Astron

Sigma Orionis or Sigma Ori (σ Orionis, σ Ori) is a multiple star system in the constellation Orion , consisting of the brightest members of a young open cluster . It is found at the eastern end of the belt , south west of Alnitak and west of the Horsehead Nebula which it partially illuminates. The total brightness of the component stars is magnitude 3.80. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_Orionis   Portal  

Cal Gold Vid - Huell Howser The Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) is an astronomical observatory in Los Angeles County, California , United States. The MWO is located on Mount Wilson , a 1,740-metre (5,710-foot) peak in the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena , northeast of Los Angeles. The observatory contains two historically important telescopes: the 100-inch (2.5 m) Hooker telescope , which was the largest aperture telescope in the world from its completion in 1917 to 1949, and the 60-inch telescope which was the largest telescope in the world when it was completed in 1908. It also contains the Snow solar telescope completed in 1905, the 60 foot (18 m) solar tower completed in 1908, the 150 foot (46 m) solar tower completed in 1912, and the CHARA array , built by Georgia State University, which became fully operational in 2004 and was the largest optical interferometer in the world at its completion. Due to the inversion layer that traps smog over Los Angeles, Mo...

A constellation is a group of celestial bodies, usually stars, which appear to form a pattern in the sky. Astronomers today still utilize the term, though the current system focuses primarily on constellations as grid-like segments of the celestial sphere rather than as patterns. A star-pattern that is not officially classed as a constellation is referred to as an asterism. One famous example is the asterism known as the Big Dipper, a term unused by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as the stars are considered part of the larger constellation of Ursa Major.  The stars within a constellation rarely have any substantial astrophysical relationship to each other, and their apparent proximity when viewed from Earth disguises the fact that they typically lie light years apart. However, there are some exceptions: in the constellation of Ursa Major, the Big Dipper is almost entirely constituted by stars approximate to one another, belonging to a stellar group known ...

by Neil deGrasse Tyson From Natural History Magazine, April 2002 The second and third Lagrangian points (L2 and L3) also lie on the Earth-Moon line, but this time L2 lies far beyond the far side of the Moon , while L3 lies far beyond Earth in the opposite direction. Once again, the three forces—Earth's gravity, the Moon's gravity, and the centrifugal force of the rotating system—cancel in concert. And once again, an object placed in either spot can orbit the Earth-Moon center of gravity with the same monthly period as the Moon.   http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2002/04/01/the-five-points-of-lagrange/

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), previously known as Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), is a Flagship-class space observatory under construction and scheduled to launch in October 2018. The JWST will offer unprecedented resolution and sensitivity from long-wavelength (orange-red) visible light, through near-infrared to the mid-infrared (0.6 to 27 micrometers), and is a successor instrument to the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope . While Hubble has a 2.4-meter (7.9 ft) mirror, the JWST features a larger and segmented 6.5-meter (21 ft) diameter primary mirror and will be located near the Earth–Sun L 2 point. A large sunshield will keep its mirror and four science instruments below 50 K (−220 °C; −370 °F). The James Webb Space Telescope will not be in orbit around the Earth, like the Hubble Space Telescope is - it will actually orbit the Sun , 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is ...

Elon explains in this Vid

NASA 's series of Great Observatories satellites are four large, powerful space-based astronomical telescopes . Each of the four missions was designed to examine a specific wavelength/energy region of the electromagnetic spectrum (gamma rays, X-rays, visible and ultraviolet light, infrared light) using very different technologies. Dr. Charles Pellerin, NASA's Director, Astrophysics invented and developed the program. The four Great Observatories were launched between 1990 and 2003, and three remain operational as of 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Observatories_program   Portal  

GRB 080319B was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected by the Swift satellite at 06:12 UTC on March 19, 2008. The burst set a new record for the farthest object that was observable with the naked eye : [2] it had a peak visual apparent magnitude of 5.8 and remained visible to human eyes for approximately 30 seconds. [3] The magnitude was brighter than 9.0 for approximately 60 seconds. [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRB_080319B   Portal  

Quasars ( / ˈ k w eɪ z ɑːr / ) or quasi-stellar radio sources are the most energetic and distant members of a class of objects called active galactic nuclei (AGN). Quasars are extremely luminous and were first identified as being high redshift sources of electromagnetic energy , including radio waves and visible light , that appeared to be similar to stars , rather than extended sources similar to galaxies . Their spectra contain very broad emission lines , unlike any known from stars, hence the name "quasi-stellar." Their luminosity can be 100 times greater than that of the Milky Way. [2] Most quasars were formed approximately 12 billion years ago , and they are normally caused by collisions of galaxies, with the galaxies' central black holes merging to form either a supermassive black hole [3] or a binary black hole system. Although the true nature of these objects was controversial until the early 1980s, there is now a scientific consensus that a quasar i...

Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977. Part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System , Voyager 1 launched 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2 . Having operated for 39 years, 1 month and 11 days, the spacecraft still communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and return data. At a distance of 135 AU (2.02 × 10 10  km) from the Sun as of June 2016, [3] it is the farthest spacecraft from Earth . The probe's primary mission objectives included flybys of Jupiter , Saturn , and Saturn's large moon, Titan . While the spacecraft's course could have been altered to include a Pluto encounter by forgoing the Titan flyby, exploration of the moon, which was known to have a substantial atmosphere, took priority. [4] [5] [6] It studied the weather, magnetic fields, and rings of the two planets and was the first probe to provide detailed images of their moons . After completing its primary mission w...

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System . It is a gas giant with a mass slightly less than one-thousandth of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn , Uranus and Neptune . Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian or outer planets. The planet was known by astronomers of ancient times and was associated with the mythology and religious beliefs of many cultures. The Romans named the planet after the Roman god Jupiter . When viewed from Earth , Jupiter can reach an apparent magnitude of −2.94, making it on average the third-brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus . ( Mars can briefly match Jupiter's brightness at certain points in its orbit.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Jupiter    

Abstract (from CDS ): We study the record of star formation activity within the dense cluster associated with the Orion Nebula. The bolometric luminosity function of 900 visible members is well matched by a simplified theoretical model for cluster formation. This model assumes that stars are produced at a constant rate and distributed according to the field-star initial mass function. Our best-fit age for the system, within this framework, is 2x10 6 yr. To undertake a more detailed analysis, we present a new set of theoretical pre-main-sequence tracks. These cover all masses from 0.1 to 6.0 M ☉ , and start from a realistic stellar birthline. The tracks end along a zero-age main-sequence that is in excellent agreement with the empirical one. As a further aid to cluster studies, we offer an heuristic procedure for the correction of pre-main-sequence luminosities and ages to account for the effects of unresolved binary companions. The Or...

Abell 2142, or A2142 , is a huge, X-ray luminous galaxy cluster in the constellation Corona Borealis . It is the result of a still ongoing merger between two galaxy clusters. The combined cluster is six million light years across, contains hundreds of galaxies and enough gas to make a thousand more. It is "one of the most massive objects in the universe." [1]   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abell_2142 Portal >>>

The Trapezium or Orion Trapezium Cluster, also known by its Bayer designation of Theta 1 Orionis, is a tight open cluster of stars in the heart of the Orion Nebula , in the constellation of Orion . It was discovered by Galileo Galilei . On February 4, 1617 he sketched three of the stars (A, C, D), but missed the surrounding nebulosity. [2] [3] [4] The fourth component (B) was identified by several observers in 1673, and several more components were discovered later, for a total of eight by 1888. Subsequently several of the stars were determined to be binaries. Telescopes of amateur astronomers from about 5 inch aperture can resolve six stars under good seeing conditions. [5] The Trapezium is a relatively young cluster that has formed directly out of the parent nebula. The five brightest stars are on the order of 15-30 solar masses in size. They are within a diameter of 1.5 light-years of each other and are responsible for much of the illumination of the surround...

In astronomy , the Pleiades ( / ˈ p l aɪ ə d iː z / or / ˈ p l iː ə d iː z / ), or Seven Sisters ( Messier 45 or M45), is an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus . It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky . The celestial entity has several meanings in different cultures and traditions . The cluster is dominated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Dust that forms a faint reflection nebulosity around the brightest stars was thought at first to be left over from the formation of the cluster (hence the alternative name Maia Nebula after the star Maia ), but is now known to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium , through which the stars are currently passing. Computer simulations have shown that the Pleiades was probably formed from a compact configuration that resembled the ...

The universe seems a little less lonely today. Astronomers from the University of Nottingham conducted a new survey of the universe’s galaxy population and concluded that previous estimates lowballed the census by a factor of about 20. Using data from Hubble and telescopes around the world, as well as a new mathematical model, they estimate that there are ten times more galaxies in the observable universe than we thought; previous estimates put the number of galaxies in the universe at around 200 billion. http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/10/the-universe-is-10-times-more-vast-than-we-thought   https://arxiv.org/pdf/1607.03909v2.pdf  

Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology used to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effect of wavefront distortions: it aims at correcting the deformations of an incoming wavefront by deforming a mirror in order to compensate for the distortion. It is used in astronomical telescopes [1] and laser communication systems to remove the effects of atmospheric distortion , in microscopy, [2] optical fabrication [3] and in retinal imaging systems [4] to reduce optical aberrations . Adaptive optics works by measuring the distortions in a wavefront and compensating for them with a device that corrects those errors such as a deformable mirror or a liquid crystal array. Adaptive optics should not be confused with active optics , which works on a longer timescale to correct the primary mirror geometry. Other methods can achieve resolving power exceeding the limit imposed by atmospheric distortion, such as speckle imaging , aperture synthesis , and lucky imagin...

Kepler-7b is one of the first five exoplanets to be confirmed by NASA 's Kepler spacecraft, and was confirmed in the first 33.5 days of Kepler's science operations. [3] It orbits a star slightly hotter and significantly larger than the Sun that is expected to soon reach the end of the main sequence . [3] Kepler-7b is a hot Jupiter that is about half the mass of Jupiter, but is nearly 1.5 times its size; at the time of its discovery, Kepler-7b was the second most diffuse planet known, surpassed only by WASP-17b . [3] It orbits its host star every five days at a distance of approximately 0.06  AU (9,000,000  km ; 5,600,000  mi ). Kepler-7b was announced at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society on January 4, 2010. It is the first extrasolar planet to have a crude map of cloud coverage. [7] [8] [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-7b   Portal    Larger than Jupiter but less dense.

This list of the largest optical reflecting telescopes with objective diameters of 3.0 metres (120 in) or greater is sorted by aperture , which is one limit on the light-gathering power and resolution of a reflecting telescope 's optical assembly. The mirrors themselves can be larger than the aperture, and telescopes may use aperture synthesis achieved by interferometry . Telescopes designed to be used as optical astronomical interferometers such as the Keck I and II used together as the Keck Interferometer (up to 85 m) can reach very high resolutions, although at a narrower range of observations. When the two mirrors are on one mount, the combined mirror spacing of the Large Binocular Telescope (22.8 m) allows fuller use of the aperture synthesis. Largest does not always equate to being the best telescopes, and overall light gathering power of the optical system can be a poor measure of a telescope's performance. Space-based telescopes , such as the Hub...

Near the center of Pasadena, California, and at various locations around the world, a team of scientists, engineers, and project specialists is busily planning and designing what eventually will become the most advanced and powerful optical telescope on Earth. When completed, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will enable astronomers to study objects in our own solar system and stars throughout our Milky Way and its neighboring galaxies, and forming galaxies at the very edge of the observable Universe, near the beginning of time. http://www.tmt.org Portal  

Pasadena has a rich history of astronomy discoveries, from the exploration of planets at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), to the discovery of the universe's expansion at Mount Wilson Observatory, to determining the extragalactic distance scale of the universe at Carnegie Observatories. This year, 10 Pasadena-based scientific institutions and organizations have partnered to celebrate Pasadena as the "City of Astronomy" during Pasadena's first Astronomy Week from October 16–22. http://www.caltech.edu/news/city-astronomy-52656   http://www.cityofastronomy.org/events/  

Aladin is an interactive sky atlas allowing the user to visualize digitized astronomical images or full surveys, superimpose entries from astronomical catalogues or databases, and interactively access related data and information from the Simbad database , the VizieR service and other archives for all known astronomical objects in the field.  http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/ Portal   Images  

The Virtual Observatory (VO) is the vision that astronomical datasets and other resources should work as a seamless whole. Many projects and data centres worldwide are working towards this goal. The International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) is an organisation that debates and agrees the technical standards that are needed to make the VO possible. It also acts as a focus for VO aspirations, a framework for discussing and sharing VO ideas and technology, and body for promoting and publicising the VO. To learn more about the IVOA as an organisation, read the " About " section. To learn more about the VO from a user's point of view, including how to find VO tools and services, read the " Astronomers " section. There is also a page about the VO for students and the public . To learn how to publish VO services, or write VO-compatible software, start b...

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-filter imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico , United States . The project was named after the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation , which contributed significant funding. Data collection began in 2000, and the final imaging data release covers over 35% of the sky, with photometric observations of around 500 million objects and spectra for more than 3 million objects. The main galaxy sample has a median redshift of z = 0.1; there are redshifts for luminous red galaxies as far as z = 0.7, and for quasars as far as z = 5; and the imaging survey has been involved in the detection of quasars beyond a redshift z = 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey     Portal

We observe the sky as it looks, not as it is. You feel like you are on top of the Earth (the result of gravity drawing you toward the Earth's center). In the example, you are at a latitude (your location along an arc from the Earth's equator to the rotation pole, given by lower case Greek letter Phi) of 45°, halfway between the Earth's equator and the north pole. The latitude of the north pole is 90°, that of the equator 0°. The Earth appears to lie at the center of a fictional celestial sphere. You pretend that you are inside the sphere at the center looking out around you. Above your head is your zenith, while directly below you is your nadir (both of which are points on the celestial sphere). In between is the great circle of the horizon, which is the circle on the celestial sphere cut by a plane tangent to the Earth at your feet. Everything in the sky above the horizon is visible, while everything below it is not.  http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/celsph.html ...

https://in-the-sky.org/data/constellation.php?id=61  (data tables) Portal

https://in-the-sky.org/ephemeris.php You are welcome to reproduce the data below for non-profit purposes , providing you credit In-The-Sky.org. It is also available in CSV (i.e. spreadsheet) and plain text format for easy pasting into other programs.  Deep Sky Objects as well as moon & planets:  (All stars returns to the same spot in the sky 4 minutes earlier daily (or 2 hours earlier monthly), e.g., Zubenelgenubi transits due south around 10 p.m. (11 p.m. Daylight Saving Time) in early June, and earlier still in July and August.)

"IAU Catalog of Star Names (IAU-CSN)" # IAU Division C Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) # https://www.iau.org/science/scientific_bodies/working_groups/280/ # WGSN Chair: Eric Mamajek. Email questions or comments to: IAUWGSN@gmail.com # Last updated: 8 October 2016   http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~emamajek/WGSN/IAU-CSN.txt       Dividing RA in Degrees by 15 yields HH MM SS

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Right ascension (abbreviated RA ; symbol α ) is the angular distance measured eastward along the celestial equator from the vernal equinox to the hour circle of the point in question. [1] When combined with declination , these astronomical coordinates specify the direction of a point on the celestial sphere in the equatorial coordinate system . Right ascension and declination as seen on the inside of the celestial sphere . The primary direction of the system is the vernal equinox , the ascending node of the ecliptic (red) on the celestial equator (blue). Right ascension is measured eastward along the celestial equator from the primary direction. An old term, right ascension (Latin, ascensio recta [2] ) refers to the ascension , or the point on the celestial equator which rises with any celestial object, as seen from the Earth 's equator , where the celestial equator intersects the horizon at a right angle . It is c...

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/nebulae/m42.html

NOAO is the US national research & development center for ground-based night-time astronomy. Our mission is to provide public access to qualified professional researchers to forefront scientific capabilities on telescopes operated by NOAO as well as other optical and infrared telescopes . Today, these telescopes range in aperture size from 2-m to 10-m. http://www.noao.edu/  

The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way , being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion . [b] It is one of the brightest nebulae , and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light years [3] [6] and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth . The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. It has a mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula. [7] The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely studied celestial features. [8] The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary disks , brown dwarfs , intense an...

A new view of the Orion Nebula, the "deepest and most comprehensive view ever," reveals a preponderance of low-mass, planet-size objects in the famous star-forming region. The new images,  which you can tour in this awesome new video , use infrared data from European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope to document the nebula's thick, glowing cloud of gas. With the hawk-like gaze of the telescope's HAWK-1 camera, researchers found 10 times more planet-mass objects and nearly planet-mass failed stars called brown dwarfs  than ever seen before. http://www.space.com/33392-orion-nebula-deepest-view-yet-photos-video.html  

A charge-coupled device ( CCD ) is a device for the movement of electrical charge, usually from within the device to an area where the charge can be manipulated, for example conversion into a digital value. This is achieved by "shifting" the signals between stages within the device one at a time. CCDs move charge between capacitive bins in the device, with the shift allowing for the transfer of charge between bins. The CCD is a major piece of technology in digital imaging . In a CCD image sensor , pixels are represented by p-doped MOS capacitors. These capacitors are biased above the threshold for inversion when image acquisition begins, allowing the conversion of incoming photons into electron charges at the semiconductor-oxide interface; the CCD is then used to read out these charges. Although CCDs are not the only technology to allow for light detection, CCD image sensors are widely used in professional, medical, and scientific applications where high-qu...

The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database ( NED ) is an on-line astronomical database for astronomers that collates and cross-correlates astronomical information on extragalactic objects (galaxies, quasars, radio, x-ray and infrared sources, etc.). NED was created in the late 1980s by two Pasadena astronomers, George Helou and Barry F. Madore. NED is funded by NASA and is operated by the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) on the campus of the California Institute of Technology , under contract with NASA . NED is built around a master list of extragalactic objects for which cross-identifications of names have been established, accurate positions and redshifts entered to the extent possible, and some basic data collected. Bibliographic references relevant to individual objects have been compiled, and abstracts of extragalactic interest are kept on line. Detailed and referenced photometry, position, and redshift data, have been taken from large compilations and from...