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A soccer ball from 4.7 miles? The attached image of Mars, captured with an ASA 500mm f/15.6 telescope, shows a recent dust storm that began on August 18th in the Valles Marineris. While the image may not be the most aesthetically pleasing, it demonstrates how a small celestial object can be effectively imaged with a high-quality telescope and the right imaging techniques. (The dust storm is visible, spanning from the upper right corner to the middle of the top edge of the image.) To put the apparent size of Mars in perspective, as seen from Earth today (August 22, 2024): Mars is currently 6 arc seconds in apparent size. For comparison, a standard soccer ball would appear to be 1 arc minute in size if viewed from 2,480 feet away. At a distance of 24,800 feet (approximately 4.7 miles), that same soccer ball would also appear 6 arc seconds in size—just like Mars does from Earth today.

https://buff.ly/4gOBI7A After months of waiting, a comet that could be bright enough to see with the naked eye and even during the day from the northern hemisphere has arrived — and the first photos are in. “If it survives its passage near the sun, becoming one of the brightest objects visible in the northern hemisphere — like Comet McNaught in 2007 — Comet A3 could prove to be one of the most significant celestial events of the year or even the decade,” said Franck Marchis, director of citizen science at the SETI Institute and co-founder of smart telescope maker Unistellar, which has a comet-dedicated tutorial page. “Observations will, in theory, provide answers to whether it will reach a magnitude of -2. As unpredictable as it is magnificent, it’s an event not to be missed!” If you’re wondering how, when and where to see Comet A3 — also known as C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) and “comet of the year”— here’s everything you need to know. IMAGE: Sky chart for seeing comet A3, also known as C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), after sunset on Oct. 12, 2024. Here's exactly where to look. CREDIT: Stellarium

A rainbow 🌈 rises to the clouds over Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF's NOIRLab. This #imageoftheweek, taken during one of the public stargazing programs at Kitt Peak, features the KPNO 2.1-meter telescope (right), operated by NOIRLab, and the Robotically Controlled Telescope (left), operated by the RCT consortium. In addition to cameras, many of the telescopes at KPNO are equipped with spectrographs which separate the light into its constituent colors, just as water droplets in rain clouds split sunlight into a rainbow. Knowing the amount of light that a celestial object produces at each wavelength allows scientists to measure the object’s various properties. With spectroscopy, we’ve measured the composition of exoplanetary atmospheres, the metallicity of stars, the motion of celestial planets, and the distances to far-away galaxies. More information can be learned through spectroscopy than from imaging alone, making it a crucial tool for studying the Universe. Download this image in high resolution here: https://lnkd.in/erf6mdJG Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/D. Salman #astronomy #kittpeak #rainbow

#Stargazing Here's how to see 'horned' comet 12P/Pons-Brooks in the night sky this month (video): All you'll need to see comet 12P/Pons-Brooks this month, besides fair weather and a little luck, are good binoculars or a telescope and sky map to help guide you.

🚀 Excited to share the first step of my journey into machine learning for astronomy with exoplanet detection using the radial velocity method! 🌌 As part of my task from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), I generated synthetic radial velocity curves for a star-exoplanet system. Using specified parameters and the radial velocity equation, I created curves for different orbital configurations, showcasing how variations in eccentricity and argument of periapsis affect the results. Stay tuned for more updates as I continue to explore the cosmos through data! 🌠 #MachineLearning #Astronomy #ExoplanetDetection #RadialVelocity #IIST #DataScience

Hycean Worlds: New Horizons in the Search for Habitable Planets HIGHLIGHTS Hycean planets may be habitable, with vast oceans. Three promising candidates identified for further study. James Webb Telescope to offer new insights soon. #Hycean #Space #planets #JamesWebbTelescope Learn More: https://lnkd.in/dRZcYTy7

Exploring Alien Terrain with AI: A Journey from Mars Rovers to Deep Space Probes With ACE technology, space rovers navigate Martian landscape intelligently just like a human scientist would. From Mars rovers, we're pushing AI power into deep space exploration - enabling telescopes to identify celestial objects automatically and detect anomalous cosmic matter independent of human intervention. Deep space probes harness AI to delve into uncharted frontiers like never before! What are your thoughts on this?

#FLYEYE: NEW FRONTIERS IN ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCE   At the end of June 2024, one of the most important technical event for ground-based, airborne, space-based telescopes and their supporting instrumentation, the “SPIE Telescopes + Instrumentation”, took place in Yokohama, Japan. In the frame of such valuable venue, an important #paper was presented to the public by OHB Italia S.p.A. (Prime Contractor), INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Università degli Studi di Padova (UNIPD) / University of Padua, #StudioSOME: “FLYEYE GROUND BASED TELESCOPE: UNVEILING NEW FRONTIERS IN ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCE”.   Leading star of the scene was the pioneering FLYEYE Telescope, which integrates a monolithic 1-meter class primary mirror feeding 16 cameras for discovering Near-Earth Object (#NEO) and any class of transient phenomena on a collision course with Earth, providing crucial advance notice of potential #impacts within weeks or days.   The FLYEYE distinctive design splits the #FieldofView into 16 channels, creating a unique multi-telescope system with a panoramic 44 square degree Field of View. While traditional telescopes provide snapshots that may miss critical changes or phenomena that occur rapidly or irregularly, the FLYEYE rapid scanning capability adds dynamic, capturing data across a wide spectrum of #celestialevents (fast radio bursts, high energy phenomena, development of supernovae, interaction of binary star system).   Placed atop #Mufara Mount in Sicily and robotized, FLYEYE ability to survey two-thirds of the visible #sky about three times per night will revolutionize #astronomy, enabling comprehensive studies of transient phenomena, placing FLYEYE in a new era of exploration of the dynamic universe.   The Telescope can strategically work in #synergy with other major astronomical projects, the Vera Rubin Telescope and the Zwicky Transient Facility. This integration can extend capabilities of this existing and planned observational infrastructures, by adding additional measurements in the visible sky or additional Earth longitude coverage. Such monitoring can lead to #breakthroughs in understanding the structure and the evolution of the ever-changing #universe, in opening new avenues for #discovery and in giving to astronomers new tools available to study the temporal aspects of the #cosmos.   www.ohb-italia.it

I'm very proud to have worked during the initial phases of the FlyEye project to verify the good quality of observation of the Universe from Mount Mufara in Sicily. I was personally involved in the design and installation of very high quality cameras (sbig cameras) accompanied by temperature, humidity and rain sensors on Mount Mufara for the study of astronomical seeing. The power supply was obtained through the use of photovoltaic panels and storage batteries. The aim of the preliminary work was to collect the data during the night and transmit it to ESA in FTP with internet connections obtained in the mountains using 4G/LTE routers. The preliminary study of the seeing allowed us to confirm that the site was ideal for the future installation of the FlyEye Telescope, which is actually about to happen.

With the advent of the James Webb telescope and the exponential boom within the realm of space exploration, a path has been paved for world changing discoveries. Let's start our own investigation by asking a fundamental question: How do we even measure distance in space? RADAR RANGING: The first one and most basic is Radar ranging. The underlying idea is to send light towards the object and detect the time it takes the light to return back to its point of origin after reflection. STELLAR PARALLAX: Stellar parallax is the apparent shift of position of the object against the background of distant stars. This method has only ever been partially successful and can only be used for nearby celestial objects. The further we travel deeper into space, the smaller the angle gets, which in effect decreases our accuracy. STANDARD CANDLES (CEPHEID VARIABLES): A standard candle is a star or another bright object with known luminosity, that can be used as a standard to infer distance. While a Cepheid variable is a type of variable star that pulsates radially, varying in both diameter and temperature. We could input those changes in the cycle and calculate a peak brightness which is an actual brightness of that star. We can utilise that information to calibrate the Cepheid Variable cycle and resolve it to about a hundred million light years. These are used for scaling galactic and intergalactic distances. TYPE IA SUPERNOVA: A Type Ia supernova is a type of supernova that occurs in binary systems (two stars orbiting one another) in which one of the stars is a white dwarf. This category of supernova produces a fairly consistent peak luminosity due to the fixed critical mass at which a white dwarf will explode. Using this information, these explosions can be used to determine the distance to their host galaxies. COSMOLOGICAL REDSHIFT: Redshift is the shifting of the spectrum of light (increase in wavelength) because of the velocity of its source. Detecting the light from the object and incorporating hubble's law into our calculations, we can figure out the distance of the object from Earth. For the detailed version of the article, visit: https://lnkd.in/gz_mDRgA #spats #astronomy #distance #space #measuringmethods