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CELESTRON127mm(5 inches) X 1000mm NEWTONIAN ASTRONOMICAL TELESCOPE. For Sale

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CELESTRON127mm(5 inches) X 1000mm NEWTONIAN ASTRONOMICAL TELESCOPE.:
$195

SquareTrade © AP6.0

TWO YEAR WARRANTY!

NEW IN BOX

Celestron PowerSeeker 127mmX1000mm EQ Newtonian Telescope

The *LARGE APERTURE* of the **CELESTRON POWER SEEKER**has always provided great all-around Viewing Performance. One minute you're jaunting over Lunar Craters and the next you're cruising through Sparkling Clusters or touring Saturn's rings.

ALL RENDERED IN "CRISP" DETAIL BY THE LIGHT-GATHERING LARGE 127mm (5") PRIMARY MIRROR!!!!

The 127mm Diameter Primary Mirror is Superior for its LIGHT GATHERING ability and has "IMPROVED" HIGH POWER Observing!

Telescope is COMPLETE and READY TO USE!

You can explore Saturn's rings, the cloud belts of Jupiter, the soon to be landed-on planetMars, even the Andromeda Galaxy comes into view.

Of course there will be breathaking views of our own MOON!

The First Quarter Moon is the perfect destination for that maiden telescopic voyage. Viewing along the terminator highlights the cratered lunar surface.

Recommended Usage

For the Beginner , Viewing Galaxies/Star Clusters , Viewing Nebulae , Viewing the Moon , Viewing the Planets

•Quick and easy no-tool setup

•Slow motion controls for smooth tracking

•Erect image optics - Ideal for terrestrial and astronomical use

•Fully coated glass optical components with high transmission coatings for enhanced image brightness and clarity

•3x Barlow lens triples the magnifying power of each eyepiece

•Accessory tray for convenient storage of accessories

•"The Sky®" Level 1 planetarium software with 10,000 object database and enhanced images

SPECIFICATIONS:

Optical Design: Newtonian Reflector

Aperture : 127 mm (5")

Focal Lenght: 1000 mm

Focal Ratio : 7.87

Eyepiece 1 : 20 mm (0.79 in) Eyepiece 2 : 4 mm (0.16 in)

Barlow Lens : 3 x Finderscope : 5x24

Mount : German Equatorial MountTripod

Tray : No-Tool Tray with Eyepiece holder

CD ROM : "The Sky®" Level 1

Limiting Stellar Magnitude : 13

Resolution (Rayleigh) : 1.1 arcsec

Resolution (Dawes) : 0.91 arcsec

Photographic Resolution : 254 line/mm

Light Gathering Power : 329 x

Angular Field of View : 0.8 °

Linear Field of View (@1000 yds) : 43 ft (13.11 m)

Optical Coatings : Aluminum

Secondary Mirror Obstruction : 1.6 in (40.64 mm)

Secondary Mirror Obstruction by Area : 10.2 %

Secondary Mirror Obstruction by Diameter : 32 %

Optical Tube Length : 20 in (508 mm)

An Amateur Astronomer First!!

Log on to:

A New Zealand man has become the first amateur astronomer to take a direct photograph of a solar system in the first stages of development. Rolf Olsen's stunning image shows Beta Pictoris, a bright young star in the southern hemisphere, surrounded by a "circumstellar disk" — a huge, flat cloud of swirling debris kicked up by a flurry of comet, asteroid and minor body collisions near the new star.

Olsen captured the image of the Beta Pictoris solar system, located 63 light-years away, using a 10-inch (25-centimeter) homemade telescope. After posting the photo to his blog and the Australian Amateur Astronomy forum IceInSpace, it quickly shot around the Web and into the field of view of professional astronomers, who are calling Olsen's achievement "amazing," "bold" and "impressive."

"I'm not aware of any other amateur photograph of the disk of another solar system," said Bryce Croll, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alain Lecavelier of the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris concurred: "This is the first image of a planetary disk made by amateur astronomer which I am aware of."

*FREE* STAR AND PLANETS LOCATOR!

Edmund Scientific famous rotating roadmap of the heavens shows the location of the stars, constellations and planets relative to the horizon for the exact hour and date you determine.

This 8 1/2" square star chart was plotted by the late astronomer and cartographer George Lovi. The reverse side of the locator is packed with additional data on the planets, meteor showers and bright stars.

Included with each star chart is a 16-page, fully-illustrated pocket size instruction booklet.

Some very nice Videos for you:

Click anywhere in the clock and it becomes digital, another click and it returns to analog.....and, actually on the correct time...

Check this out:

How does a Reflector Telescope work

Isaac Newton developed the reflector about 1680, in response to the chromatic aberration (rainbow halo) problem that plagued refractors during his time. Instead of using a lens to gather light, Newton used a curved, metal mirror (primary mirror) to collect the light and reflect it to a focus. Mirrors do not have the chromatic aberration problems that lenses do. Newton placed the primary mirror in the back of the tube.

Because the mirror reflected light back into the tube, he had to use a small, flat mirror (secondary mirror) in the focal path of the primary mirror to deflect the image out through the side of the tube, to the eyepiece; otherwise, his head would get in the way of incoming light. Also, you might think that the secondary mirror would block some of the image, but because it is so small compared to the primary mirror, which is gathering a great deal of light, the smaller mirror will not block the image.

In 1722, John Hadley developed a design that used parabolic mirrors, and there were various improvements in mirror-making. The Newtonian reflector was a highly successful design, and remains one of the most popular telescope designs in use today.

ABCs of observing

Sharpen your scope skills with these 26 tips. By Michael E. Bakich

Amateur astronomy is about observing: Each and every time you look through an eyepiece, you make contact with a distant part of the universe. I've assembled this list of observing tips — one for each letter of the alphabet — to help you get the most out of those precious moments behind the eyepiece. I've discovered some of them on my own, but others were passed on to me by wise observing buddies. Read them, use them, and add to them. If you do, you'll become a better observer. Avoid eye fatigueTake short breaks, and try one of these simple eye exercises every 20 minutes or so. Lightly cup your eyes with your palms and relax for 60 seconds. Or simply look away from the eyepiece and roll your eyes up, down, around, and side-to-side for 20 seconds; then relax, eyes closed, for another 30 seconds. Batteries
Take the batteries you know you'll need — as well as the batteries you think you won't need. Camera focusing
Astrophotographers want their lenses focused at infinity, but newer auto-focus lenses can go past infinity when focused by hand. To resolve this problem, set the lens at infinity during the day and then lock it there with one or two wraps of tape around the barrel. Use tape that won't leave a residue (no duct tape). Manual focus lenses don't have this problem, but some astrophotographers tape them anyway. It's one less thing that can go wrong. Dark adaption
This is the process by which the eyes increase their sensitivity to low levels of illumination. In the first 30 minutes, sensitivity increases 10,000-fold, with little gain after that. But brief exposure to bright light temporarily rolls back this hard-won increase. Just how much dark adaption you lose depends a little on the intensity and a lot on the duration of the light. A single flash from a strobe does less damage than a bright light lasting a second or more. At night, your eyes are most sensitive to red light, which means that for a given brightness, you'll see more in light of this color. Use a red light, adjust its intensity to the lowest usable level, and then gaze only briefly at the illuminated object. Eye patch
Wear an eye patch over your observing eye while setting up equipment. Put it on as long as possible before the start of your session, and you will be rewarded with a fully dark-adapted eye when you're ready to begin observing. Move the patch to your non-observing eye when you look through the eyepiece. This lets you keep both eyes open, a technique that reduces eye fatigue. (Skeptical? Try reading this story with one eye closed for 60 seconds.) Before checking charts with a light, move the patch over your observing eye. Focus
Focus each time you put your eye to the eyepiece and anytime you have a question about the sharpness of an image. Going deep
When you're observing objects at the limit of vision, or looking for small details in brighter ones, use a technique sometimes called "rocking the scope." Gently tap the mount or the telescope tube. It really helps faint details pop out! High-altitude observingHigh-altitude observing results in a degree of hypoxia, or low oxygen in body tissues, that significantly alters low-light color perception. Most people notice visual changes when they travel to altitudes approximately 2,000 feet higher than where they live, although those living at or near sea level may not begin to notice such effects until they reach an altitude of 4,000 feet. Intoxication
Don't drink and drive the telescope if you're looking to do some serious observing. Why? Alcohol impairs vision. Just in case
Pack a "space blanket" with your equipment. Made from a metal-coated plastic film, it will trap body heat when wrapped around you, giving you an edge in all but the most severe weather conditions. It also shields against wind and rain, weighs just a few ounces, and only costs a few dollars. Often advertised as a "survival blanket," that's exactly what it may be for you. Know your equipment
If you've added a new piece of equipment to your observing lineup, set it up at home first. Any problem revealed in the light will be one less you'll have to deal with in the dark. As a second step, set up in your yard and observe as if you were at your remote dark-sky site. It's surprising what a test-run like this will teach you. Limiting magnitude
No better gauge of observing-site quality exists than a direct measurement of limiting visual magnitude, or LM. Most observers determine their site's LM by identifying the faintest star they can see, usually near the zenith. Others use a method devised by meteor observers, who count the number of visible stars within predetermined asterisms. Mosquitoes
I hate mosquitoes, and I'm willing to bet you do, too. Mosquitoes attack whoever is handiest, but they prefer adults to children, women to men, and pregnant women most. They're attracted to heat, carbon dioxide, and movement, so swatting at one is essentially an invitation to others. The most effective mosquito repellents contain DEET, the acronym for N, N-diethyl-meta-toluamide. Experts suggest treating clothing as well as exposed skin. Most fabrics are approximately 1 millimeter thick, but the average mosquito's proboscis is 2mm long. DEET won't keep a mosquito from approaching, but it can stop her from biting — the attacker is female — by jamming the insect's antennae cells that are sensitive to lactic acid. Nighttime safety
If you must observe alone at a remote location, double-check everything before you leave — especially non-observing-related details, such as how much fuel is in your vehicle. Let someone know exactly where you will be and exactly how long you plan to be out, and then stick to the plan. Your life may depend on someone knowing where you are. Observing chairs and ladders
If you're at all uncomfortable at the telescope, you'll do less observing, and the observations you make will be less fulfilling and less accurate. In my opinion, nothing says comfort like a high-quality observing chair. Such an accessory has four main features: sturdy construction; padded seat; easily adjustable height; and back support. Observing chairs work fine for refractors and Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes, which have eyepieces at the lower ends of their tubes. For large Dobsonian-mounted scopes, however, a ladder of some type is usually necessary. I suggest buying a three-step folding utility ladder with a tray. Such ladders usually feature wide, rubber-coated steps — a great safety feature after sunset — and the tray is a real bonus when you need to change eyepieces or filters. Position of telescope

When observing sessions go well into the morning hours, be sure to point your telescope where the Sun won't shine. This is a crucial tip if you're going to leave your scope uncovered, but remember that the Sun has been known to damage even telescopes that were capped. Question yourself
Write a few questions on index cards before your observing session. For example, a card for planetary nebulae might have these questions on it: Can you see the central star? At what magnification? What shape is the nebula? Is any color apparent? And so on. Questions will jog your memory and remind you to look for certain common details — especially when you're tired and not necessarily at your peak. Record observations
I have maintained a detailed observing log for more than two decades. My instrument of choice is a digital (formerly tape) recorder. Many of my observing friends write out their observations either in a logbook or directly onto a star chart, a method that allows for sketches as well. I speak into my recorder at the telescope and transcribe the observations later, usually the next day. If you follow this path, don't let your recordings pile up. Site selection
Perhaps paradoxically, the finest skies on Earth are not the darkest. The more stars you're able to see, the brighter the overall sky appears. I have seen the Milky Way cast a shadow in truly dark locations. A site rated "excellent" has three characteristics: it's free of light pollution; it contains low amounts of aerosols (dust, air pollution, and water droplets); and it's at a relatively high altitude, between 5,000 feet (1.5 kilometers) and 8,000 feet (2.5 kilometers). Tube currents
Tube currents degrade telescopic images, but how do you know if you have a problem? Check the out-of-focus image of a fairly bright star. If you see lots of circular motion inside the star's image, you have a severe problem. The best solution is a small, low-flow fan to move warmer air out of the telescope tube and quickly bring your mirror to the same temperature as the ambient air. Universal Time (UT)
Use it! Memorize your time zone's UT correction both with and without daylight-saving time. Use UT in your observing log entries. Use it in your correspondence. Using UT is one way we all can standardize our observations. Vitamin A
A diet deficient in vitamin A can lead to impaired night vision. An adequate intake of Vitamin A from foods such as eggs, cheese, liver, carrots, and most green vegetables will help ensure proper visual acuity at night. Please note that excessive quantities of Vitamin A will not improve night vision and may be harmful to your health. Weather and seeing
Some atmospheric factors indicate the quality of "seeing," or the steadiness of an astronomical image. An air mass colder than the ground will produce puffy cumulus clouds and unsteady air, but it's usually relatively free of dust. An air mass warmer than the ground will produce stratiform clouds, haze, or mist, and hold copious amounts of dust, but astronomical images will be steadier. Bad seeing is almost guaranteed at least 24 hours following the passage of a front (the boundary between warm and cool air masses) or trough (an elongated area of low pressure). Seeing can be very good with thin cirrus clouds aloft, but the opposite is true when high cirrus clouds combine with low-level crosswinds. X-treme observingOkay, it's a stretch, but few amateurs have X-ray telescopes. "X-treme" observing means viewing in cold weather. For low-temperature observing, preparation is everything. Over pack. The difference between life and death could hang on whether you brought along a single piece of gear.Most heat loss occurs from the head, so keep yours warm. My personal headgear consists of a fleece pullover head cover topped by a wide-brimmed hat. Heat also will seep into the cold ground through your boots. I decided to purchase the warmest boots that would allow me to drive a vehicle. Hand warmers are superb but never seem to last the full time specified on the package. Keep warmers in your side pockets. Slip them in and out of your gloves or mittens for quick warm-ups.Finally, dress in layers. I generally wear fleece long underwear and thick pants. My upper body is covered with a T-shirt; a thin, long-sleeved, flannel shirt; a fleece pullover, and a down jacket. My wife, who is affected by the cold more than I am, wears a ski rescue suit as her outer layer. When fully zipped, with the hood up and boots and gloves in place, the wind has few places to chill her delicate frame. Your own pace
Some observers spend an hour or more on each object, trying to glean every bit of detail. Others take a leisurely pace of between five and fifteen objects per hour. Discover what works best for you. Zoom eyepieces
If you don't have the cash to fill a large fishing-tackle box with eyepieces, consider a high-quality zoom eyepiece. Such an accessory will provide you with a range of magnifications at a cost much less than the combined cost of each eyepiece within a single zoom's range of focal lengths.

AVERTED VISION:

On luminous objects, you can increase visual acuity by one or two magnitudes by using AVERTED VISION. The idea is to get the target object in the center of the field, and then instead of looking directly at it, direct your gaze a little to one side. Myself, being an Amateur Astronomer found that this technique is especially useful for Star Clusters. I believe the center of your eyes sees the sharpest, but the outer portion is more sensitive lo light and movement.

If you wear glasses. Take them off if you are far sighted. Your unaided eyes will then see distant Objects clearly, while the removal of the glasses will let you crowd the eyepiece when necessary. Myopes have a different problem: if you remove your glasse you lose your eyes for distant Objects. The best practical solution here is to keep your glasses on and use only eyepieces with long eye relief of 1/2 inch or more. Note, however, that even with eyepieces having short eye relief, a long eye position means only that you lose field.

Some Questions answered

Question: -- Where do I begin? What should I observe first?

Answer: -- Try to observe with a plan. Choose a few easy objects (large and bright) that can be seen from your location and time of year. Check one of the popular astronomy websites such as Sky&Telescope, http://skyandtelescope.com/ and Astronomy Magazine, http://www.astronomy.com/ for a list of objects currently visible in the night sky .

Frequently Asked Questions about usinga telescope

Question: -- What does the number on the eyepiece mean?

Answer: -- The number on the eyepiece is the focal length of the eyepiece. It is not the magnification of the eyepiece .

Question: -- How do I know what the magnification of the eyepiece will be?

Answer: -- The magnification of any eyepiece used with your telescope will be the focal length of the telescope (consult your manual) divided by the focal length of the eyepiece. A telescope with a focal length of 1200mm will yield a magnification of 60x when you insert a 20mm eyepiece into the focuser. A telescope with a focal length of only 600 mm, however, will yield only 30x when used with the same 20mm eyepiece.

Question: -- Which eyepiece should I use to begin observing?

Answer: -- ALWAYS start observing with the lowest magnification eyepiece available until you become skilled in the use of your telescope. This will be the eyepiece marked with the BIG number (longer focal length ), not one of the smaller numbers. Again, the number you see on the eyepiece is the focal length, not the magnification.

Question: -- Why should I start with a low magnification eyepiece ?

Answer: -- A low magnification eyepiece has a wider field of view (the amount of sky you see when looking through the eyepiece) than a high magnification eyepieces. The low-magnification eyepiece therefore makes it easier to "capture" an object you are trying to find in your telescope. Your lowest magnification eyepiece will also give you the sharpest image as well as the brightest image .

Question: -- How do I use a high magnification eyepiece ?

Answer: -- Once you have located an object with your low magnification eyepiece, move the telescope so the object is as close to the center of the field of view as possible. Replace the low magnification eyepiece with one of higher magnification. If the object is not visible after you have changed to the high magnification eyepiece , go back to the low magnification eyepiece and start again.

Question: -- Why do things seem to get darker as I increase magnification ?

Answer: -- A basic law of optics states that as magnification increases, image brightness decreases. In fact, if you increase magnification enough, an object will become too faint to see. This happens sooner in a small telescope than a large telescope .

Question: -- What is a Barlow lens and how do I use it?

Answer: -- A Barlow lens is a lens that you use with your eyepiece. A Barlow lens will double (2x Barlow) or even triple (3x Barlow) the magnification of any eyepiece that you attach to it. To use a Barlow lens, remove the eyepiece from the focuser, insert the Barlow and then insert the eyepiece into the Barlow. Remember, though, that a Barlow is best used with low magnification (long focal length) eyepieces. When used with high magnification eyepieces, it may produce more magnification than your telescope can use.

Question: -- Why do objects in the eyepiece drift out of the field of view after a few moments?

Answer: -- The telescope is not only magnifying the object you are observing in the sky, it is also magnifying the earth's rotation! The more magnification you use in your telescope, the quicker an object drifts out of the field of view. Manual telescope mounts will require you to continually "recapture" the object by moving your telescope slightly. Motorized mounts move the telescope for you and keep the object in the eyepiece.

Question: -- How much magnification should I use?

Answer: -- Use only enough magnification to provide a useable image. When you reach a point where the image has become so blurred as to lose useful detail, you are using too much magnification! At what point this happens depends on the object you are observing, the seeing conditions (atmospheric clarity and stability) and the size of your telescope (you can get more magnification out of a large telescope before images begin to blur).

Question: -- What can I expect to see in my new telescope ?

Answer: -- You will be able to see many of the same things you see in magazines and books, but the images produced in your telescope will smaller and less spectacular. The images in magazines and books are produced by large observatory telescopes that take long exposure photographs with special cameras. It simply isn't realistic to expect a small amateur telescope to produce visual images of the same quality .

Question: -- If the images in my telescope are not as beautiful as what I have seen in pictures, why bother looking through my small telescope at all?

Answer: -- There is so much more to that little smudge of light you see in your eyepiece than meets the eye! Spend a little time and effort to learn about the things you see in your telescope and you will appreciate them much more. Remember, that little smudge of light may actually contain billions of stars and its light may have taken many millions of years to reach your telescope.

Besides, much of the thrill in amateur astronomy is seeing the glories of the night sky with your own two eyes. The difference between seeing a picture of Saturn in a book and seeing Saturn in your backyard through a telescope is a lot like the difference between seeing pictures of Alaska in a book and going to Alaska to see it for yourself.

YOU ARE BUYING FROM A REPUTABLE SELLER AND AVID AMATEUR ASTRONOMER!

Good luck and Good Telescoping!!!!!!!!!!!

Chandra images torrent of star formation
Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts — Published: January 14, 2011

A new Chandra X-ray Observatory image of M82 shows the result of star formation on overdrive. M82, also known as the Cigar Galaxy, is located about 12 million light-years from Earth and is the nearest place to us where the conditions are similar to those when the universe was younger with lots of stars forming.

M82 is a starburst galaxy where stars are forming at rates that are tens or even hundreds of times higher than in a normal galaxy. The burst of star birth may be caused by a close encounter or collision with another galaxy, which sends shock waves rushing through the galaxy. In the case of M82, astronomers think that a brush with its neighbor galaxy M81 millions of years ago set off this torrent of star formation.

M82 is seen nearly edge-on with its disk crossing from about 10 o'clock to about 4 o'clock in this image from Chandra — low, medium, and high-energy X-rays are colored red, green, and blue, respectively. Among the 104 point-like X-ray sources in the image, eight so far have been observed to be bright in X-rays and undergo clear changes in brightness over periods of weeks and years. This means they are excellent candidates to be black holes pulling material from companion stars that are more massive than the Sun. Only a handful of such binary systems are known in the Local Group of galaxies containing the Milky Way and M31.

Chandra observations are also important in understanding the rapid rate at which supernovae explode in starburst galaxies like M82. When the shock waves travel through the galaxy, they push on giant clouds of gas and dust, which causes them to collapse and form massive stars. These stars, in turn, use up their fuel quickly and explode as supernovae. These supernovas produce expanding bubbles of multi-million-degree gas that extend for millions of light-years away from the galaxy's disk. These bubbles are seen as the large red areas to the upper right and lower left of the image.

Astronomy Myths

Seasons occur because of Earth's changing distance from the Sun
This myth sounds right, but science says otherwise.
By Michael E. Bakich —
These four images of Earth show how our planet’s tilt affects its appearance at the start of each season.
Photo by NASA/JPL/Johns Hopkins UniversityEarth experiences seasons because our planet tilts 23.5° with respect to its orbital plane. This statement just means the reason it's summer in the Northern Hemisphere is because Earth's North Pole tilts toward the Sun at that time.At the same time, however, the South Pole tilts away from the Sun. That means winter is beginning for inhabitants of the Southern Hemisphere.And, regarding distances, Earth is approximately 3 million miles (5 million km) closer to the Sun in early January than it is in early July. That works out to a bit more than a 3 percent swing from Earth's nearest approach to the Sun to its farthest. Although small, 3 percent is not insignificant. The different distances mean the Southern Hemisphere receives more solar energy during its summer than the Northern Hemisphere does in its summer.Summer and winter occur on dates called the solstices, which mark the highest and lowest points the Sun reaches in our sky. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Sun stands 47° (our planet's 23.5° tilt times two) higher in the sky June 21 than it does December 21. So, around June 21 of each year, summer begins north of the equator, and winter begins south of that line. For this reason, it's incorrect to call June 21 the "summer" solstice. Summer begins on that date only in the Northern Hemisphere. Here at the magazine, we use the terms June solstice and December solstice to signify these dates

The world will end December 21, 2012
This myth does nothing but scare children and promote a movie.
By Michael E. Bakich — Published: November 12, 2009

The Mayans were terrific architects, and they watched the planets carefully. They did not, however, predict the end of the world.The myth that the world will end in December 2012 started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is heading toward Earth. Zecharia Sitchin, who writes fiction about the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer, claimed in several books (e.g., The Twelfth Planet, The Stairway to Heaven, The End of Days) that he has found and translated Sumerian documents that identify a planet — Nibiru — orbiting the Sun every 3,600 years. Sitchin's Sumerian fables include stories of astronauts visiting Earth from an alien civilization called the Anunnaki.After these books appeared, Nancy Lieder, a self-declared psychic, wrote on her web site ZetaTalk that the inhabitants of a fictional planet orbiting the nearby star Zeta Reticuli warned her that Earth was in danger from Nibiru. The prediction said the collision of Nibiru and Earth would occur in May 2003.When nothing happened in that month, claimants moved the doomsday date forward to December 2012. Only recently have people linked these two fables to the end of the Mayan long-count at the winter solstice in 2012 — hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.Nibiru is a name in Babylonian astrology sometimes associated with the god Marduk. Scholars of ancient Mesopotamia refute Sitchin's claims that Nibiru is a planet and that the Sumerians knew about it. Sumer was a great civilization, but they left few astronomical records. They had no understanding that the planets orbited the Sun. That idea first developed in ancient Greece two millennia after the end of Sumer.Some people claim NASA found Nibiru in 1983 using the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS), which carried out a 10-month sky survey. IRAS cataloged 350,000 infrared sources, and initially many of these sources were unidentified. Astronomers have followed up all of these observations with more powerful instruments both on the ground and in space. The rumor about a 10th planet erupted in 1984 after a scientific paper appeared in Astrophysical Journal Letters titled "Unidentified point sources in the IRAS minisurvey." In 1987, scientists published the identification of these mystery objects as distant galaxies. No IRAS source has ever turned out to be a planet. To an astronomer, persistent claims about a planet that is nearby but invisible are just plain silly.Claims of a "Planet X" being Eris also are absurd. Eris is one of several dwarf planets recently found by astronomers in the outer solar system. All these objects are on normal orbits far from Earth. Eris is smaller than our Moon, and its orbit never brings it closer than about 4 billion miles (6.5 billion km).Believers in the Nibiru collision myth tout photos and videos on the Internet that appear to show the planet. The great majority of the photos and videos show some feature near the Sun. Some proponents believe Nibiru has been hiding behind the Sun for the past several years. The photos are secondary images of the Sun caused by internal reflections in the lens. Photographers know this effect as lens flare. Such images appear opposite the Sun, as if reflected across the image's center. Lens flare is especially obvious in videos because as the camera moves, the false image dances about always exactly opposite the real image.Lacking facts, some collision supporters claim our government is keeping the details secret. Uh huh. If Nibiru were real, thousands of astronomers around the globe would be tracking it right now.With all we know about this myth, why is there so much excitement then? Who is promoting such claims? The simple answer seems to be Columbia Pictures. As I write this, publicity for Columbia's new film 2012, to be released in November 2009, is everywhere. The film's trailer shows a tidal wave breaking over the Himalayas, with the following words: "How would the governments of our planet prepare 6 billion people for the end of the world? [long pause] They wouldn't. [long pause] Find out the Truth. Google search 2012."For the film, Columbia created a fake scientific web site (www.instituteforhumancontinuity.org). This site belongs to a fictitious organization called the Institute for Human Continuity (IHC). According to the web site, the IHC's mission is the survival of mankind.The site further says that in 2004, IHC scientists confirmed with 94 percent certainty that the world would be destroyed in 2012. OK, I'm a sci-fi movie buff. But let's settle for buying a ticket. Don't buy the hype that the world will end in 2012.

WAUKESHA, Wis. — Fifty years ago, astronomer Frank Drake began the search for intelligent life on other worlds. In order to better comprehend the odds of succeeding in this quest, he devised an equation for estimating how many communicating civilizations might exist in the galaxy. The equation is based on seven parameters, which scientists still use today in this ongoing hunt.In "How many civilizations lurk in the cosmos?" Astronomy Contributing Editor Steve Nadis details each of the seven parts of the Drake Equation and the best estimates for these numbers today.Although all but one number were a complete mystery 50 years ago, Nadis writes, "now researchers are making advances on multiple fronts — a testament to achievements in astronomy, planetary science, origin of life research, and investigations into the evolution of intelligence."To learn more about the Drake Equation and the odds of extraterrestrial life in our galaxy, pick up the April issue of Astronomy, on newsstands March 2."Secrets of the Kuiper Belt"
On February 18, 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh made the discovery of a lifetime when he located an object lurking in the solar system beyond Neptune, now known as Pluto. Today, planetary astronomers have found a vast tally of other trans-Neptunian objects making up what is collectively called the Kuiper Belt. In "Secrets of the Kuiper Belt," S. Alan Stern, the principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission that will visit Pluto and the Kuiper Belt this decade, explains how the frigid edge of our planetary zone has launched a revolution in understanding the solar system's origin and evolution."Imaging prehistoric sunrises"
Historians have discovered markers all over the world that they agree past cultures created to indicate solstices and equinoxes for use in ceremonies. In "Imaging prehistoric sunrises," astrophotographer Frank Zullo describes how he used detective work and graphic manipulation to visualize sunrises from a Hohokam solstice site in Phoenix.

MARS

As darkness falls on these winter nights, take a look toward the eastern sky. There you'll see a bright orange-red point of light dominating its surroundings. Mars has returned to prominence for the first time in 2 years.Mars shines brightest January 29, when it lies opposite the Sun in our sky. At opposition, the planet rises at sunset, appears nearly overhead around midnight, and sets as the Sun comes up. Mars shines brighter than any other point of light in the evening sky except for Sirius, which lies well to Mars' right, and Jupiter, which sets in the west not long after Mars appears."Mars grows more conspicuous throughout January," says Astronomy magazine Editor David J. Eicher. "Not only does it brighten by 50 percent, but it also rises significantly earlier. That places it higher in the sky earlier in the evening."Although Mars appears dazzling, it's not as bright as it was at its five previous oppositions. The Red Planet reaches opposition roughly every 26 months. However, Mars' brightness at opposition goes through a 15- to 17-year cycle. Some oppositions occur relatively near to Earth when Mars also lies near its closest point to the Sun. Others occur when Mars lies relatively far from the Sun. That's the case this year, so the Red Planet won't be as close to Earth at opposition as it has in recent years.As you gaze at Mars from afar, remember that several emissaries from our planet are examining it at close range. Three spacecraft currently observe Mars from orbit: the European Mars Express and NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In addition to these orbiters, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers continue to motor across the martian surface, 6 years after they arrived for what NASA envisioned as 3-month missions.

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ASTRONOMY NEWS "Zombie" stars key to measuring dark energy Type Ia supernovae leave behind dead stars with a core of ash, but they can come back to life by sucking matter from a companion star.
By University of California, Santa Barbara — Published: July 5, 2011

Supernova 1994D. The supernova is the bright point in the lower-left. It is a type Ia thermonuclear supernova like those described by Howell. The supernova is on the edge of galaxy NGC 4526, depicted in the center of the image. NASA/Hubble Space Telescope “Zombie” stars explode like bombs as they die, only to revive themselves by sucking matter out of other stars. According to an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), this isn’t the plot for the latest 3-D blockbuster movie. Instead, it’s something that happens every day in the universe — something that can be used to measure dark energy.This special category of stars, which explode as Type Ia supernovae, helps to probe the mystery of dark energy, which scientists believe powers/fules the expansion of the universe. Supernovae have been observed since at least A.D. 1054, when an exploding star formed the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant.Andy Howell from UCSB calls stars that have undergone a Type Ia supernova “zombie” stars, because they’re dead with a core of ash, but can come back to life by sucking matter from a companion star. Over the past 50 years, astrophysicists have discovered that such stars are often part of binary systems — two stars orbiting each other. The one that explodes is a white dwarf star. “That’s what our Sun will be at the end of its life,” Howell said. “It will have the mass of the Sun crammed into the size of the Earth.”The white dwarf stars that tend to explode as Type Ia supernovae all have approximately the same mass. This was considered a fundamental limit of physics. However, in an article about 5 years ago, Howell reported stars that go beyond this limit. These previously unknown objects have more than the usual mass before they explode — a fact that confounds scientists.Howell presented a hypothesis to understand this new class of objects. “One idea is that two white dwarfs could have merged together; the binary system could be two white dwarf stars,” he said. “Then, over time, they spiral into each other and merge. When they merge, they blow up. This may be one way to explain what is going on.”Astrophysicists are using Type Ia supernovae to build a map of the history of the universe’s expansion. “What we’ve found is that the universe hasn’t been expanding at the same rate,” said Howell. “And it hasn’t been slowing down as everyone thought it would be due to gravity. Instead, it has been speeding up. There’s a force that counteracts gravity and we don’t know what it is. We call it dark energy.”Howell said that dark energy is probably a property of the fabric of the universe. “Space itself has some energy associated with it,” said Howell. “That’s what the results seem to indicate, that dark energy is distributed everywhere in space. It looks like it’s a property of the vacuum, but we’re not completely sure. We’re trying to figure out how sure we are of that; if we can improve Type Ia supernovae as standard candles, we can make our measurements better.”Throughout history, people have noticed a few supernovae so bright they could be seen with the naked eye. With telescopes, astronomers could discover supernovae farther away. “Now we have huge digital cameras on our telescopes, and really big telescopes,” said Howell. “We’ve been able to survey large parts of the sky, regularly. We find supernovae daily.”“The next decade holds real promise of making serious progress in the understanding of nearly every aspect of these phenomena, from their explosion physics, to their progenitors, to their use as standard candles,” said Howell. “And with this knowledge may come the key to unlocking the darkest secrets of dark energy.”

Play 'Cosmic Slot Machine' and Help Astronomers
By SPACE.com staff

A new website will let people play a form of "cosmic slot machine," matching up images of colliding galaxies with millions of simulated mash-ups to find the best model.

Astronomers call these cosmic collisions "galactic mergers." Studying these mergers could explain why the universe has the mix of galaxy types – from those with wound-up spiral arms to compact balls of stars – that it does.

And it turns out that the human eye is much better than a computer at matching up images of real mergers with randomly-selected images of simulated mergers.

The new website aims to put this human talent to use.

Galaxy Zoo Mergers, which goes live on Nov. 24 at http://mergers.galaxyzoo.org is an international project led by scientists from Oxford University in the U.K. and George Mason University in Virginia.

"Visitors to the Galaxy Zoo Mergers site use what's rather like a giant slot machine, with a real image of a galactic merger in the center and eight randomly selected simulated merger images filling the other eight 'slots' around it," said Chris Lintott of Oxford University's Department of Physics and a galaxyzoo.org team member.

"By randomly cycling through the millions of simulated possibilities and selecting only the very best matches they are helping to build up a profile of what kind of factors are necessary to create the galaxies we see in the Universe around us – and, hopefully, having fun too!" Lintott added.

Users can do more than simply select images, they can also take direct control of the simulations – choosing 'more' or 'fewer stars' or 'flipping' galaxies – in order to provide an exact match to what we see in the Universe.

"Whilst we're challenging the 250,000 existing users of the original Galaxy Zoo site to take part in this new project, anyone is welcome to join in – you don't have to be an expert, in fact our evidence shows that not being an expert actually makes you better at this sort of task," said George Mason astronomer John Wallin.

The project will focus on around 3,000 images of real galactic mergers identified through the Galaxy Zoo project – it also features some new images of these mergers taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The next stage will be to investigate the 'before' and 'after' of these colliding galaxies to work out what caused them and what will happen next – rather like trying to capture the slow motion detail of the moments before a car crash and predict the aftermath.

"These collisions take millions of years to unfold and so all we get from the Universe is a single snapshot of each one. By producing simulations, we will be able to watch each cosmic car crash unfold in the computer," said Anthony Holincheck, a graduate student at George Mason University and galaxyzoo.org team member.

UWM's worldwide home computer system discovers new collapsed star

By Sarah Perdue of the Journal Sentinel

Making an astronomical discovery just became as easy as turning on your computer.

Three volunteers with no formal training in astronomy detected a previously unidentified collapsed star known as a pulsar - or at least their computers did, according to a report published online Thursday in the journal Science.

The volunteers were three of more than a quarter million people who registered their computers to process over 132,000 gigabytes of data collected by astronomers. The computers are part of the larger Einstein@Home project, a program developed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to identify gravitational waves and pulsars. Volunteers from 192 countries participate in the project.

"As far as I know, this is the first astronomical discovery of something out there that we didn't know before," using volunteer distributed computing, said Bruce Allen, the leader of Einstein@Home, director of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and adjunct professor of physics at UWM.

Pulsars are collapsed, spinning stars that can emit a beam of light or radiowaves. They weigh as much as a star but are typically less than 10 kilometers in diameter. In comparison, our sun is about 1.4 million kilometers in diameter.

"Pulsars are neat because they have the strongest gravity in the universe, apart from black holes," Allen said. "They're like a playground to study what happens when gravity becomes very strong."

Researchers from more than 20 universities and observatories around the world, including UWM, have been collecting data at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which hosts the largest radiotelescope and detects pulsar beams.

While the scope of the project is large, the time and effort needed by volunteers is small.

"It takes two minutes," Allen said. "You download a piece of software, install it and make up a user name and password."

Once installed, Einstein@Home downloads data, mines through it and identifies candidate pulsars with no additional input from users. The software operates on registered computers only when they are idle.

Allen set up Einstein@Home at UWM in 2005 with the primary goal of detecting gravitational waves, which are a yet-undetected prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity. There are, however, more than 2,000 pulsars that have been identified since the discovery of the first one in 1967.

In March 2009, about a third of the data being downloaded to Einstein@Home computers began to include the pulsar data, and 120 known pulsars have been redetected by volunteers' computers to date.

On July 11, 2010, a computer in Ames, Iowa, identified what was suspected to be a novel pulsar. The candidate was reconfirmed three days later on a computer in Germany. Researchers spent the following weeks validating the discovery.

"After five years of running Einstein@Home, I was starting to think this was kind of hopeless," Allen said. He added that data is continuously being analyzed and he does not expect the discoveries to end with this pulsar.

Chris Colvin, who with his wife, Helen, own the first computer that made the discovery, said the software makes no indication a pulsar has been identified in the data.

After Allen contacted the Colvins, Chris said, "I remember I was like, holy cow, they found something."

The Colvins are acknowledged in the report and will receive a plaque. "To just be associated with something like this is really neat," Chris Colvin said.

It is the aggregate power of the volunteers' computers that makes searching through the data in a timely fashion even possible. There are currently over 50 ongoing projects, ranging from the search for extraterrestrial life to predicting how a protein takes its shape, that use software called BOINC that was developed at the University of California, Berkeley in 2002.

According to David Anderson, director of BOINC, the computing power provided by volunteers is nearly twice that of the most powerful supercomputer in the world.

"I think that the significance is that a lot of times when we're doing searches for pulsars like this, we're limited in what we can do by the amount of computing power that we have," said Paul Ray, an astrophysicist at the Naval Research Laboratory who was not involved with the report.

While detecting gravitational waves remains a goal of astronomy research, Ray said their discovery is likely many years away.

"They're making great use of the computer time that they have by doing some other things, one of which is these radiopulsar searches," he added.

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