Archive for June, 2009

AAVSO Alert Notice 397:
Request for optical photometry of the bright X-ray binary V884 Sco (4U 1700-377)
June 30, 2009

Dr. Jerome Orosz (SDSU) has requested the assistance of southern bright star observers in observing the high-mass X-ray binary star V884 Sco (== 4U 1700-377). Orosz and collaborators are attempting …

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On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the historic first moon landing, NASA is seeking ideas from the public, academia, and industry about how to analyze and catalog notes from spaceflight pioneer Wernher von Braun into an electronic, searchable database or other system.

Von Braun was the first director …

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LCROSS Mission

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, successfully completed its most significant early mission milestone Tuesday with a lunar swingby and calibration of its science instruments. The satellite will search for water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon‘s south pole.

With the assist of …

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The Herschel-Planck Mission

Herschel opened its ‘eyes’ on 14 June and the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer obtained images of M51, ‘the whirlpool galaxy’ for a first test observation. Scientists obtained images in three colours which clearly demonstrate the superiority of Herschel, the largest infrared space telescope ever flown.

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Three-colour far-infrared image of

NASA Returning to the Moon

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched at 5:32 p.m. EDT Thursday aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon.

The orbiter, known as LRO, separated from the …

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Arietid Meteor Shower

The annual Arietid meteor shower peaks on Sunday, June 7th. The Arietids are unusual because they are daytime meteors; they stream out of a point in the sky not far from the sun. Their radiant is in the constellation Aries, which lies just 30 degrees from the Sun at this …

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Noctilucent Clouds in 2009

The first noctilucent clouds of 2009 have been seen over northern Europe. On May 29th, photographers recorded wispy electric-blue tendrils spreading across the twilight skies of Denmark, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This follows a similar display over Russia on May 27th. These sightings signal the beginning of the 2009 Noctilucent …

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