New home July 16, 2009
Posted by Sarah in me.Tags: blog, me, new domain
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- It was a little easier than this
As I announced in my previous post, my blog has now moved to its own domain. The content here will stay up as it is now on the usual pages, but this is all replicated over on the new page. All new stuff will be posted there from now on too (July 2009).
Please update your feed readers and bookmarks.
Thanks!
Image: Tom Turnbull
Onwards and upwards! July 11, 2009
Posted by Sarah in me.Tags: blog, me, new domain
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When I started writing this blog about a year ago I had no idea whether I, let alone anyone else, would enjoy it. But it’s been fabulous.
So I decided to quit my little two-by-two WordPress rental and move to somewhere more upmarket. I put down some cash, signed the papers and picked up the keys to my own domain. In the last few weeks I’ve been pimping the new pad and gradually moving in my stuff. A couple more vanloads and the move will be complete. Consider this, dear visitors, my two weeks’ notice.
Go take a look and please move across your bookmarks and feed reader thingies. Can you tell the difference?! This blog page will continue to exist in its current form, so you can still see old posts, but I’ll replace the front page with one linking to the new address. My twitter feed and tumblelog are still in the usual places.
More success for Herschel July 11, 2009
Posted by Sarah in new astronomy, pics, science, space.Tags: astronomy, esa, herschel, hifi, infrared, space, spire
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After the early sneak preview from the PACS instrument on board the recently launched Herschel infrared space telescope, more images have now been released from its other instruments, SPIRE and HIFI. The above image shows images taken with the IR imager and spectrometer SPIRE of nearby galaxy M74 at 250 micron. The amount of detail visible in the images is really great, particularly as all the image reconstruction software hasn’t even been optimised yet. We may be very used to seeing spectacularly detailed images from Hubble, but achieving these resolutions at Herschel’s far-infrared wavelengths is very new. (more…)
NTT snaps the Omega Nebula July 7, 2009
Posted by Sarah in pics.Tags: astronomy, eso, image, la silla, star formation
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This beautiful picture of the Omega Nebula (M17) was release today by ESO. It’s a three-colour composite image taken with the 3.6-m New Technology Telescope at ESO’s La Silla site in Chile. The nebula is a region of active star formation, one of the youngest and nearest to our solar system. A recent paper by Matthew Povich and collaborators reported over 90 candidate newborn stars in the region at varying stages of starbirth. Energetic radiation from hot young stars is exciting and lighting up the gas in the nebula.
The Povich paper contains a complete description of this hotbed of star formation at wavelengths from the radio to X-ray and is an excellent reference if you wold like to learn more.
Image credit: ESO
APOD: Earth’s changing distance to the Sun July 4, 2009
Posted by Sarah in pics.Tags: apod, astronomy, sun
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Today, the 4th of July, the Earth’s elliptical orbit takes our planet to its farthest point from the Sun (‘aphelion‘). This composite image demonstrates nicely how this causes the Sun to appear just a tad smaller in the sky compared with the perihelion size, at the closest approach.
Image credit: E.L. Cervigon
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