Venus Jupiter Conjunction!!

This is the photo of Venus- Jupiter Conjunction taken on 2nd feb.The conjuction was of the brightest objects seen in the morning sky these days and it wasa an awesome sight with separation of abt 45 arcmin at 5.30 am between planet venus and jupiter on 2nd feb. the photo is taken with 5" telescope and canon digcam.

Geminid meteor photo!!

This is the photo of Geminid meteor taken on 14th dec from vangani. The shower was weak... not as we expected but still i got one faint meteor in my cam field! we couldnt see many fireballs or bright meteors that day. The photo is taken with my canon digcam 4megapixel 4x zoom with just 15sec exposure!

Mars photo!!

This is the first photo odf mars i have taken! With my 5" reflector telescope and canon digcam 4megapixel 4x zoom. i have stacked 10 photos of exp 1/25 each with ISO 400!

Comet Holmes on 29th!

Photo of Comet Holmes taken on 29th oct with canon digcam 4 megapixel 4x zoom and with 5" reflector telescope by A-focal method wit 10sec exposure.

Comet Holmes!!

This is the photo of tail less comet Holmes takem with my 5'' reflector telescope, canon digcam 4megapixel 4x zoom with a

slight exposure of 6sec. its a bright comet visiblt wiht naked eyes right now in Perseus.

Japan's Mission to the Moon Blasts OFF!!

If you think the Americans are going to be dominating lunar exploration, think again. Many countries are considering our heavenly companion, helping to unlock its secrets. The next mission to head off is the Japanese lunar probe Kayuga, which blasted off from the Tanegashima space center at 10:31:01 Japan Standard Time (01:31:01 UTC) on September 14th - after an initial delay due to weather. The spacecraft is currently in Earth orbit, and will leave for the moon on October 3rd. It'll start making scientific observations on October 21st.Once near the moon, Kayuga will split into three satellites; a 3-ton main orbiter which will orbit the planet at an altitude of 100km, and the smaller Relay and VRAD Satellites, which will orbit and gather information about the poles.
There are three main goals for the mission:
Kayuga will be on the moon to study how it evolved and where it came from by looking at the topography and the abundance of elements in the lunar soil, and measuring the Moon's gravity and weak magnetic field. Hopefully, it'll help explain the question: was the Moon captured by the Earth, did it solidify out of the same material and at the same time as our planet, was it somehow fissioned or secreted by the Earth, or is the result of a massive collision by another object.
It'll also study the plasma, energetic particles and electromagnetic field surrounding the Moon.

Finally, the probes will turn their electromagnetic eyes towards our planet to study the plasma surrounding the Earth, and allow us to better understand how our own magnetosphere and ionosphere protect us from the deadly radiation of the solar wind. One of the neatest aspects of the Kayuga mission is its inclusion of a High Definition Television camera to send back movies of the Earth from the Moon. This means that we will be able to see the Earth-rise from the Moon's horizon!

Hubble detects ring of dark matter!!

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a ghostlyring of dark matter that formed during a titanic collision between twomassive galaxy clusters. Because ordinary matter in the cluster showsno evidence of such a ring, this discovery is among the strongestevidence yet for non-baryonic dark matter. Clusters of galaxies are the largest gravitationally bound structuresin the universe. They typically contain hundreds or thousands ofgalaxies, forming at the knots of the filamentary sponge-likedistribution of matter on very large scales. Numerical simulationsshow how the accretion of matter from the filaments to the knots makegalaxy clusters grow in size. This one-dimensional accretion (along afilament) results in frequent, near head-on collisions among clustersor groups of galaxies, whereas interactions between individualgalaxies usually occur only when there is significant rotation.

The galaxy cluster Cl 0024+17 – some 5 x 109 light-years away (z =0.4) – is supposed to have experienced exactly such a head-oncollision 1 or 2 thousand million years ago. The first evidence ofthis was obtained in 2002 by Oliver Czoske, from the University ofBonn, and collaborators. By studying the velocity distribution of thegalaxies in the cluster, they found two distinct groups with oppositevelocity, suggesting that there are two sub-clusters moving away fromeach other along the line-of-sight. Their numerical simulationsconfirm the collision scenario and suggest a sub-cluster mass ratio of2:1. In 2004, when the dark-matter distribution in Cl 0024+117 was studied there was no such a peculiar cluster of galaxies. Ring-like distribution was never seen in other clusters.It is indeed tricky to derive the dark-matter distribution in acluster from the distortion it causes on the shape of backgroundgalaxies, but the analysis of this weak gravitational lensing nowseems to be well under control, with the release of the first 3D mapof the dark matter distribution (CERN Courier January/February 2007)