The Star Clusters Young & Old Newsletter
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The Messenger
10th anniversary of VLT First Light The Messenger The ground layer seeing on Paranal HAWK-I Science Verification The emission nebula around Antares No. 132 – June 2008 –June 132 No. The Organisation The Perfect Machine Tim de Zeeuw a groundbased spectroscopic comple thousand each semester, 800 of which (ESO Director General) ment to the Hubble Space Telescope. are for Paranal. The User Portal has Italy and Switzerland had joined ESO in about 4 000 registered users and 1981, enabling the construction of the the archive contains 74 TB of data and This issue of the Messenger marks the 3.5m New Technology Telescope with advanced data products. tenth anniversary of first light of the Very pioneering advances in active optics, Large Telescope. It is an excellent occa crucial for the next step: the construction sion to look at the broader implications of the Very Large Telescope, which Winning strategy of the VLT’s success and to consider the received the green light from Council in next steps. 1987 and was built on Cerro Paranal in The VLT opened for business some five the Atacama desert between Antofagasta years after the Keck telescopes, but the and Taltal in Northern Chile. The 8.1m decision to take the time to build a fully Mission Gemini telescopes and the 8.3m Subaru integrated system, consisting of four telescope were constructed on a similar 8.2m telescopes and providing a dozen ESO’s mission is to enable scientific dis time scale, while the Large Binocular Tele foci for a carefully thoughtout comple coveries by constructing and operating scope and the Gran Telescopio Canarias ment of instruments together with four powerful observational facilities that are now starting operations. -
Winter Constellations
Winter Constellations *Orion *Canis Major *Monoceros *Canis Minor *Gemini *Auriga *Taurus *Eradinus *Lepus *Monoceros *Cancer *Lynx *Ursa Major *Ursa Minor *Draco *Camelopardalis *Cassiopeia *Cepheus *Andromeda *Perseus *Lacerta *Pegasus *Triangulum *Aries *Pisces *Cetus *Leo (rising) *Hydra (rising) *Canes Venatici (rising) Orion--Myth: Orion, the great hunter. In one myth, Orion boasted he would kill all the wild animals on the earth. But, the earth goddess Gaia, who was the protector of all animals, produced a gigantic scorpion, whose body was so heavily encased that Orion was unable to pierce through the armour, and was himself stung to death. His companion Artemis was greatly saddened and arranged for Orion to be immortalised among the stars. Scorpius, the scorpion, was placed on the opposite side of the sky so that Orion would never be hurt by it again. To this day, Orion is never seen in the sky at the same time as Scorpius. DSO’s ● ***M42 “Orion Nebula” (Neb) with Trapezium A stellar nursery where new stars are being born, perhaps a thousand stars. These are immense clouds of interstellar gas and dust collapse inward to form stars, mainly of ionized hydrogen which gives off the red glow so dominant, and also ionized greenish oxygen gas. The youngest stars may be less than 300,000 years old, even as young as 10,000 years old (compared to the Sun, 4.6 billion years old). 1300 ly. 1 ● *M43--(Neb) “De Marin’s Nebula” The star-forming “comma-shaped” region connected to the Orion Nebula. ● *M78--(Neb) Hard to see. A star-forming region connected to the Orion Nebula. -
Galaxies and Cosmology (2011)
Galaxien und Kosmologie / Galaxies and Cosmology (2011) Refereed Papers Adams, J. J., K. Gebhardt, G. A. Blanc, M. H. Fabricius, G. J. Hill, J. D. Murphy, R. C. E. van den Bosch and G. van de Ven: The central dark matter distribution of NGC 2976. The Astrophysical Journal 745, id. 92 (2011) Aihara, H., C. Allende Prieto, D. An, S. F. Anderson, É. Aubourg, E. Balbinot, T. C. Beers, A. A. Berlind, S. J. Bickerton, D. Bizyaev, M. R. Blanton, J. J. Bochanski, A. S. Bolton, J. Bovy, W. N. Brandt, J. Brinkmann, P. J. Brown, J. R. Brownstein, N. G. Busca, H. Campbell, M. A. Carr, Y. Chen, C. Chiappini, J. Comparat, N. Connolly, M. Cortes, R. A. C. Croft, A. J. Cuesta, L. N. da Costa, J. R. A. Davenport, K. Dawson, S. Dhital, A. Ealet, G. L. Ebelke, E. M. Edmondson, D. J. Eisenstein, S. Escoffier, M. Esposito, M. L. Evans, X. Fan, B. Femenía Castellá, A. Font-Ribera, P. M. Frinchaboy, J. Ge, B. A. Gillespie, G. Gilmore, J. I. González Hernández, J. R. Gott, A. Gould, E. K. Grebel, J. E. Gunn, J.-C. Hamilton, P. Harding, D. W. Harris, S. L. Hawley, F. R. Hearty, S. Ho, D. W. Hogg, J. A. Holtzman, K. Honscheid, N. Inada, I. I. Ivans, L. Jiang, J. A. Johnson, C. Jordan, W. P. Jordan, E. A. Kazin, D. Kirkby, M. A. Klaene, G. R. Knapp, J.-P. Kneib, C. S. Kochanek, L. Koesterke, J. A. Kollmeier, R. G. Kron, H. Lampeitl, D. Lang, J.-M. Le Goff, Y. -
National Observatories
Sidney C Wolff NOAO/DIR NATIONAL OPTICAL ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORIES NATIONAL OPTICAL ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORIES Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory Kitt Peak National Observatory National Solar Observatory La Serena, Chile Tucson, Arizona 85726 Sunspot, New Mexico 88349 ANNUAL REPORT October 1996 - September 1997 October 30,1997 TABLE OF CONTENTS L INTRODUCTION IL AURA BOARD m. SCffiNTDJIC PROGRAM A. Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) 1. The Search for High Z Supernovae 2. Nearby Stars and Planets 2 B. Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) 3 1. The History of Star Formation in Distant Galaxies 3 2. Oxygen Abundance and the Age of the Universe 4 3. The Age of Elliptical Galaxies - Is There Enough Time? 5 C. National Solar Observatory (NSO) 5 1. Results from GONG 5 2. High-Resolution Images of Solar Magnetic Fields 6 3. Active Optics Control Loop Closed at the Sac Peak Vacuum Tower Telescope 7 IV. DIVISION OPERATIONS 7 A. CTIO 7 Telescope Upgrades and Instrumentation 7 1. 4-m Upgrades 8 2. Major Instrumentation Efforts 9 3. SOAR 4-m Telescope Project 9 4. CCD Implementation and ARCON Controller Development 10 5. Existing Small General-User Telescopes on Cerro Tololo 10 6. New "Tenant" Installations and Upgrades 10 7. Other 11 B. KPNO 12 1. Image Quality Improvements 12 2. WTYN Queue Observing Experiment 12 3. WTYN 13 4. KPNO Instrumentation Improvements 14 5. Burrell-Schmidt 14 C. NSO 15 1. Kitt Peak 15 2. Sacramento Peak 17 3. Digital Library Development 21 D. USGP/ScOpe 21 E. NOAO Instrumentation 25 1. CCD Mosaic Imager 26 2. -
Astronomy Magazine Special Issue
γ ι ζ γ δ α κ β κ ε γ β ρ ε ζ υ α φ ψ ω χ α π χ φ γ ω ο ι δ κ α ξ υ λ τ μ β α σ θ ε β σ δ γ ψ λ ω σ η ν θ Aι must-have for all stargazers η δ μ NEW EDITION! ζ λ β ε η κ NGC 6664 NGC 6539 ε τ μ NGC 6712 α υ δ ζ M26 ν NGC 6649 ψ Struve 2325 ζ ξ ATLAS χ α NGC 6604 ξ ο ν ν SCUTUM M16 of the γ SERP β NGC 6605 γ V450 ξ η υ η NGC 6645 M17 φ θ M18 ζ ρ ρ1 π Barnard 92 ο χ σ M25 M24 STARS M23 ν β κ All-in-one introduction ALL NEW MAPS WITH: to the night sky 42,000 more stars (87,000 plotted down to magnitude 8.5) AND 150+ more deep-sky objects (more than 1,200 total) The Eagle Nebula (M16) combines a dark nebula and a star cluster. In 100+ this intense region of star formation, “pillars” form at the boundaries spectacular between hot and cold gas. You’ll find this object on Map 14, a celestial portion of which lies above. photos PLUS: How to observe star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies AS2-CV0610.indd 1 6/10/10 4:17 PM NEW EDITION! AtlAs Tour the night sky of the The staff of Astronomy magazine decided to This atlas presents produce its first star atlas in 2006. -
A Basic Requirement for Studying the Heavens Is Determining Where In
Abasic requirement for studying the heavens is determining where in the sky things are. To specify sky positions, astronomers have developed several coordinate systems. Each uses a coordinate grid projected on to the celestial sphere, in analogy to the geographic coordinate system used on the surface of the Earth. The coordinate systems differ only in their choice of the fundamental plane, which divides the sky into two equal hemispheres along a great circle (the fundamental plane of the geographic system is the Earth's equator) . Each coordinate system is named for its choice of fundamental plane. The equatorial coordinate system is probably the most widely used celestial coordinate system. It is also the one most closely related to the geographic coordinate system, because they use the same fun damental plane and the same poles. The projection of the Earth's equator onto the celestial sphere is called the celestial equator. Similarly, projecting the geographic poles on to the celest ial sphere defines the north and south celestial poles. However, there is an important difference between the equatorial and geographic coordinate systems: the geographic system is fixed to the Earth; it rotates as the Earth does . The equatorial system is fixed to the stars, so it appears to rotate across the sky with the stars, but of course it's really the Earth rotating under the fixed sky. The latitudinal (latitude-like) angle of the equatorial system is called declination (Dec for short) . It measures the angle of an object above or below the celestial equator. The longitud inal angle is called the right ascension (RA for short). -
Review Article Star Formation Histories of Dwarf Galaxies from the Colour-Magnitude Diagrams of Their Resolved Stellar Populations
Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Astronomy Volume 2010, Article ID 158568, 25 pages doi:10.1155/2010/158568 Review Article Star Formation Histories of Dwarf Galaxies from the Colour-Magnitude Diagrams of Their Resolved Stellar Populations Michele Cignoni1, 2 and Monica Tosi2 1 Astronomy Department, Bologna University, Via Ranzani 1, 40127 Bologna, Italy 2 Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, INAF, Via Ranzani 1, 40127 Bologna, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Michele Cignoni, [email protected] Received 5 May 2009; Accepted 12 August 2009 Academic Editor: Ulrich Hopp Copyright © 2010 M. Cignoni and M. Tosi. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In this tutorial paper we summarize how the star formation (SF) history of a galactic region can be derived from the colour- magnitude diagram (CMD) of its resolved stars. The procedures to build synthetic CMDs and to exploit them to derive the SF histories (SFHs) are described, as well as the corresponding uncertainties. The SFHs of resolved dwarf galaxies of all morphological types, obtained from the application of the synthetic CMD method, are reviewed and discussed. To summarize: (1) only early-type galaxies show evidence of long interruptions in the SF activity; late-type dwarfs present rather continuous, or gasping, SF regimes; (2) a few early-type dwarfs have experienced only one episode of SF activity concentrated at the earliest epochs, whilst many others show extended or recurrent SF activity; (3) no galaxy experiencing now its first SF episode has been found yet; (4) no frequent evidence of strong SF bursts is found; (5) there is no significant difference in the SFH of dwarf irregulars and blue compact dwarfs, except for the current SF rates. -
NGC 602: Taken Under the “Wing” of the Small Magellanic Cloud
National Aeronautics and Space Administration NGC 602 www.nasa.gov NGC 602: Taken Under the “Wing” of the Small Magellanic Cloud The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way. In this composite image the Chandra data is shown in purple, optical data from Hubble is shown in red, green and blue and infrared data from Spitzer is shown in red. Chandra observations of the SMC have resulted in the first detection of X-ray emission from young stars with masses similar to our Sun outside our Milky Way galaxy. The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is one of the Milky Way’s region known as NGC 602, which contains a collection of at least closest galactic neighbors. Even though it is a small, or so-called three star clusters. One of them, NGC 602a, is similar in age, dwarf galaxy, the SMC is so bright that it is visible to the unaided mass, and size to the famous Orion Nebula Cluster. Researchers eye from the Southern Hemisphere and near the equator. have studied NGC 602a to see if young stars—that is, those only a few million years old—have different properties when they have Modern astronomers are also interested in studying the SMC low levels of metals, like the ones found in NGC 602a. (and its cousin, the Large Magellanic Cloud), but for very different reasons. The SMC is one of the Milky Way’s closest galactic Using Chandra, astronomers discovered extended X-ray emission, neighbors. Because the SMC is so close and bright, it offers an from the two most densely populated regions in NGC 602a. -
SAC's 110 Best of the NGC
SAC's 110 Best of the NGC by Paul Dickson Version: 1.4 | March 26, 1997 Copyright °c 1996, by Paul Dickson. All rights reserved If you purchased this book from Paul Dickson directly, please ignore this form. I already have most of this information. Why Should You Register This Book? Please register your copy of this book. I have done two book, SAC's 110 Best of the NGC and the Messier Logbook. In the works for late 1997 is a four volume set for the Herschel 400. q I am a beginner and I bought this book to get start with deep-sky observing. q I am an intermediate observer. I bought this book to observe these objects again. q I am an advance observer. I bought this book to add to my collect and/or re-observe these objects again. The book I'm registering is: q SAC's 110 Best of the NGC q Messier Logbook q I would like to purchase a copy of Herschel 400 book when it becomes available. Club Name: __________________________________________ Your Name: __________________________________________ Address: ____________________________________________ City: __________________ State: ____ Zip Code: _________ Mail this to: or E-mail it to: Paul Dickson 7714 N 36th Ave [email protected] Phoenix, AZ 85051-6401 After Observing the Messier Catalog, Try this Observing List: SAC's 110 Best of the NGC [email protected] http://www.seds.org/pub/info/newsletters/sacnews/html/sac.110.best.ngc.html SAC's 110 Best of the NGC is an observing list of some of the best objects after those in the Messier Catalog. -
Distant Arm - NGC772
29 September 2016, Zeiss Cas 150/2250 Distant Arm - NGC772 Telescope: Zeiss Cassegrain 150/2250 Eyepieces: ATC53P - ATC Plossl, f=53mm, (42×, 530) ATC20K - ATC Kellner, f=20mm, (113×, 220) A-16 - Zeiss Abbe Ortho, f=16mm, (141×, 200) O-12.5 - CZJ Ortho, f=12.5mm, (180×, 140) Time: 2016/09/29 19:30-21:40UT Location: R´ıˇcanyˇ Weather: Clear sky with slight haze and decaying small thin clouds. Mount: Zeiss 1b Accessories: Baader/Zeiss T2 prism This was my typical backyard session. I could go out only for a short time after I put all three kids in to their beds. The night was still warm. Normally, I would try to take an advantage of it and go to some darker place. As I was alone with the kids for the whole week I was bound to stay in our backyard. During last couple of years, I have learnt to live with this handicap. There is always something interesting to look at, even with small refractors. Recently, I was explor- ing the capability of my largest telescope, 150mm Cassegrain. For this night, the main targets were two galaxies, NGC 660 and NGC 772, which I had troubles to locate two days before in 80mm refractor. I was curios how much of help the larger telescope would be. I did not jump to these two galaxies im- mediately. They were still low in the slight haze enhanced by the street lamps. I started a little bit higher in Andromeda with beau- tiful edge-on galaxy NGC 891 (V=10.0, 13:50 ×2:50, PA22◦). -
407 a Abell Galaxy Cluster S 373 (AGC S 373) , 351–353 Achromat
Index A Barnard 72 , 210–211 Abell Galaxy Cluster S 373 (AGC S 373) , Barnard, E.E. , 5, 389 351–353 Barnard’s loop , 5–8 Achromat , 365 Barred-ring spiral galaxy , 235 Adaptive optics (AO) , 377, 378 Barred spiral galaxy , 146, 263, 295, 345, 354 AGC S 373. See Abell Galaxy Cluster Bean Nebulae , 303–305 S 373 (AGC S 373) Bernes 145 , 132, 138, 139 Alnitak , 11 Bernes 157 , 224–226 Alpha Centauri , 129, 151 Beta Centauri , 134, 156 Angular diameter , 364 Beta Chamaeleontis , 269, 275 Antares , 129, 169, 195, 230 Beta Crucis , 137 Anteater Nebula , 184, 222–226 Beta Orionis , 18 Antennae galaxies , 114–115 Bias frames , 393, 398 Antlia , 104, 108, 116 Binning , 391, 392, 398, 404 Apochromat , 365 Black Arrow Cluster , 73, 93, 94 Apus , 240, 248 Blue Straggler Cluster , 169, 170 Aquarius , 339, 342 Bok, B. , 151 Ara , 163, 169, 181, 230 Bok Globules , 98, 216, 269 Arcminutes (arcmins) , 288, 383, 384 Box Nebula , 132, 147, 149 Arcseconds (arcsecs) , 364, 370, 371, 397 Bug Nebula , 184, 190, 192 Arditti, D. , 382 Butterfl y Cluster , 184, 204–205 Arp 245 , 105–106 Bypass (VSNR) , 34, 38, 42–44 AstroArt , 396, 406 Autoguider , 370, 371, 376, 377, 388, 389, 396 Autoguiding , 370, 376–378, 380, 388, 389 C Caldwell Catalogue , 241 Calibration frames , 392–394, 396, B 398–399 B 257 , 198 Camera cool down , 386–387 Barnard 33 , 11–14 Campbell, C.T. , 151 Barnard 47 , 195–197 Canes Venatici , 357 Barnard 51 , 195–197 Canis Major , 4, 17, 21 S. Chadwick and I. Cooper, Imaging the Southern Sky: An Amateur Astronomer’s Guide, 407 Patrick Moore’s Practical -
Atlas Menor Was Objects to Slowly Change Over Time
C h a r t Atlas Charts s O b by j Objects e c t Constellation s Objects by Number 64 Objects by Type 71 Objects by Name 76 Messier Objects 78 Caldwell Objects 81 Orion & Stars by Name 84 Lepus, circa , Brightest Stars 86 1720 , Closest Stars 87 Mythology 88 Bimonthly Sky Charts 92 Meteor Showers 105 Sun, Moon and Planets 106 Observing Considerations 113 Expanded Glossary 115 Th e 88 Constellations, plus 126 Chart Reference BACK PAGE Introduction he night sky was charted by western civilization a few thou - N 1,370 deep sky objects and 360 double stars (two stars—one sands years ago to bring order to the random splatter of stars, often orbits the other) plotted with observing information for T and in the hopes, as a piece of the puzzle, to help “understand” every object. the forces of nature. The stars and their constellations were imbued with N Inclusion of many “famous” celestial objects, even though the beliefs of those times, which have become mythology. they are beyond the reach of a 6 to 8-inch diameter telescope. The oldest known celestial atlas is in the book, Almagest , by N Expanded glossary to define and/or explain terms and Claudius Ptolemy, a Greco-Egyptian with Roman citizenship who lived concepts. in Alexandria from 90 to 160 AD. The Almagest is the earliest surviving astronomical treatise—a 600-page tome. The star charts are in tabular N Black stars on a white background, a preferred format for star form, by constellation, and the locations of the stars are described by charts.