Have you ever complained about the amateur level of your instruments? Do you want to have a glimpse into how professional astronomers manipulate those giant telescope? Here is your chance! The European Southern Observatory is holding the “Hidden Treasures Competition” for astronomy fans to play around with the immense picture database they have amassed for the past many years. All you need to do is to use process these pictures into a masterpiece in any way you want (“no painting”) and submit it to the official website. All entries submitted will be judged on aesthetics, processing and originality qualities and winner will be awarded an all expenses paid trip to Very Large Telescope in Chile and participate in the observation for one night ! Don’t miss it!

 
http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/hiddentreasures/
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/106972728.html 

Have you ever left your telescope pointing to a target after you had enjoyed an exciting observation, and gone to sleep? Well, I know you are probably too tired to pack things up, but once you take a look what happened to this guy, you won’t be so careless again. Mike Lynch, an avid amateur astronomer at Minneapolis, left his giant 14.5″ Starmaster at the observation site and went to sleep. Of course, he didn’t just leave it the way it was, as a veteran, he slewed the tube to the horizontal direction, covered it, and placed a towel at the eyepiece opening. Well, you would think this should be sufficient enough right? But guess what, during the night, the wind blew off the cover, changed the pointing of the tube up to the sky, and what is more coincidental, the sun passed through the field of view of the 14.5” Starmaster next morning! The result? With its powerful light-focusing ability, the telescope burnt itself into ashes. Next time, after you are done with your equipment, treat it nicer – I am sure you don’t want that to happen to you.  

 http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/105515108.html 

Hi, fellow astronomers! Hope your had a fruitful stargazing session last night.  Well, this week, according to the forecast, it looks like we are in for a lot of exciting sights. This week, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot will be visible at its central meridian. To better enjoy the Great Red Spot, it is better use a light blue or green filter during observation. Another potential target to watch is periodical comet Harley 2. Around 20th Oct, it will pass its closet to Earth. Look for it in Auriga and you shall find it in a night with clear sky.

 For some more information about this week’s sky forecast, click the link:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/105039989.html 

Hi all,

Welcome back from the recess week, the mid terms and before some of you lucky few head for E-Learning week, NUSAS proudly presents Astrobash XXVI!

The sign up is now active, all rooms are twin-sharing, so grab you friends and register @ http://tinyurl.com/astrobashxxvi  !

PS: For future Astrobash updates, do headover to  www.nusas.org/astrobash  !

Pan-STARRS — the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System has discovered its first potentially hazardous asteroid this month. This project was initiated by the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii to use its wide field imaging facility to detect those asteroids that will come near Earth within a dangerous distance. This newly discovered asteroid is about 45m in diameter and is now 32 million km away from us. What is assuring is that this asteroid will not pose an threat to us in the immediate future. However, it is estimated that there are more potentially hazardous asteroids out there yet to be discovered. Although these asteroids could be too small in terms of size and brightness for our amateur astronomers to detect, it is not impossible, that we could discover them combining the power of all the amateur astronomers together. So watch out, maybe next time, when you aim your telescope at the sky, you will be the lucky guy to discover one.

Here is the original story: http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=10273 

Hey fellow astronomers, have you noticed something strange in the sky these days? Did you see a “star” which outdazzled all its peers, shining around the zenith at midnight? Yes! That is the biggest planet in our solar system, Jupiter. On a normal night, when Jupiter rises above the horizon, you should be able to immediately differentiate it from other real stars because of its brightness and colour. But this month, Jupiter is reaching perihelion, which means it will be closest to the sun in its orbit. This time, Jupiter will be on the opposite side of earth with respect to the sun, which means observers will have virtually the entire night to closely appreciate this giant. The estimated magnitude of Jupiter at perihelion is -2.9 and it will be at its brightest in 50 years, so don’t miss this once in 50-years opportunity to check it out! 

By the way, Happy Mid-autumn Festival to all fellow astronomers! 

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=10216 

 Einstein once predicted there was a cosmological constant that governs the 
destiny of our universe, but later Hubble’s discovery of red shift made him
abandon this magic constant. Recently, however, it seems that the cosmological constant
introduced by Einstein is very favoured by scientists in explaining the existence
of dark energy (that could possibly make up 73% of our universe!)and the speeding
up of the expansion of our universe. Click here and take a look at the latest research
about the mysterious dark energy:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/101095989.html