The Jewel Box

In the constellation of the Southern Cross, NGC 4755, about 10 million years old, 2000 parsecs away.
Imaged by Science Club Students at Pueblo HS in Tucson Arizona.
Takahashi Epsilon 180, 10 minute color exposure from Moorook Australia.

Many thanks to the Tzec Maun Foundation.

Color-magnitude diagrams by Sanner et al., 2001
Note the very red star at the upper right corner, B-V ~ 2.2.

Kreutz comet system fragments, March 11-13 2010

SOHO coronagraph images.
More than 1500 comets have been discovered in SOHO images.
See the Red Barn Observatory SOHO Comet hunting instructions.

Sekanina and Chodas 2007, discuss in detail the birth and evolution of the Kreutz comet system. See also the Wikipedia article "Kreutz Sungrazers".

Sunspot Region 11054 , March 12 2010

The images above were posted at the wonderful Solar Monitor page. The hosts are the Solar Physics Group, University of Dublin, Ireland, and NASA's Solar Data Analysis Center SDAC.

MDI is the SOHO Michelson Doppler Imager.
EIT is the SOHO Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope.

Images of M65 and M66

Takahashi Epsilon 180, 10 min color image, February 17 2010, Tzec Maun Observatory in New Mexico.


The two images above from the Palomar 48-inch Schmidt First Digitized Sky Survey (red plates) DSS1, colored by pixel count.

My thanks to the Tzec Maun Foundation for providing telescope time for Astronomy Projects at Pueblo Magnet High School, Tucson Arizona, and College of Sciences and Humanities, University of Mexico UNAM, Mexico City.

Solar Eclipse season at GOES-14 weather satellite

The chart above shows Solar eclipses causing a drop in the Solar X-ray flux measured by GOES-14 (GOES-O).

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite GOES-14 is going through the spring equinox eclipse season. From the geosynchronous position of the satellite, the Earth eclipses the Sun for up to an hour, every 24 hours.

Colorado State University in Fort Collins has many interesting animations of GOES-14 Earth imagery.