* Astronomy

Jupiter with 150 mm refractor telescope Jupiter the biggest planet of our solar system captured with a 150 mm (6 inch) achromatic refractor telescope equipped with a Chromacor. I used a Tou Cam Philips web cam and a 2x barlow with a tele-exte...

Nice bolide over Southern Oklahoma / North Texas at 05:33:00 AM, 23 July 2011. Radar scatter is pretty good. 20110723_103258

Based on the recommendations of asteroid experts, ESA has selected asteroids 2002 AT4 and (10302) 1989 ML as mission targets asteroids for its Near-Earth Object deflecting mission, Don Quijote. Don Quijote is an asteroid-deflecting mission currently under study b...

A group of 50 international physicists, led by UC Riverside’s Ann Heinson, has detected for the first time a subatomic particle, the top quark, produced without the simultaneous production of its antimatter partner – an extremely rare event. The discovery of the single top quark could help scient...

Maxima of long period variable S Cygni on the 23rd July, 2011. Magnitude: 10.3-16.0 Period: 322.93 days Type: Mira Position (2000): RA 20 05 29.84 | Dec +57 59 09

Asteroid 2011 FX62 = 2005 CC79Orbital elements: 2011 FX62 = 2005 CC79 Epoch 2011 Aug. 27.0 TT = JDT 2455800.5 MPC M 7.05456 (2000.0) P Q n 0.00299695 Peri. 232.60687 -0.90690431 -0.29811650 a 47.6449290 Node 288.29416 +0.41084722 -0.78240468 e 0.5727705 Incl. 18.27591 -0.09342982 -0.546...

Maxima of long period variable R Telescopii on the 23rd July, 2011. Magnitude: 8.6-14.8 Period: 461.88 days Type: Mira Position (2000): RA 20 14 45.11 | Dec -46 58 54.9

Maxima of long period variable V Pegasi on the 23rd July, 2011. Magnitude range: 8.7-14.4 Period: 302.35 days Type: Mira Position (2000): RA 22 01 02.57 | Dec +06 07 11

NOVAC will hold a public star party at C.M. Crockett Park on the 23rd from 7:30 to 11:00 p.m.

The Neptunalia was an obscure archaic two-day festival in honour of Neptune as god of waters, celebrated at Rome in the heat and drought of summer, probably July 23 (Varro, De lingua Latina vi.19). It was one of the dies comitiales, when committees of citizens could vote on civil or criminal matters....

Cosmic Alligator Eats its Way through the Sky Many people enjoy the summer pastime of imagining pictures in clouds in the sky. The same can be done with clouds in the universe. Seen here by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, the cloud CG4 might be imagined as a cosmic alligator eatin...

A powerful jet from a super massive black hole is blasting a nearby galaxy, according to new findings from NASA observatories. This never-before witnessed galactic violence may have a profound effect on planets in the jet's path and trigger a burst of star formation in its destructive wake. Known a...

Title: Big fish, small fish: Two New Ultra-Faint Satellites of the Milky Way Authors: V. Belokurov (1), M.G. Walker (1), N.W. Evans (1), G. Gilmore (1), M. J. Irwin (1), D. Just (2), S. Koposov (1), M. Mateo (3), E. Olszewski (2), L. Watkins (1), L. Wyrzykowski (1) ((1) IoA, Cambridge, (2) Steward Obse...

An asteroid has been named after the founder of the Spaceguard Centre in Knighton, because of his great service to space observation. The asteroid that circles the Sun between Mars and Jupiter was discovered in 2000 by the Spacewatch project based at Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona, and they recom...

Caltech-Led Astronomers Discover the Largest and Most Distant Reservoir of Water Yet Water really is everywhere. Two teams of astronomers, each led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in t...