The Astronomers

VST - The New VLT Survey Telescope

http://www.facebook.com/ScienceReason ... ESOcast 30: First Images from the VLT Survey Telescope - VST and OmegaCAM start work. This ESOcast introduces the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), the latest addition to ESO's Paranal Observatory. This new telescope has just made its first release of impressive images of the southern sky. The VST is a state-of-the-art 2.6-metre telescope, with the huge 268-megapixel camera OmegaCAM at its heart. It is designed to map the sky both quickly and with very fine image quality. It is a visible-light telescope that perfectly complements ESO's VISTA infrared survey telescope. New images of the Omega Nebula and the globular cluster Omega Centauri demonstrate the VST's power. --- Please subscribe to Science & Reason: • http://www.youtube.com/Best0fScience • http://www.youtube.com/ScienceTV • http://www.youtube.com/FFreeThinker --- A new telescope for mapping the skies is about to start work at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. The VLT Survey Telescope, or VST, with the 268 megapixel OmegaCAM camera at its heart, is the latest addition to the observatory. It is the largest telescope in the world designed to survey the sky in visible light. The special thing about the VST is that it has a very wide field of view — about twice as broad as the full Moon. It's dedicated to mapping the skies both very quickly and with very high image quality. The VST is housed in an enclosure right next to the VLT Unit Telescopes on the summit of Cerro Paranal under the pristine skies of one of the best observing sites on the planet. Over the next few years the VST and its huge camera OmegaCAM will be busy making some very detailed maps of the southern skies and in this episode you'll get to see the very first released images from this brand new telescope. The VST is a visible light telescope that perfectly complements the VISTA infrared survey telescope. The unique combination of the VST and VISTA will allow many interesting objects to be identified that can then be studied in detail with the powerful telescopes of the VLT. The VST is a state-of-the-art 2.6-metre telescope equipped with an active optics system that keeps the two mirrors of the telescope perfectly aligned at all times in order to ensure the highest possible image quality. Now, at its core, behind huge lenses, lies the OmegaCAM camera which was built around no less than 32 CCD detectors which, together, create a whopping 268 megapixel image. The camera also contains some extra CCDs that help with the telescope guiding and the active optics system, as well as some absolutely enormous colour filters. Both the telescope and the camera were designed to take full advantage of the excellent observing conditions on Paranal. The VST will make three public surveys over the next five years. One survey, called KIDS, will image several regions of the sky away from the Milky Way. It will help astronomers understand more about dark matter, dark energy and galaxy evolution, and find many new galaxy clusters and high-redshift quasars. The VST ATLAS survey will cover a larger area of sky and will focus on determining the properties of dark energy. Like KIDS, it will also hunt for far-away galaxies and quasars. The third survey, VPHAS+, will image the central plane of the Milky Way to map the structure of the Galactic disc and its star-formation history. It will yield a catalogue of around 500 million objects and will discover many new examples of unusual stars at all stages of their evolution. The VST has just made its first release of images: The spectacular Omega Nebula, also known as Swan Nebula, is a region of gas, dust and hot young stars that lies in the heart of the Milky Way. The VST field of view is so large that the entire nebula, including its fainter outer parts, is captured — and retains its superb sharpness cross the entire field. Omega Centauri is the largest globular cluster in the sky. But the VST, with its very wide field of view, has no problem in capturing the whole object in a single image, including its very faint outer regions. This image contains about 300 000 stars and it highlights the impressive sharpness of the VST's images. The combination of large field of view, excellent image quality, and the very efficient operations scheme of the VST will produce an enormous wealth of information that will advance a number of different fields of astrophysics. Many astronomers — including myself, actually — are really looking forward to the first results from the VST surveys. Credit: ESO .

vst  first  images  from  vlt  survey  telescope  eso  omegacam  cerro  paranal  observatory 

Channels: Observational astronomy 

Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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Which telescope to buy?

Below are some of the telescopes I've used in recent years, ranging from ~30 -3000 dollars. (shortened for YTs character limits) Price $35 76mm reflector dobsonian mounted (Celestron Firstscope) Weight ~ 1kg (a couple of pounds) Setup time ~0 East of Transport 1 Short focal length- wide angle field of view. Finder not really necessary. Ultra cheap, good views of Moon, Jupiter Venus, rings of Saturn, bright, wide separation double stars, and brighter deep sky objects such as M13. I was not particularly impressed with the optics on mine, but for 35 bucks, you cant complain too much! Price $200 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain, dobsonian mount (Orion Apex) Weight ~ 1kg (a couple of pounds) Setup time ~0 East of Transport 1 Longer focal length means smaller field of view for comparable eye pieces. I was impressed with this scope on the planets. It vastly outperforms the Firstscope on optics. The scope comes off the dobsonian mount on a quick release and can be mounted as a spotter scope (the main reason I got it). The dobsonian mount here (one arm) is exactly the same as the mount for the Firstscope. These are sort of the poor mans refractor. Great views of Moon and all the bright planets. Picked out Titan (brightest moon of saturn) with ease. I got this telescope for two reasons, firstly for outreach, in that you can just grab it and point it in seconds, zero setup time. Secondly I can mount it piggyback on the CPC11 (see below) and use it as a spotting/ guide scope. The Maksutov has the 'nice' feature that its a closed tube(helps keep dust out). The Mak. will have the edge on planets/ guidescope etc due to its longer focal length, but the Newtonian will be more all around bang for the buck. Price $600 10in Newtonian reflector, dobsonian mount (Celestron Starhopper) Weight ~ 15kg (~30lbs) Setup time ~10 mins to carry parts outside, 10 mins + cool down. East of Transport: Telescope is about the size of a small child (although not that heavy). It is big and awkward. Difficult to handle for the small. Almost the biggest telescope you can fit in a compact car (the reason I got it). The long open optical train requires periodic alignment (columniation) if it is frequently transported. Powerful deep-sky scope. Near zero photographic potential, but fantastic views of nebula, globular clusters and galaxies. Great scope for planets too. At this size the moon is getting too bright to look at for any length of time. Like most big newtonians, short focal ratio, which pragmatically means you get quite wide angle views. Again well suited to deep sky observing. Price $1500 90mm (3.5in) Stellarvue apochromat, -no mount, tube only (Apo Triplet) Weight ~ 4kg (~8lbs) East of Transport: The telescope is small and easy to transport. Comes with a bag that will go on an airplane as hand baggage. Worth the price for the aperture? Probably not unless you are in a fairly specific niche. This makes a great wide angle lenses for guided photography. As a guidescope its focal length is kind of short. That basically means the field of view for a given eye piece is wide. You need a very short focal length eye piece to get good magnification. I found myself using a 4mm eyepiece to look at planets, and even at that the image was small. As a finder scope though, that wide field is great. The other thing that these scope gives is absolutely beautiful stellar images. The stars just fall into incredible pin pricks. Beautiful contrasty flat views. I found the use of the short focal length eyepieces annoying for planetary use. Lacks the light gathering for versatility as a deep sky instrument. I only really ever used this as a piggybacker for the CPC11 below. Price $2800 11in Schmidt Cassegrain, driven goto alt-az fork mount (CPC11) Weight ~ 30kg (~65lbs) and thats just the top section. Tripods another 15 kg I think. Setup time ~30 mins to carry parts outside and align, 20 mins + cool down. East of Transport: It will fit in a compact car. To carry the telescope any distance really isnt an option unless you are strong. The ergonomic design is very good though. I always found mounting up the scope a bit of a bitch. Aligning it is relatively easy as the scope mount has a GPS in it that means you dont have to plug in these numbers and the time. Alignment is quite easy. I found the scope slips relatively easily unless the clutches are done up very tight. The scope can carry quite a burden (although of course when the scope weights this much extra, it does need to be well balanced). At this level it is an excellent photographic platform. It yields amazing views of almost everything. It's photographic potential is probably as good as you can get from a portable platform. This is the instrument I used to do the full rotation of Jupiter, although there the primary limitation was the stability of the sky.

which  telescope  to  buy  beginner  buyers  guide  buying  first  starter  start  fun  with  astronomy  dobsonian  newtonian  refractor  reflector  Maksutov  Schmidt  Cassegrain  achromatic  apochromatic  amazon  for  ratings  purchase  jupiter  moon  planets  night  sky  nebular  stars  equatorial  altazimuth  tripod  scope  lunar  eclipse  saturn  mars  venus  celestron  meade  orion  televue 

Channels: Observational astronomy 

Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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A Telescope's Wire To The World

http://www.facebook.com/ScienceReason ... ESOcast 23: A telescope's wire to the world. Stretching 100 kilometres through Chile's harsh Atacama Desert, a newly inaugurated data cable is creating new opportunities at ESO's Paranal Observatory and the Observatorio Cerro Armazones. Connecting these facilities to the main Latin American scientific data backbone completes the last gap in the high-speed link between the observatories and Europe. --- Please SUBSCRIBE to Science & Reason: • http://www.youtube.com/Best0fScience • http://www.youtube.com/ScienceTV • http://www.youtube.com/FFreeThinker --- EVALSO: A New High-speed Data Link to Chilean Observatories This new cable is part of the EVALSO (Enabling Virtual Access to Latin American Southern Observatories) project, a European Commission FP7 co-funded programme co-ordinated by the University of Trieste that includes ESO, Observatorio Cerro Armazones (OCA, part of Ruhr-Universität Bochum), the Chilean academic network REUNA and other organisations. As well as the cable itself, the EVALSO project involves buying capacity on existing infrastructure to complete a high-bandwidth connection from the Paranal area to ESO's headquarters near Munich, Germany. Project co-ordinator Fernando Liello said: "This project has been an excellent collaboration between the consortium members. As well as giving a fast connection to the two observatories, it brings wider benefits to the academic communities both in Europe and Latin America." The sites of Paranal and Armazones are ideal for astronomical observation due to their high altitude, clear skies and remoteness from light pollution. But their location means they are far from any pre-existing communications infrastructure, which until now has left them dependent on a microwave link to send scientific data back to a base station near Antofagasta. Telescopes at ESO's Paranal observatory produce well over 100 gigabytes of data per night, equivalent to more than 20 DVDs, even after compressing the files. While the existing link is sufficient to carry the data from the current generation of instruments at the Very Large Telescope (VLT), it does not have the bandwidth to handle data from the VISTA telescope (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, see eso0949), or for the new generation of VLT instruments coming online in the next few years. This means that for much of the data coming from Paranal, the only practical way to send it to ESO Headquarters has been to save it onto hard drives and send these by airmail. This can mean a wait of days or even weeks before observations from VISTA are ready for analysis. Even with this careful rationing of the connection and sophisticated data management to use the connection as efficiently as possible, the link can get saturated at peak times. While this causes no major problems at present, it indicates that the link is reaching capacity. ESO Director General Tim de Zeeuw said: "ESO's observatory at Paranal is growing, with new telescopes and instruments coming online. Our world-class scientific observatories need state-of-the-art infrastructure." In the place of the existing connection, which has a limit of 16 megabit/s (similar to home ADSL broadband), EVALSO will provide a much faster 10 gigabit/s link — a speed fast enough to transfer an entire DVD movie in a matter of seconds. Mario Campolargo, Director, Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures at the European Commission, said: "It is strategically important that the community of astronomers of Europe gets the best access possible to the ESO observatories: this is one of the reasons why the European Union supports the deployment of regional e-infrastructures for science in Latin America and interlinks them with GÉANT and other EU e-infrastructures." The dramatic increase in bandwidth will allow increased use of Paranal's data from a distance, in real-time. It will allow easier monitoring of the VISTA telescope's performance, and quicker access to VLT data, increasing the responsiveness of quality control. And with the expanded bandwidth, new opportunities will open up, such as astronomers and technicians taking part in meetings via high-definition videoconferencing without having to travel to Chile. Moreover, looking forward, the new link will provide enough bandwidth to keep up with the ever-growing volumes of information from Paranal and Armazones in future years, as new and bandwidth-intensive instruments come into use. Immediate remote access to data at a distant location is not just about saving money and making the observatory's work more efficient. For unexpected and unpredictable events, such as gamma-ray bursts, there is often not enough time for astronomers to travel to observatories, and EVALSO will give experts a chance to work remotely on these events almost as if they were at the observatory. • http://www.eso.org .

telescopes  eso  paranal  observatory  very  large  telescope  vlt  vista  observatorio  cerro  armazones  evalso  enabling  virtual  access  to  latin  american  southern  observatories  chile  atacama  desert  data  cable  wire  europe  trieste  oca  ruhr  university  reuna  geant  headquarters  munich  germany  collaboration  astronomical  observations  light  pollution  scientific 

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Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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Inside the Isaac Newton Telescope - Deep Sky Videos

Behind the scenes at the Isaac Newton Telescope, on La Palma, Canary Islands. Filmed and narrated by Brady Haran. With thanks to Rafael Barrena who was operating the telescope. Extra comments from Professor Mike Merrifeld, University of Nottingham. Our thanks to the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes for hosting us at La Palma and supplying many of the images. http://www.ing.iac.es/ (Special thanks to Javier Mendez at the ING) Extra images supplied by Caren Park (www.parkgallery.org), Iain Macaulay and David Brander from URN Science Show. Deep Sky Videos website: http://www.deepskyvideos.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/DeepSkyVideos Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DeepSkyVideos Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/68847473@N02/ More about the astronomers in our videos: http://www.deepskyvideos.com/pages/contributors.html Videos by Brady Haran

INT  ING  Isaac  Netwon  Newton  Telescope  La  Palma  Canary  Islands  astronomy  astronomers  messier  space  galaxies  nebula  nebulae  stars  universe  deepsky  deepskyvideos  deep  sky  telescope 

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Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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Meade LX200 Telescope - What can you see...

Telescope - Meade LX200 - what can you see with a 10" from Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey. Kent. UK. Also see "LX200 - Observatory" for more detail of how it works... All images by Peter Bruce Eastchurch Gap. This video sounded better with original Enya music but had to change due to copyright - shame. Images taken with Webcam, Cannon EOS, Starlight Xpress MX7C, Meade DSI 1 & DSI 3 & Astrovid camera's. I wish we could all "see" with our own eyes the pictures shown here but our eyes are not very sensitive at low light levels but what is importance is the fact you can see the sights with a modest set-up. And the night sky is God given and free to view - Best TV in the world...

Peter  Bruce  Eastchurch  Gap.  LX200  classic  telescope  Moon  Stars  Planets  Sun  Meade  USA  view  nebula  galaxy  cluster  Saturn  Jupiter  Venus  Mars  observatory  M31  M32  M33  M27  M51  M57  Orion  astronomy  equipment  YouTubebest  Astrovid  Webcam  DSI1  DSI3.  nasa  ovni  sailor  ufo  ufos 

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Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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The Hubble Space Telescope is Back and Better Than Ever!

By popular demand, I've created a high definition montage of the latest images released from the upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. Many Space Fans out there wanted a montage of just the music and animations. Well, your wish is my command. Enjoy the eye candy! The Hubble Space Telescope now has a new Wide Field Camera, a repaired Advanced Camera for Surveys and two new spectrographs, making this telescope into an entirely different instrument than it was before. We have so much to look forward to now; an entirely new generation of images will be pouring out of this thing - what I'm showing here is just the beginning. At first, I was against repairing the HST, I wanted resources put into the James Webb Telescope, I'm glad no one listened to me! All animations/video are courtesy NASA/ESA and can be obtained here: http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/25/full/ I purchased the rights to use this music from AudioSparx (thanks for the donations Space Fans, it's what made this possible!) and can be found here: Celtic Dawn: http://www.audiosparx.com/sa/summary/play.cfm/sound_iid.239916 Techno Galactica: http://www.audiosparx.com/sa/summary/play.cfm/sound_iid.277201

Hubble  Space  Telescope  Dark  Matter  Energy  The  Most  important  Image  cosmology  astronomy 

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Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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Telescope Eyes - Max Bemis

Max covered this song for Eisely's new EP, but it didn't actually make the cut for copyright reasons.. or something. Here's a link to the download: http://www.mediafire.com/?eikdnhyjn2d By the way- if you bought the EP on tour, this song is most likely on there, but not if you buy it digitally.

max  bemis  telescope  eyes  eisley  say  anything  ep  fire  kite 

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Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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Mars, Saturn & Jupiter through my telescope

Some of my videos of Mars, Saturn and Jupiter through my telescope, and the images that I process from them. FAQ's: Q. What is the music? A. Rhian Sheehan, Standing in Silence album, Part 8 Q. What equipment did you use? A. Orion XT10i (10" refelector) telescope, NEQ6 Pro motorized mount, Imaging Source DMK41AF02 astronomy camera, Astronomik Type II LRGB filterset, 2x barlow lens, laptop for mount control and image capture. Q. How much did the equipment cost? A. Total cost about $5500 (NZD). There is considerable extra cost involved in getting this equipment imported from the US to New Zealand, and of course we have to buy through dealers who have to make a profit too. If you are buying within the US, you can expect to pay a LOT less. Q. What is the magnification? A. To calculate this is focal length of telescope divided by diagonal chip size of camera... 1200mm / 8mm = 150x magnification. But I also used a 2x barlow, so 150 x 2 = 300x magnification. There have been several questions and confusion about our own galaxy, the Milky Way, which can be seen in one of my images. For those who are interested, have a look at this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOazBTHzRYA

astronomy  astrophotography  solar  system  jupiter  mars  saturn  telescope 

Channels: Observational astronomy 

Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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The European Extremely Large Telescope (ESO)

This is the official trailer for the E-ELT, the European Extremely Large Telescope (Credit: ESO). I used it in my Universe Today story, Armazones Chile to be the Site for the 42 meter European Extremely Large Telescope?(http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/12/armazones-chile-to-be-the-site-for-the-42-meter-european-extremely-large-telescope/)

elttrailer  Chile  ESO  Telescope 

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Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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Hubble telescope images/ Pink Floyd - Echoes

Slideshow of Hubble telescope images Music: Pink Floyd - Echoes part one, Live at Pompeii

hubble  telescope  images  universe  stars  nebula  space  galaxy  pink  floyd  echoes  live  at  pompeii 

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Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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Telescopes, Galileo to SLOOH

http://slooh.com This video looks at Galileo's important work with the first telescope and includes an overview of the SLOOH robotic telescopes. Robotic telescopes are accessed and controlled using the Internet an incredible evolution of technology from Galileo's first telescopes

Astronomy  Slooh  Galileo  telescope  Jupiter  Io  Callisto  Ganymede  Europa  Teide  Observatory  robotic  Science  galaxies  heliocentric  moon  quill  pen  Italy  radio  telescopes 

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Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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The Day Galileo Changed The Universe

Astronomy Magazine editor Dave Eicher talks about Galileo and the invention of the telescope.

Astronomy  Magazine  Galileo  telescope 

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Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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Galileo Galilei

Requiem for a dream with pictures of astronomy, Galilei's home, and Galilei himself.

Requiem  for  dream  astronomy  galileo  galilei  telescope  earth  planets  space  outer  astronauts  music  song 

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Added: 357 days ago by Ordonomundi

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A Tornado of Plasma on the Sun

This tornado of plasma on the surface of the sun is more than 100 000 kilometres tall, ten times the diameter of the Earth. Source data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and http://helioviewer.org/

solar  sun  star  timelapse  tornado  plasma  nasa  sdo  space  telescope 

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Added: 411 days ago by deek

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Earth size tornado on Sun

Scientists have discovered through a new high tech telescope a tornado on the Sun the size of the Earth with wind gusts up to 300,00 miles per hour.

Earth  Sun  Scientists  discover  tornado  high  tech  telescope  observe  space  solar  flare 

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Added: 411 days ago by deek

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Instant Replay of Stellar Eruption

Astronomers are watching the astronomical equivalent of an instant replay of a spectacular outburst from the unstable, behemoth double-star system Eta Carinae, which was initially seen on Earth nearly 170 years ago. Astrophysicists affiliated with UC Santa Barbara and Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) contributed to the study. Read more at Futurity:

astronomy  stars  Futurity  space  science  Hubble  Telescope 

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Added: 414 days ago by deek

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Seeing the Future in the Stars - HubbleSite.org

Astronomers use Hubble images of the giant star cluster Omega Centauri to predict where the stars will be in a decade or more. The cluster's 10 million stars, among the first stars to form in the universe, are in constant motion. Studying their movements helps scientists to understand the formation of the universe. This video is from HubbleSite, the online home of the Hubble Space Telescope. Learn more about this topic. See the news release. http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/28/ See images of star cluster Omega Centauri. http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/28/image/ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2001/33/image/a/ Get Omega Centauri wallpaper. http://hubblesite.org/gallery/wallpaper/pr2009025q/ Print an Omega Centauri picture. http://hubblesite.org/gallery/printshop/ps48/

Omega  Centauri  stars  star  cluster  astronomy  Hubble  Space  Telescope  HubbleSite  cosmos  universe  stellar  astronomical 

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Added: 414 days ago by deek

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Stellar-mass black hole discovered

Our astronomers have detected a stellar-mass black hole in another galaxy, much further away than any other previously known. With a mass above fifteen times that of the sun, this is the second most massive black hole of this type ever discovered. This animation shows how the stellar black hole NGC 300 X-1 might look. Note: there is no audio in this video. Full story at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/mediacentre/2010/1481.html Department of Physics and Astronomy: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/physics/ Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2/P. Crowther/L. Calçada.

stellar-mass  black  hole  NGC  300  X-1  paul  crowther  european  southern  observatory  astronomy  university  of  sheffield  astrophysics  Very  Large  Telescope  eso 

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Added: 414 days ago by deek

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The W5 Stellar Blast Furnace (Hidden Universe)

W5 is a chaotic region, sculpted by the glare of one generation of massive stars that's giving rise to the next.

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Added: 414 days ago by deek

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Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets 1 - BBC

Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets This two-part science fiction docu-drama examines the possibilities of a dangerous, manned space mission to explore the inner and outer planets of the Solar system. Five astronauts pilot the nuclear thermal rocket powered Pegasus spacecraft on a tour of the solar system. Their mission is a collaboration of the NASA, CSA, ESA and РКА space agencies and takes the crew to Venus, Mars, a close flyby of the Sun, Jupiter's moon Io and Europa, Saturn, Pluto, and the fictional Comet Yano-Moore. Most of the planetary destinations the crew reaches are followed by a manned landing there. Prior to the mission large tanks of hydrogen were deposited in stable orbits around the planets to allow the crew to refuel to have sufficient delta-v for the multi-year mission. The crew encounter many hardships and disappointments along the way. A Venus EVA that almost ends in disaster when the lander Orpheus encounters launch delays, the near-loss of the shield during the aerobrake in Jupiter's upper atmosphere (according to the first part of the miniseries) and the loss of samples from Jupiter's moon Io all test the crew's resolve. The most devastating blow comes when the ship's medical officer dies of solar radiation-induced lymphoma in Saturn orbit, forcing the crew to decide whether to continue the mission to Pluto, or abort and return to Earth. In the original British release, the crew decides to press on to Pluto, making history.

Adventure  Asteroid  Astronaut  Astronauts  Atheist  Atheism  Atmosphere  BBC  Belt  Comet  Comets  CSA  Delta  Earth  ESA  Europa  EVA  Flyby  God  In  Inner  Io  Jupiter  Land  Lander  Landing  Manned  Mars  Martian  Mercury  Mission  Moon  Mons  Nasa  Neptune  Odyssey  Of  Olympus  On  Orbit  Orbiter  Outer  Pegasus  PKA  Planet  Planets  Pluto  Probe  Propulsion  Radiation  Ring  Rings  Risk  Rocket  Saturn  Science  Scientists  Ship  Solar  Space  Spaceship  Spacecraft  Star  Sun  Surface  System  Telescope  The  To  Travel  Trek  Uranus  Venus  Venusian  Voyage 

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Added: 414 days ago by deek

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PREVIEW: Alien Planets & Eyeball Earths

Music by Zero Project. The hunt for planets beyond our solar system has reached a fever pitch. With some 500 planets revealed by ground telescopes, now, the ultimate planet finder, the Kepler space telescope, has released a tsunami of data. Among over a thousand new planet prospects are 200 multi-planet solar systems and 58 worlds in life-friendly orbits. They're all within a narrow window on the sky the size of your hand. That's why this may be the tip of the iceberg in a galaxy that's literally crawling with planets. Scientists are now beginning to envision what these worlds are like, with atmospheres, oceans, geological history. In the process, they are redefining what a planet might need to spawn life.

alien  planets  earth  kepler  gliese  581  planethunting  nasa  space  universe  solar  systems  stars  milky  way  orion  esa  eso  telescope  astronomy  hubble  spitzer  shuttle  orbit  ufo  moon  speed  of  light  hawking  einstein  black  holes  mercury  venus  jupiter  saturn  neptune  pluto  kuiper  belt  uranus  mass  supernova  planetary  science  environment  widescreen  airplanes  aliens  photography  scifi 

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Added: 414 days ago by deek

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NASA's Kepler Mission Announces Latest Planetary Discovery

The Kepler mission's science team announced its latest finding at a press conference on Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. The team announced the confirmation of Kepler-22b, its first planet found in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth, orbits around a star similar to our sun and is located 600 light-years away. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets. The planet's host star belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type, although it is slightly smaller and cooler. Kepler also has discovered 1,094 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Since the last catalog was released in February, the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler has increased by 89 percent and now totals 2,326. Of these, 207 are approximately Earth-size, 680 are super Earth-size, 1,181 are Neptune-size, 203 are Jupiter-size and 55 are larger than Jupiter. The findings, based on observations conducted May 2009 to September 2010, show a dramatic increase in the numbers of smaller-size planet candidates. For more information about the Kepler mission, please visit www.nasa.gov/kepler

nasa  ames  kepler  space  telescope  exoplanet  earth  earth-like  bill  borucki  natalie  batalha  jill  tarter  seti  alien  world 

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Added: 414 days ago by deek

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Big New ExoPlanet Haul

From EsoCast in 1080p, comes the announcement of a rash of new planet discoveries. Astronomers using ESO's leading exoplanet hunter HARPS have today announced more than fifty newly discovered planets around other stars. Among these are many rocky planets not much heavier than the Earth. One of them in particular orbits within the habitable zone around its star. Among the new planets just announced by scientists, sixteen are super-Earths - rocky planets up to ten times as massive as Earth. This is the largest number of such planets ever announced at one time. A planet in orbit causes its star to regularly move backwards and forwards as seen from Earth. This creates a tiny shift of the star's spectrum that can be measured with an extremely sensitive spectrograph such as HARPS. In their quest to find a rocky planet that could harbor life, astronomers are now pushing HARPS even further. They have selected ten well-studied nearby stars similar to our Sun. Earlier observations showed that these were ideal stars to examine for even less massive planets. After two years of work, the team has found five light super-Earths around three of the stars. These planets are very good candidates for future observations looking for evidence of life. One of the newly found planets, named HD 85512 b, orbits inside the habitable zone. This is the narrow area around a star where water can exist in liquid form. Astronomers estimate that liquid water could possibly be present on this planet if it is a rocky world that has more than 50% cloud cover. By looking carefully at the results from the first 8 years of HARPS observations, the team has found that around 40% of stars similar to the Sun harbor at least one planet lighter than Saturn. These new results lead astronomers to believe that they could soon find more super-Earths in the habitable zones of their stars with HARPS. These planets will be great targets for powerful future telescopes to try to study their atmospheres looking for evidence of life. Thanks to HARPS, the search for another Earth elsewhere in the galaxy is picking up pace!

exoplanets  planets  solar  system  esocast  eso  cast  esa  hubble  europe  astronomy  telescopes  telescope  space  universe  aliens  extraterrestrial  earth  super-earth  alien  life  extra-solar  exo  mars  saturn  jupiter  venus  moon  shuttle  ufo 

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Added: 449 days ago by deek

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Exoplanet Transit - Deep Sky Videos

We're watching the star Wasp-33 as a giant, fast-moving planet moves across its stellar disc. The extrasolar transit is being recorded by Liam Hardy using a telescope called the pt5m. Deep Sky Videos website: http://www.deepskyvideos.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/DeepSkyVideos Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DeepSkyVideos Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/68847473@N02/ More about the astronomers in our videos: http://www.deepskyvideos.com/pages/contributors.html Videos by Brady Haran Thanks to Paul Haese for his Mercury transit image: http://paulhaese.net/

astronomers  messier  space  galaxies  nebula  nebulae  stars  universe  deepsky  deepskyvideos  deep  sky  telescope 

Channels: Planetary science 

Added: 449 days ago by deek

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Hubble Space Telescope Directly Observes Exoplanet

Science & Reason on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/ScienceReason Hubblecast 22: Hubble Space Telescope Directly Observes Exoplanet Orbiting Fomalhaut. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has discovered an extrasolar planet, for the first time using direct visible-light imaging. The strange world is far-flung from its parent star, is surrounded by a colossal belt of gas and dust, and may even have rings more impressive than Saturn's. --- Subscribe to Science & Reason: • http://www.YouTube.com/Best0fScience • http://www.YouTube.com/ScienceMagazine • http://www.YouTube.com/ScienceTV • http://www.YouTube.com/FFreeThinker --- Credit: - ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen) - Visual design & Editing: Martin Kornmesser - Animations: Martin Kornmesser & Luis Calçada - Web Hosting: Leibniz-Rechenzentrum (LRZ) - Web Technical Support: Lars Holm Nielsen & Raquel Yumi Shida - Written by: Lee Pullen & Lars Lindberg Christensen - Host: Dr. J - Narration: Bob Fosbury - Cinematography: Peter Rixner - Music: movetwo - Footage and photos: A. Fujii, Digitized Sky Survey 2, NASA, ESA, and P. Kalas (University of California, Berkeley). Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble) - Directed by: Lars Lindberg Christensen Dr. J is a German astronomer at the ESO. His scientific interests are in cosmology, particularly on galaxy evolution and quasars. Dr. J's real name is Joe Liske and he has a PhD in astronomy. Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre Garching/Munich, Germany • http://www.eso.org • http://www.spacetelescope.org • http://hubblesite.org .

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Added: 449 days ago by deek

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