AXIOMATIC ASTRONOMY HGObservatory

Great blog by Michael Bakich-Astronomy Magazine

2011-09-02T19:56:00.000-05:00

All about the Northwoods Star Fest last weekend. It was so cool we are all still talking about it! Here's the link: http://bit.ly/rq9wgY

How a distant black hole devoured a star

2011-08-24T15:29:00.000-05:00

How a distant black hole devoured a star

Mechanism links substance abuse with vulnerability to depression

2011-08-24T14:51:00.000-05:00

Mechanism links substance abuse with vulnerability to depression

Northwoods Starfest 2011

2011-08-24T09:49:00.001-05:00

Will be attending the starfest this weekend. Stay tuned for pictures and updates from the site!

Mike Brown's Planets: The death of the 10th planet

2011-08-24T09:28:00.000-05:00

Mike Brown's Planets: The death of the 10th planet: A remembrance of 5 years ago, today, excerpted from How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming As an astronomer, I have long had a profes...

Tantalizing clues as to why matter prevails in the universe: Surprisingly large matter/antimatter asymmetry discovered

2010-08-22T15:13:00.001-05:00

Tantalizing clues as to why matter prevails in the universe: Surprisingly large matter/antimatter asymmetry discovered

Hubble celebrates 20 years of Discoveries!

2010-04-23T13:17:00.000-05:00

Come pull an "ALL NIGHTER" with us at Astronomy.FM!

2010-03-26T13:07:00.008-05:00

Come pull an "ALL NIGHTER" with us at Astronomy.FM!
While in the U.S., March Madness is often associated with the sport of basketball... to astronomers around the world; March marks the start of a brief season where you can possibly view all or most of the Messier objects in a single night, from a single location.

Global Rent-A-Scope has installed a new video camera system, which will see first public light as part of Astronomy.FM's March Madness Messier Marathon to be held LIVE starting at dusk on March 27, 2010 - 7pm MDT (9PM EDT, March 28 at 0100 GMT) - and will continue until dawn.

Stars Orbit the Milky Way Black Hole

2010-02-26T13:24:00.001-06:00

2010-02-23T17:54:00.001-06:00

A dramatic 3D Mars view based on terrain modeling from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter data shows "highs and lows" of Mojave Crater.This enhanced view shows material that has ponded and is backed up behind massive blocks of bedrock in the crater's terrace walls. Hundreds of Martian impact craters have similar ponding with pitted surfaces. Scientists believe these "pitted ponds" are created when material melted by the crater-causing impacts is captured behind the wall terraces.

Mojave Crater, one of the freshest large craters on Mars, is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) in diameter. In a sense, it is like the Rosetta Stone of Martian craters, because it is so fresh. Other craters of this size generally have already been affected by erosion, sediment and other geologic process. Fresh craters like Mohave reveal information about the impact process, including ejecta, melting and deposits.

STEREO captures a Coronal Mass Ejection

2010-02-22T22:49:00.000-06:00

Beatnik Poetry- My Flashback to Reality

2010-01-19T21:13:00.000-06:00

Reichenbach/Borda environs Lunar Sketch

2009-12-28T18:35:00.006-06:00

An absolutely gorgeous sketch of a "piece of the moon" by Carol Lakomiak!!! Won Amateur Astronomy Picture of the Day @ Astronomy.FM

Search for Extraterrestial Intelligence (SETI)

2009-11-20T18:19:00.004-06:00

Join Astronomy.FM for a live presentation on SETI and learn how you can help look for extraterrestrials and get involved in the science! Go to http://astronomy.fm/ and click on the Share Widget!

Amateur Astronomy Picture of the Day at Astronomy.FM

2009-11-19T19:59:00.002-06:00

Submit your Astro-photographs to AAPOD at http://astronomy.fm/aapod/submit.html

Join us for more Amateur Astronomy at http://astronomy.fm/

2009-11-19T19:50:00.003-06:00

Very active Amateur Astronomy Community on the web. This site hosts live radio broadcasts of all things space and celestial nightly! Join the chat and meet other like minded astronomers. Post questions and comments in the Forum! You will want to Bookmark this site!!

New Action on Sol

2009-08-29T16:06:00.003-05:00

Both STEREO spacecraft observed an eruptive prominence in extreme UV light over several hours from their widely separated perspectives (Aug. 24, 2009) and the event appeared quite different to each.

The comparison helps to illustrate the value of having these two perspectives on the Sun. Prominences are cooler clouds of gas suspended above the Sun by powerful, but unstable magnetic forces. Eruptive prominences, such as this one, erupt and break away.

Check it all out at http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/

May 10th-16th: This Weeks Sky Highlights

2009-05-10T17:56:00.002-05:00

May 10th
Look for Luna rising with ruddy Antares, heart of Scorpius, the Scorpion, late in the evening of the 10th. Luna washes out all but the brightest stars this week, but there are a number of interesting things to look for despite her glare. This is the time of the year when we see one of the oldest dramas in skylore play out during the late evening hours. If you head out about an hour after sunset and look toward the west, you’ll see the flickering light of the sky’s brightest star, Sirius, dancing just above the trees.

May11th
High in the south at the end of evening twilight is where you’ll find Saturn, now the lone bright planet visible in the evening sky. He’s perched under the right triangle of stars that make up the hindquarters of Leo, the Lion. Since the start of the year the ringed planet has been slowly progressing westward against the background stars. This "retrograde" motion will come to an end by early next week. The planet’s rings have also been slowly opening toward our line of sight, but they reach their extreme for the year this week, tilting just over five degrees. They will slowly begin to close up for the rest of the current apparition, going "edge-on" to us in early September.

May12th
Venus and Mars are engaged in an extended game of "cat and mouse" this week. You should be able to easily spot Venus some 45 minutes before sunrise along the eastern horizon. Mars will be more of a challenge, though, and you'll probably need binoculars to see him. The two planets are moving eastward against the stars at nearly identical rates, so all week long Mars maintains a six degree lead on the brighter Venus.

May13th
Vega is the summertime equal of Arcturus which is a bright winter star. Vega is already making its way up in the northeast after dark. It is the fifth brightest star in the night sky and the second brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus. It's 25 light-years distant and lies in the constellation Lyra. Four stars form the main "body" of the Lyre: Beta, Gamma, Delta and Zeta Lyrae. Together they make a kind parallelogram. At the northwestern corner of this parallelogram a triangle of stars can be seen: Alpha (Vega), Epsilon and again Zeta Lyrae. Within this constellation lies the most famous planetary nebula in the sky, M 57 or the Ring Nebula.

May14th
Face north at nightfall this week and look very high, almost overhead. There's the Big Dipper, floating upside down. The middle star of its bent handle is Mizar; can you see tiny Alcor hiding in its skirts? To find out on which side of Mizar to look for Alcor, notice that Vega is rising way off in the northeast. A line from Mizar through Alcor always points to Vega.

May 15th
By 11 p.m. the Moon is well up in the southeast. Look to its lower left, by a bit less than a fist-width at arm's length, for reddish, summery Antares already on the rise. Scattered nearby are fainter stars of Scorpius. Due to its location on the Milky Way, this constellation contains many deep sky objects such as the open clusters Messier 6 (the Butterfly Cluster) and Messier 7 (the Ptolemy Cluster), and the globular clusters Messier 4 and Messier 80.

May16th
This is the time of year when the Gemini twins stand upright in the west as twilight fades. Their bright head stars, Pollux and Castor, are lined up nearly horizontally just 4½° apart, about the width of three fingers at arm's length. Castor is the brighter of the two, and was discovered to be a visual binary in 1678. Each of the components of Castor is itself a spectroscopic binary, making Castor a quadruple star system.

Just as an Aside.....

2009-05-09T23:03:00.002-05:00

I just sent my oldest son back to Afghanistan after his 2 week leave. Only the families of soldiers can know how difficult it is to send a loved family member off to war. When he was just a little boy I never in my wildest dreams ever thought I would be having to endure this. Please pray to keep him strong and safe.

Thank You
A Soldier's Mother

Crater Aristarchus

2009-04-04T14:56:00.001-05:00

Slidecast of Crater Aristarchus coming soon!!

Crater Tycho

2009-04-04T14:55:00.001-05:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Crater Tycho

View more presentations from Marleen Bryan.

2008-12-05T22:19:00.001-06:00

Facebook me!

Cool Crater Copernicus

2008-12-04T12:43:00.001-06:00

Cool Crater Copernicus

From: marleenbryan,
19 hours ago

Cool Crater Copernicus

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: craters lunar)

Facts and history of crater Copernicus

SlideShare Link

SkyGuiding for an Hour with Marleen Bryan

2008-09-27T21:46:00.000-05:00

Live TV by Ustream

Astronomy Webcast Using images from robotic telescopes on Slooh.com

2008-09-25T20:38:00.001-05:00

Live TV : Ustream

Vid Spacecast

2008-09-19T13:13:00.001-05:00

Streaming live video by Ustream

Emily Lakdwalla Ustream 9/17/08

2008-09-18T18:11:00.001-05:00

Streaming .TV shows by Ustream

Robotic Telescope Videos featuring Slooh.com

2008-09-13T13:36:00.003-05:00

Check Out the new Large Hadron Collider HERE

2008-09-11T13:29:00.004-05:00

Video from NewScientist explains the LHC in detail. A MUST view!

Some of the first protons to be accelerated inside the Large Hadron Collider smashed into an absorbing device called a collimator at near light speed, producing a shower of particle debris recorded in this image. About an hour later the beam completed a full circuit of the 27km tunnel, to cheers from physicists (Image: CERN)

M87 and it's gorgous jet

2008-09-07T13:32:00.009-05:00

The giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87, NGC 4486), also called Virgo A, is one of the most remarkable objects in the sky.

Gorgeous detail of the Jet of M87 can be seen in this HST image which was processed by R. Mark Elowitz. The giant jet was discovered by H.D. Curtis of the Lick Observatory in 1918. This phenomenon extends thousands of light years (sources give 5,000, but maybe it is more as they are often based on too small distances of this galaxy; the present author would estimate 7-8,000 might be more likely). The jet is consisted of ejected gaseous material from the core of the galaxy. Polarimetric exposures of this jet have shown that its light is strongly polarized in a way which is typical for synchrotron radiation. It exhibits a continuous spectrum, and appears blue in (short exposure) color photos (as the one in J.D. Wray's Color Atlas of Galaxies). It is in violent turbulence; observations have shown apparent superluminal motion of gas clouds in this object - probably an illusion caused by the fact that the jet is pointing towards us.

While our Milky Way has the modest number of roughly 150 to 200 globulars, M87 possesses a remarkable system of several thousands of these objects: Moderate estimates such as the 1976 work quoted by Burnham give numbers of at least 4,000, while more modern values go up to 15,000, e.g. 13,000 in W.E. Harris' Globular Cluster Systems list), surrounding this giant galaxy in a conspicuous halo.

The telescopes at Slooh.com are able to image M87's fabulous jet as seen here in monochrome then in color images.

More on Crater Tycho

2008-08-16T11:46:00.002-05:00

Cassini Did it Again!

2008-08-14T21:06:00.001-05:00

Lunar Eclipse

2008-08-12T13:50:00.005-05:00

2008-07-26T22:48:00.001-05:00

Crater Tycho

view presentation (tags: slooh telescopes lunar astronomy)

World's Best Presentation Contest

The Big Bang Theory!

2008-07-09T15:39:00.020-05:00

Cosmic Microwave Background Image-radiation left over from the Big Bang

The Big Bang Model as most Cosmologists understand it is seen here in this example.

Luna's best Features!

2008-07-08T22:17:00.001-05:00

This Slideshare shows the moon's best features with some labels. Audio will be added to this sideshow in the near future! All pictures taken at Slooh.com

| View | Upload your own

We're There!!! Phoenix Made it!!

2008-05-26T19:34:00.001-05:00

Embedded Video

Blogged with the Flock Browser

2008-05-26T15:32:00.003-05:00

The first image is of the Phoenix Lander as it traverses the Martian atmosphere reading fro touchdown. The image was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Absolutely amazing what humans can do. A 422 million mile journey to an Alien World and the Phoenix Space craft survives touchdown in a perfectly healthy manner. In the next 90 days we will again be awed at the science this little fellow will produce and send back to us!!
The second image is first light from the eyes of Phoenix of the Mars Polar Region.

Phil Plait Live

2008-05-25T16:42:00.001-05:00

COOL!

Live .TV show provided by Ustream

Get your dose of Bad Astronomy Here! All about Black Holes

2008-05-21T18:22:00.001-05:00

Webcast by Ustream.TV

2008-05-12T20:13:00.003-05:00

The beginning of the lunar eclipse from March 3rd 2007. This clip goes to about half-way.

Lunar Eclipse in Allsky Cam on March 3, 2007

2008-05-12T19:44:00.004-05:00

Beginning of lunar eclipse the allsky cam shows a bright luna and sky. Then, during the eclipse the moon darkens as does the sky. The background stars pop out beautifully! See how the Milky Way shows up brighter during the eclipse!

Luna on April 24, 08

2008-04-27T18:41:00.003-05:00

Earth's moon on a beautiful spring night. Several areas and craters are labeled for your easy identification. Learn these areas so that when you view Luna through your binoculars or telescope you automatically know the names! Put your cursor on the picture and left click for a larger view.

Saturn's Changing Rings!! 2005-2008

2008-04-26T19:38:00.000-05:00

Saturn's rings change over the past three years. Over time the rings will nearly disappear to us observing from planet Earth.

Astronomy Slideshow with Audio

2008-04-24T22:08:00.001-05:00

| View | Upload your own

Astronomy Slideshow with Audio

2008-04-24T21:38:00.001-05:00

| View | Upload your own

Astronomy slideshows with Audio

2008-04-24T21:12:00.000-05:00

| View | Upload your own

Star Watching

2005-10-16T12:43:00.000-05:00

At Lake Superior camping summer 2005. The night skies are awsome here. Perfect for seeing with binos or scope. Only had binos on this trip. Professional viewing position too!!!

This is what a slooher troll would look like....they live under the bridge!!

The Slooh-Scopes

2005-10-16T11:52:00.000-05:00

This is a view of Mount Tiede in the Canary Islands. The Slooh Telescopes are located here.

This is a look at the telescope domes.

M51 Supernova

2005-07-04T14:19:00.000-05:00

These pictures show M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy) from May 2005 before supernova was sited and June 30 2005 from my log at slooh.com

Following are some great snaps of various colorful nebulas. Taken from Slooh.com. A robotic telescope in the Canary Islands. Charles Messier (1730-1817) compiled a list of approximately 110 astronomical objects. In those early days of astronomy, discovering comets was a way to make a name for yourself. Charles Messier aim was to catalogue objects that were often mistaken for comets.Hence each object is preceded with the letter M. For more information on Messier objects check out: seds.org/messier/

Trifid Nebula also known as M20

Lagoon Nebula also known as M8

Crab nebula also known as M1