how to use a telescope - how to use a telescope properly Let's talk about how to use a telescope properly. This is an important part of owning a telescope that many new telescope users overlook, or just don't think about. It's wonderful that you have taken an interest in Astronomy, and you're no doubt thinking of buying a telescope, or maybe you already have one. You already have an idea how telescopes work, but you have to know how to use a telescope too. There are a few things you need to know to make sure youget the maximum enjoymet from your telescope. Here are the guidelines to follow to make sure you're are using your telescope properly. The first step is to find the best place in your home to put your telescope.
Stellarium NASA Spacecraft Captures Sun's Year-End Outburst on Video | The Sun & Space Weather | Solar Flares & Coronal Mass Ejections The sun closed out 2011 with a flurry of activity, and a keen-eyed NASA spacecraft captured the dramatic outburst on video. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) watched as our star erupted in dozens of storms during a 36-hour period on Dec. 29 and Dec. 30. The probe's stunning video, taken in extreme ultraviolet light, shows spouts of plasma and intense flashes of radiation blasting from the solar surface. "Magnetic forces were violently pulling against each other, creating the frenetic activity," SDO researchers wrote in an accompanying update. The recent outburst didn't produce any truly gargantuan storms. One medium-size flare is visible as a bright white flash about halfway through the new video. CMEs that hit Earth can wreak havoc on our planet, causing temporary disruptions in GPS signals, radio communications and power grids. It's not terribly suprising that the sun ended the year with a bang, because it had a very active 2011.
Supernova explosions stay in shape At a very early age, children learn how to classify objects according to their shape. Now, new research suggests studying the shape of the aftermath of supernovas may allow astronomers to do the same. A new study of images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory on supernova remnants--the debris from exploded stars--shows that the symmetry of the remnants, or lack thereof, reveals how the star exploded. This is an important discovery because it shows that the remnants retain information about how the star exploded, even though hundreds or thousands of years have passed. "It's almost like the supernova remnants have a 'memory' of the original explosion," said Laura Lopez, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led the study. Astronomers sort supernovas into several categories, or "types," based on properties observed days after the explosion. On the other hand, the remnants tied to so-called core-collapse supernova explosions were distinctly more asymmetric.
Planetary tilt could affect alien life Artist's rendition of the Milky Way's billions of planets. (credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO) An exciting announcement was made recently that suggests there could be billions of extraterrestrial-inhabited planets in our very own galaxy. A team of international scientists recently published findings in the journal Nature that conclude “stars are orbited by planets as a rule, rather than the exception,” and many of those are likely to be similar to Earth. The search for habitable planets and extraterrestrial life is gaining momentum, thanks largely to NASA’s planet-hunting space telescope Kepler. Artist's conception of Kepler-22b (credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech) Space.com reports that Heller and his colleagues recently published two papers describing how the gravitational interactions of stars and planets eventually erode the axial tilt of a planet.
Dark alien planet discovered by NASA An alien world blacker than coal, the darkest planet known, has been discovered in the galaxy. The world in question is a giant the size of Jupiter known as TrES-2b. NASA's Kepler spacecraft detected it lurking around the yellow sun-like star GSC 03549-02811 some 750 lightyears away in the direction of the constellation Draco. The researchers found this gas giant reflects less than 1 percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it darker than any planet or moon seen up to now. "It's just ridiculous how dark this planet is, how alien it is compared to anything we have in our solar system," study lead-author David Kipping, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told SPACE.com. "However, it's not completely pitch black," co-author David Spiegel of Princeton University said in a statement. "It's a mystery as to what's causing it to be so dark," Kipping said. These extremely small fluctuations in light proved that TrES-2b is incredibly dark. Related on SPACE.com:
Hubble snaps stunning barred spiral galaxy image 3 February 2012Last updated at 09:35 NGC 1073 lies in the Cetus (a sea monster in Greek mythology) constellation The Hubble space telescope has captured an image of a "barred spiral" galaxy that could help us better understand our own Milky Way. Most of the known spiral galaxies fall into this "barred" category - which are defined by the pronounced bar structure across their centres. The presence of this structure may be an indication of a galaxy's age. Two-thirds of nearby galaxies have the bar, while only a fifth of more distant spirals have it. The new picture also continues the Hubble space telescope's long heritage of striking astronomical images. In the upper left of the image is a cluster showing recent star formation that is just visible to Hubble's cameras. But it is a bright source in X-ray light; astronomers believe that this IXO-5 X-ray source is actually a "binary" system comprising a star and a black hole in mutual orbit.
Scientists Find Evidence for “Great Lake” on Europa and Potential New Habitat for Life | JSG News Europa's "Great Lake." Researchers predict many more such lakes are scattered throughout the moon's icy shell. Credit: Britney Schmidt/Dead Pixel VFX/Univ. of Texas at Austin. Watch animation of how lakes form inside Europa’s icy shell. In a significant finding in the search for life beyond Earth, scientists from The University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere have discovered what appears to be a body of liquid water the volume of the North American Great Lakes locked inside the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa. The water could represent a potential habitat for life, and many more such lakes might exist throughout the shallow regions of Europa’s shell, lead author Britney Schmidt, a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics, writes in the journal Nature. The scientists focused on Galileo spacecraft images of two roughly circular, bumpy features on Europa’s surface called chaos terrains. Videos
New "Super Earth" Found at Right Distance for Life A new planet—probably a rocky super-Earth—has been found squarely within its star's habitable zone, making it one of the best candidates yet to support life, its discoverers say. The planet, dubbed GJ 667Cc, orbits a red dwarf star 22 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Scorpio. A binary pair of orange dwarf stars are part of the same system. (Related: "'Tatooine' Planet With Two Suns Could Host Habitable Moon?") The new planet has a mass 4.5 times that of Earth and orbits its host star every 28 days. The red dwarf is relatively dim, so the planet receives slightly less light from its star than Earth does from the sun. That means if the planet has a rocky surface—which is predicted for planets less than ten times Earth's mass—and an atmosphere, it could support liquid water and maybe life, said co-discoverer Guillem Anglada-Escudé, who conducted the work while at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. Rocky Planet Around Unexpected Star
Lawrence Krauss: Life, the Universe and Nothing Video Log in Get Smart Cynthia Yildirim Lawrence Krauss: Life, the Universe and Nothing Lawrence Krauss is a professor in the Department of Physics at Arizona State University. posted 3 years ago wmayeaux liked this N30Sniip3r liked this lecnt liked this Mycroft liked this ccromp liked this Tyler Terrell liked this Mick Rogers liked this Iliya Dgidgi liked this Janet Bloem liked this MP Oddity liked this bigdaddy1225 liked this © 2014 Redux, Inc. about redux | contact us | copyright | legal NASA Beams Beatles' 'Across the Universe' Into Space NASA Beams Beatles' 'Across the Universe' Into Space For the first time ever, NASA beamed a song -- The Beatles' "Across the Universe" -- directly into deep space at 7 p.m. EST on Feb. 4. The transmission over NASA's Deep Space Network commemorated the 40th anniversary of the day The Beatles recorded the song, as well as the 50th anniversary of NASA's founding and the group's beginnings. Two other anniversaries also are being honored: The launch 50 years ago this week of Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, and the founding 45 years ago of the Deep Space Network, an international network of antennas that supports missions to explore the universe. The transmission was aimed at the North Star, Polaris, which is located 431 light years away from Earth. "Amazing! Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, characterized the song's transmission as a significant event. "I see that this is the beginning of the new age in which we will communicate with billions of planets across the universe," she said.
Distant Galaxies Revealed in New Space Photo | Galaxy & Universe Evolution More than 200,000 galaxies take center stage in a staggering photo snapped by a European telescope, an image that scientists say is the deepest view of the sky ever recorded at this size in infrared light. The European Southern Observatory's VISTA telescope (the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) in Chile captured the galactic treasure trove tucked inside what astronomers thought was an unremarkable patch of the sky. It was discovered by the observatory's UltraVISTA survey, a project that studies distant galaxies in the early universe and star formation by repeatedly scanning a section of the sky to obtained unprecedented image depth. By constantly staring at the same portion of the sky, the VISTA telescope is slowly picking up measurements of the very dim light of the most distant galaxies, ESO officials said in a statement. The new photo picture shows a region of the sky known as the COSMOS field, which is located in the constellation of Sextans (The Sextant).