Astron

In astronomy and celestial navigation , an ephemeris (plural: ephemerides ; from Latin ephemeris, "diary", from Greek : ἐφημερίς , ephēmeris , "diary, journal") [1] [2] [3] [4] gives the positions of naturally occurring astronomical objects as well as artificial satellites in the sky at a given time or times. Historically, positions were given as printed tables of values , given at regular intervals of date and time. Modern ephemerides are often computed electronically from mathematical models of the motion of astronomical objects and the Earth. Even though the calculation of these tables was one of the first applications of mechanical computers , printed ephemerides are still produced, as they are useful when computational devices are not available. The astronomical position calculated from an ephemeris is given in the spherical polar coordinate system of right ascension and declination . Some of the astronomical phenomena of interest to astronomer...

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http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/ *****

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), formerly Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST), is a large domed [1] solar telescope facility with 4 meter wide primary mirror that is under construction [2] by the National Solar Observatory atop the Haleakala volcano on the Pacific island of Maui . The telescope was officially named after late Hawaii Senator Daniel K. Inouye in December 2013, while still under construction. [3] On completion around 2018, it will be the world's largest solar telescope. DKIST features an off-axis, clear aperture design to allow for observations with unprecedented spatial, spectral and temporal resolution. Avoiding a central obstruction is important to minimize scattered light when observing the faint solar corona , but it also eases operation of adaptive optics and later image reconstruction such as speckle imaging . The site on Haleakala was selected for its clear daytime atmospheric seeing conditions, which will enable stud...

The W. M. Keck Observatory is a two-telescope astronomical observatory at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii . Both telescopes feature 10 m (33 ft) primary mirrors, currently among the largest astronomical telescopes in use. The combination of an excellent site, large optics and innovative instruments has created the two most scientifically productive telescopes on Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._M._Keck_Observatory   http://www.keckobservatory.org/

Pan-STARRS -- the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System -- is an innovative design for a wide-field imaging facility developed at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. The combination of relatively small mirrors with very large digital cameras results in an economical observing system that can observe the entire available sky several times each month. The prototype single-mirror telescope PS1 is now operational on Mount Haleakala; its scientific research program is being undertaken by the PS1 Science Consortium - a collaboration between ten research organizations in four countries, A major goal of Pan-STARRS is to discover and characterize Earth-approaching objects, both asteroids & comets, that might pose a danger to our planet. Its vast database is also ideal for research in several other astronomical areas, particularly those which involve an aspect of time variability.  See PS1SC key projects for examples. http://pan-...

The asteroid belt is the circumstellar disc in the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter . It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets . The asteroid belt is also termed the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and trojan asteroids . [1] About half the mass of the belt is contained in the four largest asteroids: Ceres , Vesta , Pallas , and Hygiea . [1] The total mass of the asteroid belt is approximately 4% that of the Moon , or 22% that of Pluto , and roughly twice that of Pluto's moon Charon (whose diameter is 1200 km). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt  

A parsec (symbol: pc ) is a unit of length used to measure large distances to objects outside our Solar System . One parsec is the distance at which one astronomical unit subtends an angle of one arcsecond . [1] A parsec is equal to about 3.26 light-years (31  trillion kilometres or 19 trillion miles ) in length. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri , is about 1.3 parsecs (4.25 light-years) from the Sun. [2] Most of the stars visible to the unaided eye in the nighttime sky are within 500 parsecs of the Sun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec  

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) is a NASA Explorer mission that launched June 2001 to make fundamental measurements of cosmology -- the study of the properties of our universe as a whole. WMAP has been stunningly successful, producing our new Standard Model of Cosmology. WMAP's data stream has ended. Full analysis of the data is now complete. Publications have been submitted as of 12/20/2012. http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/    

WorldWide Telescope ( WWT ) is an open source set of applications, data and cloud services, [3] [4] originally created by Microsoft Research but now an open source project hosted in GitHub . [5] The .NET Foundation holds the copyright and the project is managed by the American Astronomical Society and has been supported by grants from the Moore Foundation and National Science Foundation . WWT displays astronomical , earth and planetary data allowing visual navigation through the 3-dimensional (3D) Universe. Users are able to navigate the sky by panning and zooming, or explore the 3D universe from the surface of Earth to past the Cosmic microwave background (CMB), viewing both visual imagery and scientific data (academic papers, etc.) about that area and the objects in it. Data is curated from hundreds of different data sources, but its open data nature allows users to explore any third party data that conforms to a WWT supported format. With the rich source of multi-s...

Cosmology (from the Greek κόσμος, kosmos "world" and -λογία, -logia "study of"), is the study of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe . Physical cosmology is the scholarly and scientific study of the origin, evolution , large-scale structures and dynamics, and ultimate fate of the universe , as well as the scientific laws that govern these realities. [1] The term cosmology was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount 's Glossographia, [2] and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher Christian Wolff , in Cosmologia Generalis. [3] Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological , religious , and esoteric literature and traditions of creation and eschatology . Physical cosmology is studied by scientists, such as astronomers and physicists , as well as philosophers , such as metaphysicians , philosophers of physics , and philosophers of space and time . Because of this shared scope with ...

Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that employs the principles of physics and chemistry "to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies , rather than their positions or motions in space." [1] [2] Among the objects studied are the Sun , other stars , galaxies , extrasolar planets , the interstellar medium and the cosmic microwave background . [3] [4] Their emissions are examined across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum , and the properties examined include luminosity , density , temperature , and chemical composition. Because astrophysics is a very broad subject, astrophysicists typically apply many disciplines of physics, including mechanics , electromagnetism , statistical mechanics , thermodynamics , quantum mechanics , relativity , nuclear and particle physics , and atomic and molecular physics . In practice, modern astronomical research often involves a substantial amount of work in the realms of theoretical and observational physics. Some areas of ...

Alex Filippenko and his collaborators are determining the nature of the progenitor stars and the explosion mechanisms of different types of supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. He is also using supernovae as cosmological distance indicators, and he was a member of both teams that discovered (in 1998) the accelerating expansion of the Universe , probably driven by "dark energy" -- a discovery that was honored with the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics to the teams' leaders. He also works on quantifying the physical properties of quasars and active galaxies, and he searches for black holes in both X-ray binary stars and nearby galactic nuclei. His group has developed the 0.76-meter Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT) , which is conducting one of the world's most successful searches for relatively nearby supernovae, having discovered about 1000 of them. He is a frequent user of Lick Observatory, the 10-meter Keck telescopes, and the Hubble Space Telescope. ht...

The nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model in the field of cosmogony to explain the formation and evolution of the Solar System . It suggests that the Solar System formed from nebulous material. The theory was developed by Immanuel Kant and published in his Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels ("Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens"), published in 1755. Originally applied to the Solar System , this process of planetary system formation is now thought to be at work throughout the Universe . [1] The widely accepted modern variant of the nebular hypothesis is the solar nebular disk model (SNDM) or simply solar nebular model . [2] This nebular hypothesis offered explanations for a variety of properties of the Solar System, including the nearly circular and coplanar orbits of the planets, and their motion in the same direction as the Sun's rotation. Some elements of the nebular hypothesis are echoed in modern theories of p...

The Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) is a NASA funded project to support and provide to the astronomical community a variety of astronomical data archives , with the primary focus on scientifically related data sets in the optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared parts of the spectrum. MAST is located at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).  Mikulski DataSets

The largest satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud , is also one of the closest. It is visible to the naked eye from areas clear of light pollution in the Southern Hemisphere. If the Large Magellanic Cloud were around the size of the average American home—about 2,500 square feet—then by a conservative estimate the Milky Way mansion would occupy more than a full city block. On that scale, our most diminutive neighbors would occupy the same amount of space as a toaster. SymmetryMag (Full list & associated data)

The drizzle of stars scattered across this image forms a galaxy known as UGC 4879. UGC 4879 is an irregular dwarf galaxy — as the name suggests, galaxies of this type are a little smaller and messier than their cosmic cousins, lacking the majestic swirl of a spiral or the coherence of an elliptical. This galaxy is also very isolated. There are about 2.3 million light years between UGC 4879 and its closest neighbor, Leo A, which is about the same distance as that between the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way. This galaxy’s isolation means that it has not interacted with any surrounding galaxies, making it an ideal laboratory for studying star formation uncomplicated by interactions with other galaxies. Studies of UGC 4879 have revealed a significant amount of star formation in the first 4 billion years after the Big Bang, followed by a strange 9-billion-year lull in star formation that ended 1 billion years ago by a more recent re-ignition. The reason for...

James Edward Gunn (born October 21, 1938) is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Astronomy at Princeton University . [1] Gunn's early theoretical work in astronomy has helped establish the current understanding of how galaxies form, and the properties of the space between galaxies. He also suggested important observational tests to confirm the presence of dark matter in galaxies, and predicted the existence of a Gunn–Peterson trough in the spectra of distant quasars . Cosmology may look like a science, but it isn't a science... A basic tenet of science is that you can do repeatable experiments, and you can't do that in cosmology. James E. Gunn [2] Much of Gunn's later work has involved leadership in major observational projects. He developed plans for one of the first uses of digital camera technology for space observation, a project that led to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey , the most extensive three-dimensional mapping of the universe ever undertak...

The Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990, and remains in operation. Although not the first space telescope , Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy . The HST is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble , and is one of NASA's Great Observatories , along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory , the Chandra X-ray Observatory , and the Spitzer Space Telescope . [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope

" Pillars of Creation " is a photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula , some 6,500-7,000 light years from Earth. [1] They are so named because the gas and dust are in the process of creating new stars, while also being eroded by the light from nearby stars that have recently formed. [2] Taken on April 1, 1995, it was named one of the top ten photographs from Hubble by Space.com . [3] The astronomers responsible for the photo were Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen from Arizona State University . In 2011, the region was re-photographed by ESA 's Herschel Space Observatory . Wiki  

The Hubble Deep Field ( HDF ) is an image of a small region in the constellation Ursa Major , constructed from a series of observations by the Hubble Space Telescope . It covers an area about 2.6 arcminutes on a side, about one 24-millionth of the whole sky, which is equivalent in angular size to a tennis ball at a distance of 100 metres. [1] The image was assembled from 342 separate exposures taken with the Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 over ten consecutive days between December 18 and December 28, 1995. [2] [3] The field is so small that only a few foreground stars in the Milky Way lie within it; thus, almost all of the 3,000 objects in the image are galaxies , some of which are among the youngest and most distant known. By revealing such large numbers of very young galaxies, the HDF has become a landmark image in the study of the early universe , with the associated scientific paper having received over 900 citations by the end of 2014. Three...

The Department of Astronomy offers undergraduate and graduate instruction in a wide variety of fields, including theoretical and observational astrophysics; infrared, optical, and radio astronomy; galactic structure and dynamics of stellar systems; high-energy astrophysics and cosmology; and spectroscopy. A considerable amount of research and teaching related to astronomy is done in other units at Berkeley, including the Space Science Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and the Physics Department. Various professors in the Chemistry, Earth and Planetary Science, Mathematics, Statistics, and Engineering departments have an active interest in astronomy and are available for consultation. UC Berkeley Astronomy  

The Royal Astronomical Society ( RAS ) is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research (mainly carried on at the time by ' gentleman astronomers ' rather than professionals). It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV . A Supplemental Charter in 1915 opened up the fellowship to women. It is the UK adhering organisation to the International Astronomical Union and a member of the Science Council , and encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. [1] Meetings are held in Burlington House , in Piccadilly , London and across the United Kingdom (UK). They are involved in the production of astronomical journals and periodicals. The society has over 3000 members, [1] around a third of whom live outside the UK. In addition, those members of the public who have an interest in astronomy ...

Triton is the largest natural satellite of the planet Neptune . It was discovered on October 10, 1846, by English astronomer William Lassell . It is the only large moon in the Solar System with a retrograde orbit , an orbit in the opposite direction to its planet's rotation. [2] [11] At 2,700 kilometres (1,700 mi) in diameter, it is the seventh-largest moon in the Solar System. Because of its retrograde orbit and composition similar to Pluto 's, Triton is thought to have been a dwarf planet captured from the Kuiper belt . [12] Triton has a surface of mostly frozen nitrogen , a mostly water-ice crust, [13] an icy mantle and a substantial core of rock and metal. The core makes up two-thirds of its total mass. Triton has a mean density of 2.061 grams per cubic centimetre (0.0745 lb/cu in) [5] and is composed of approximately 15–35% water ice. [6] Triton is one of the few moons in the Solar System known to be geologically active . As a consequence, its surface is...

Data Release 13 (DR13) is the first data release of the fourth phase of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV). DR13 contains SDSS observations through July 2015. http://www.sdss.org/dr13/ Skyserver DR13

Conjunction Occultation Jupiter Occultations 2016 Interesting events in the next ten days featuring Jupiter conjunction and Moon/Jupiter occultation on the 30th. (Too bad it will be at 8am PDT!) times R Zulu 22 September , 14:21 Earth southward equinox 26 September , 07:00 Jupiter at conjunction 28 September , 19:30 Mercury at greatest western elongation 29 September , 10:41 Moon occults Mercury 30 September , 16:11 Moon occults Jupiter

Astronomy is a natural science that is the study of celestial objects (such as moons , planets , stars , nebulae , and galaxies ), the physics , chemistry , and evolution of such objects, and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth , including supernovae explosions , gamma ray bursts , and cosmic background radiation . Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences. Prehistoric cultures have left astronomical artifacts such as the Egyptian monuments and Nubian monuments , and early civilizations such as the Babylonians , Greeks , Chinese , Indians , Iranians and Maya performed methodical observations of the night sky . However, the invention of the telescope was required before astronomy was able to develop into a modern science. Historically, astronomy has included disciplines as diverse as astrometry , celestial navigation , observational astronomy, and the making of calendars , but professional astronomy is nowadays often considered to be synonymous with astrop...