF), K.J.Brooks, A.M.Sobolev, S.P.Ellingsen, A.B.Ostrovskii, J.L.Caswell contact: Maxim.Voronkov@csiro.au Introduction Class I methanol masers (e.g. 9.9 , 25, 104 GHz ) Maser spots are spread around the protostar location Avoid strong infrared ... This fact supports the idea that some class I masers reside in the interface regions of outflows. ...

... Planets . ... Earth Satellites . ... Looking in the direction of the constellation Cygnus the Swan and launched by NASA in 2009 is the Kepler Space Observatory.Many previous missions searching for exoplanets mainly detected large giant planets, like large hot Jupiters (it is easier to detect larger planets).However KeplerтАЩs main objective is to search for much smaller planets located in a habitable zone which is not too close nor too far from their star; planets which may be just like our Earth. ...

... Herschel Mission . ... Water along the outflow from a young nearby protostar: a Herschel view . ... Figure 1 shows a detailed view of the IRAS4A outflow through the comparison between the H 2 O emission and the emission from several other molecular tracers of gas with different excitation conditions: H 2 , CO(3-2), CO(14-13), and CO(6-5). The figure nicely reveals where shocks deposit energy into the molecular cloud, lighting up the water emission along the outflow . ...

The form on this Web page allows specifying a celestial position for which the full 14x14 degree VLSS FITS image is desired. ... The proposed VLSS radio survey uses the NRAO Very Large Array telescope and when complete will cover the sky north of a declination of -30 degrees at a frequency of 74 MHz (4 meters wavelength). ... The VLSS survey is being conducted by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and The Naval Research Lab. Partial observations are now available. ... declination: . ...

... Explanation: This planet is only 16 light years away -- could it harbor life? ... An interesting coincidence, however, is that Gliese 832c receives just about the same average energy from its parent star as does the Earth. ... If Gliese 832c has an atmosphere like Earth, it may be a super-Earth undergoing strong seasons but capable of supporting life. ... The close 16-light year distance makes the Gliese 832 planetary system currently the nearest to Earth that could potentially support life. ...

... For the past years I have been working on the problem of synthesis of light curves of close binary systems, consisting of a normal star and a compact object (point object with fixed X-ray luminosity). ... Possible existence of a bright spot on the disk's lateral surface is taken into account. ... The last of then will be published in Gordon and Breach Publishers ( Cherepashchuk A.M., Katysheva N.A., Khruzina T.S., Shugarov S.Yu. ... Cherepashchuk A.M., Katysheva N.A., Khruzina T.S., Shugarov S.Yu. ...

Weaving together Astronomy+Statistics+Computer Science+Engineering+Intrumentation, far beyond the growing borders . ... Archives . ... A postdoc job announcement from Prof. Joshua Bloom of UC Berkeley: . ... The starting salary will be commensurate with experience, and competitive with other postdoctoral positions. ... Tags: AstroStat , computer science , job announcement , job market , time series , UC Berkeley . ... Joseph Hilbe on [Jobs] postdoc position at UC Berkeley . ... Chandra Blog . ...

... Bad Astronomy . Misconceptions . ... Bad Astronomy : The Moon only shows one face to us because it is not rotating. Better astronomy : The Moon only shows one face because it is rotating, once every time it revolves around the Earth. ... Place the Moon model on the table about 30 centimeters (one foot) away with the X facing the Earth model. ... You'll see that to keep the X facing the Earth model, you have to rotate the Moon model as it goes around the Earth model . ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...

... include stdio.h and may also need some of # include stdarg.h , # include sys/types.h , # include sys/stat.h , # include fcntl.h . int close ( int handle ) - Close a file opened for unbuffered I/O. int creat( char *filename, int pmode ) - Create a new file with specified permission setting. int eof ( int handle ) - Check for end of file . long lseek( ...

. Pulkovo NEO Page . Central Astronomical Observatory at Pulkovo . of Russian Academy of Sciences, St.-Petersburg, Russia . Apparent Close Approaches of Near-Earth Asteroids to the Stars for April 2016 . By these observations it is possible to obtain the positions of asteroids with higher accuracy. This page includes the ephemerides of such phenomena for some observatories, namely: . Pulkovo . CrAO . Kourovskaya . Majdanak . Pulkovo Obs. Mountain Station . Mondy .