... 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 | ...

Astronomy Picture of the Day . A Jupiter Venus Conjunction . ... 8.03.1999 . ... The conjunction was easily visible to the unaided eye because Venus appears brighter than any background star. The two planets were not significantly closer in space - Venus just passed nearly in front of Jupiter as seen from the Earth . ... U. Based on Astronomy Picture Of the Day . Publications with keywords: Jupiter - Venus - conjunction . Publications with words: Jupiter - Venus - conjunction . ...

... Jupiter Eyes Ganymede . Credit: Cassini Team , U. Arizona , JPL , NASA . ... This moon, visible on the lower right, is Ganymede , and the planet it orbits, Jupiter , seems to be keeping a watchful eye, as its Great Red Spot appears serendipitously nearby. This recently released enhanced-contrast image from the robot spacecraft Cassini captures new details of the incredible intricacies of Jupiter's complex cloud patterns. ... Tomorrow's picture: Manicouagan Impact Crater . ...

... 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. ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... Sky this Month . ... Star Atlas . ... stars . ... The Sky This Week: April 1 - 10 . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... Why do some stars appear to flash a variety of different colors when you look at them through a telescope? ... So, Earthт??s atmosphere will bend some colors from especially bright stars more so than others, which makes the source look like itт??s flashing colors. Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ...

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 . ...

A team of U.S. and German astrophysicists have made the first ever detection of X-rays coming from a comet. ... Following the initial detection, the team reported repeated X-ray emissions from the comet over the next 24 hours. ... One preliminary theory is that X-ray emission from the Sun was absorbed by a cloud of gaseous water molecules surrounding the nucleus of the comet, and then were re-emitted by the molecules in a process physicists call "fluorescence." ... Comets . ...

... To be read in conjunction with Section 4.11 of the WFPC2 Instrument Handbook , -Version 4.0. ... 1 The second study found evidence that CTE loss for faint stars has increased with time (Whitmore, 1998). The primary observational consequence of CTE loss is that a point source at the top of the chip appears to be fainter than if observed at the bottom of the chip, due to the loss of electrons as the star is read out down the chip (see Figure 1 ). ... Last updated: 06/16/98 10:38:00 . ...

Next: Basic Properties Up: R Coronae Borealis Stars Previous: Introduction . RCB stars are named after a star just visible to the naked eye in the constellation of Corona Borealis. RCrB was discovered by Edward Pigott, an English amateur astronomer, who had been observing a star in the `Northern Crown' for over a decade. ... Since 1795, other RCB stars have been discovered and their properties have been carefully observed. ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Space Flight . ... Earth Satellites . ... Leonid meteors seen from 13 km altitude aboard an aircraft during the 1999 Leonids Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (Leonid-MAC). Comet Tempel-Tuttle provides the cometary debris for the Leonid meteor shower. ... Every 17-19 November Earth crosses Tempel-TuttleтАЩs orbit and the Leonids become visible. With clear, dark skies observers may see 10 to 15 Leonid meteors every hour on those mornings. ...

In autumn 1994, two groups of astronomers announced that they had discovered Cepheid variable stars in a distant cluster of galaxies. ... As the term suggests, variable stars change in brightness over time. ... Variable stars are an ideal way to get high-school students doing real science, with real data, from the real sky. ... a sky chart to find the stars . ... Students can use the nearby stars to estimate the magnitude of Delta. ... Locate the star Delta in Cepheus and estimate its brightness . ...

... self-absorption - the absorption of light shining on an object by a process similar to that which produced the light originally; if a cloud emits less light than it absorbs fr