WR 25 And Tr16-244: Previously Unseen Mammoth Stars Get The Hubble Treatment.
posted by homunculus on Nov 27, 2008 - 10 comments

See Saturn this Saturday April 12 is the second annual International Sidewalk Astronomy Night, a worldwide event coordinated by the Sidewalk Astronomers. The group, founded in 1968 by John Dobson (subject of this documentary), is dedicated to a sort of guerrilla astronomy -- experienced stargeeks bringing their really good telescopes out to places where people are. So even on your way to the bars, the shows, and the honky-tonk you can see stuff like this and this - like these people did.
posted by Miko on Apr 10, 2008 - 16 comments

Billions and Billions astrophotography CCD gallery / film gallery / equipment / tutorials
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Sep 14, 2007 - 7 comments

NASA Astronomers Find Bizarre Planet-Mass Object Orbiting Neutron Star [via]
posted by brundlefly on Sep 13, 2007 - 45 comments

Under alien skies: Start with the simply stunning Exosolar, a flash-based interface for navigating through 2,000 nearer stars in 3-D, including all discovered planets outside our solar system. See what the skies would look like from other planets and suns. Explore star maps from many science fiction universes, from Star Trek to Dune. Watch the Big Dipper change its shape over a hundred thousand years. Zoom into a face-on map of the Milky Way that would cover 16 square meters if printed, and see the Atlas of the Universe. [prev. on extrasolar planets, prev. on star maps]
posted by blahblahblah on May 6, 2007 - 9 comments

It's like Google Maps...for space. Wikisky is a draggable, zoomable, web-based star map. And if you click on a star or other object, it brings up a page with all the information you could want on it, including recent articles and astrophotos that contain that object. And it does lots more. Go explore.
posted by Jimbob on Mar 22, 2007 - 25 comments

"A Naked-Eye Nova in Scorpius" - Scorpius, the constellation home to M4, has a nova visible to the naked eye. Skytonight.com has a cool javascript almanac for you to see when it will be most visible for where you live.
posted by frecklefaerie on Feb 19, 2007 - 7 comments

The clear sky clock (this one is for Boston) provides a graphical representation of seven factors that affect the clarity of stargazing: cloud cover, transparency, seeing, darkness, wind, humidity, and temperature. Once you've figured out where and when to go stargazing (probably somewhere rural) make a custom map for your location so you know what you're seeing.
posted by nekton on Sep 27, 2006 - 7 comments

The Size of Our World. A brief study in pictures of the relative sizes of some astronomical bodies.
posted by Eideteker on Jul 27, 2006 - 47 comments

Stellarium. A free program which renders realistic skies in real time, and more. Handy for anyone who ever wrangled with one of these. And very cool to watch in fast forward.
posted by fire&wings on Nov 7, 2005 - 20 comments

First Super Star Cluster detected in Milky Way, while in the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), MYSTERY Star Clusters are found.
Unique? Us? Haw. Plenty of Earth-like planets await discovery, say researchers.
posted by dfowler on Apr 5, 2005 - 6 comments

On the mission to understand and communicate miracles of Life on Earth and the mysteries reaching beyond the stars.
posted by breezeway on Mar 7, 2005 - 5 comments

The Great Bear in Maine.
posted by homunculus on Oct 28, 2004 - 3 comments

IN 1877 Isabel Gill visited an inhospitable volcanic blob in the mid-Atlantic to help her husband with ground-breaking astronomical measurements. Then she wrote a wrote a book about it, including an attempt to explain to fellow Victorian ladies the concept of a solar parallax in terms she thought they might be able to grasp:"I myself do not understand mathematical terms, so how could I use them with the hope of explaining these things to my readers? However, I can use knitting-needles, and perhaps they may do just as well."
Wierdly, more than a century later another astronomer visited the site and found the sandy paths which marked the Gill's lava-top camp still undisturbed by the Atlantic winds.
posted by penguin pie on Sep 16, 2004 - 17 comments

Step away from the computer. Go outside. Have a look. The annual Perseid meteor shower is gracing our skies for the next 48 hours, looking better than ever, as Earth passes through a filament trailing from a comet's tail. (Hopefully, the comet won't smash into us in 2126.)
posted by digaman on Aug 10, 2004 - 12 comments

Become a GLM (Galactic Lord and Master) Your chance to invest in an expanding market (or is it steady state now, I forget), the Universe is up for grabs! Do you have a favourite astral body that you'd like to lay claim to? From Newscientist - Feedback.
posted by asok on Jul 6, 2003 - 5 comments

Another massive celestial object, with a companion star in tow, has been discovered hurtling through the Milky Way. Unlike similar discoveries confirming the bow shock theory of stellar dynamics, this week's phenomenon is considerably older, as it's an aftereffect of the galactic core's formation. The French and Argentine astromoners making the discovery believe what they've witnessed may be a black hole, though theoretically, the collasped matter may be a gravistar.
posted by Smart Dalek on Nov 19, 2002 - 10 comments

Celestial Atlases are perhaps some of the most beautiful scientific books ever published, capturing the mystery and the grandeur of the heavens, and rife with beautiful and often intimidating interpretations of the constellations. Out Of This World has been my favorite website since the dawning of time, and one I go back to over and over again even though it never changes. The period from 1603 to 1801 produced the most beautiful star maps, and you don't have to know a thing about astronomy to appreciate how heavenly these are.
posted by iconomy on Sep 10, 2002 - 9 comments

Archaeoastronomy examines how ancient cultures studied and worshipped the heavens. From the arrangement of the Stonehenge stelae to the Mayan reverence for the planet Venus, this science has resulted in some fascinating and often beautiful discoveries, including star charts found in tombs in Ireland and Japan, the Lascaux caves in France, and rock paintings of a supernova in 1054 that resulted in the Crab Nebula. My personal favorite is the “Sun Dagger” in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (scroll down for photos).
posted by gottabefunky on Aug 19, 2002 - 11 comments

Quark Star Observations of two stars, one unusually small and the other unusually cold, have led astronomers to think they are seeing evidence of a new form of matter and a new kind of star, one possibly made of elementary particles known as quarks and denser than any cosmic object other than a black hole. (NYT link: yada yada) Here's a related link on neutron stars and quark matter. I rather like the phrase strange quark matter... Anybody else hear about this?
posted by y2karl on Apr 11, 2002 - 8 comments

A striking photo of The Sigma Orionis star cluster where the astronomers have found 18 "planets" which are not orbiting around any central star. On the same note, you may want to visit the new planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. My mother was not impressed by the New Hayden Planetarium when she visited NY this summer. I thought the Rose Center was a real life version of the Hawking book, The Illustrated A Brief History of Time. The book was a much better experience.
posted by tamim on Oct 7, 2000 - 0 comments