*** The Official Astronomy & Universe Thread ***

[Tibbz2]

Have they got an astronomy society or maybe there is one nearby?

Yeah I'm currently a member of a society that is actually based in Nottingham where I'm going, it's just the fact I won't have room to store my kit while there

Although the physics department let students use their scopes up on the roof for personal use so at least I'll still be able to do something

 

[Glaucus]

ï'm only about 1/3 of the way through but I'm finding it very interesting, first few minutes I almost switched it off, glad I didn't.
About exoplanets and direct imaging.

Would be interested if anyone knows a blog about the amateur who found an exoplanet.

 

[Cosimo]

ESA’s Earth-orbiting Proba-2 satellite observed three partial solar eclipses on the morning of 13 September:

 

[Cosimo]

Now SDO's turn to show the eclipse:

 

[Cosimo]

Since its launch nearly 20 years ago, NASA and the European Space Agency's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has spotted 3000 comets.

This visualization utilizes SOHO data from 1998 - 2010 and shows over 2000 comets. Comets that were first observed by SOHO carry no labels, and comets witnessed by not discovered by the spacecraft are represented with their labels. Trails on the comets are color coded based on family: yellow - unaffiliated comets, red - Kreutz group, green - Meyer group, blue - Marsden, cyan - Kracht, and magenta - Kracht 2.

 

[Cosimo]

Landing on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko:

 

[Cosimo]

The flight structure of James Webb Space Telescope standing tall in the cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland:

More:

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

 

[Cosimo]

MARS flyover video. The video is from the latest images (see a few posts above) which were stitched together and rendered on a sphere:

This animation, made with the LORRI (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) images, begins with a low-altitude look at the informally named Norgay Montes, flies northward over the boundary between informally named Sputnik Planum and Cthulhu Regio, turns, and drifts slowly east. During the animation, the altitude of the observer rises until it is about 10 times higher to show about 80% of the hemisphere New Horizons flew closest to on July 14, 2015.

 

[Cosimo]

For the UK:

September 28th early morning: A total Eclipse of the Moon

From 01:12 BST until 06:22 BST we will, if clear, be able to witness a total eclipse of the Moon. Not just any Moon, but the 2015 Harvest Moon and a Supermoon to boot with an angular diameter of 33.5 arc minutes - the largest apparent angular diameter of the year! The full eclipse lasts for three hours and twenty minutes with totality starting at 03:11 BST and ending at 04:23 - over an hour. The Moon is passing through the southern part of the umbra so we should expect the southern limb to appear brighter than the northern limb. At the mid point of the eclipse at 03:47 BST the northern limb just reaches the central part of the umbra. The Moon will then lie at an elevation of 27 degrees above the southwest horizon. As the Moon leaves the umbral shadow 05:27 BST it will lie some 15 degrees above the horizon in the dawn sky.

 

[Cosimo]

A look at Hubble’s discoveries in the Pluto system:

 

[Cosimo]

A quick look at Pluto from New Horizons:

 

[Cosimo]

So what do you do when the high-gain antenna on your new telescope gets stuck:

 

[Cosimo]

The beautiful Veil Nebula, a supernova remnant.

Formed from the violent death of a star twenty times the mass of the Sun that exploded about 8000 years ago. Located roughly 2100 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus (The Swan), this brightly coloured cloud of glowing debris spans approximately 110 light-years:

More:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/29/

 

[Cosimo]

The latest high-resolution enhanced colour view of Pluto:

The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC). Pluto’s surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode. The image resolves details and colors on scales as small as 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometers). The viewer is encouraged to zoom in on the image on a larger screen to fully appreciate the complexity of Pluto’s surface features.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

 

[Rroff]

That first video is stunning - I've always loved stuff like that which actually gives you some idea where things are in space relative to the milky way.

 

[Cosimo]

Reminder:

Supermoon Lunar Eclipse Tonight - 01:12 BST until 06:22 BST


See:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18694167

 

[Cosimo]

Looking at the Martian Atmosphere:

 

[Cosimo]

Evidence of water on Mars:

More:

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars

The scientific paper:

Spectral evidence for hydrated salts in recurring slope lineae on Mars:

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2546.html

 

[Cosimo]

Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. The supermassive black hole that has the mass equivalent of some four million Suns:

Background:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/black-hole-SagittariusA.html

 

[Cosimo]

Animation showing the behaviour of water-ice observed in the Imhotep region of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko between 1 August 2014 and 10 February 2015 by Rosetta’s VIRTIS instrument, when the comet-Sun separation decreased from 542 million km to 352 million km:

Animation showing the behaviour of water-ice observed in the neck region of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: