Associazione Romana Astrofili

157 FRASSO SABINO 42,22945555N 12,81150555E 465m s.l.m.

Ves 205: possibile controparte ottica di 1AGL J2022+4032?

La sorgente 1AGL J2022+4032 è la sorgente gamma persistente più intensa della regione del Cigno. Essa è associata alla più intensa sorgente non identificata del terzo catalogo di EGRET, e solo recentemente Fermi l’ha identificata come una pulsar gamma. La sorgente si trova all’interno dell’estensione angolare della SNR Gamma Cygni (G78.2+2.1). Basandosi sulle osservazioni prolungate del satellite AGILE in direzione del Cigno tra Novembre 2007 e Luglio 2009 (~11 Ms di tempo di esposizione netta), si è svolta un’analisi sulla variabilità in flusso della sorgente. Lo studio ha mostrato...

The Day the Earth Trembled

When the sun began to rise on the morning of 13 August 1930 like any other morning, little did the inhabitants along the banks of the River Curuçá in the Brazilian Amazonas region, near the Peruvian frontier, realise what was about to happen. The women of the community had started washing clothing and the fishermen and rubber-tappers had begun their days work. Suddenly, at about eight o’clock, the sun became blood-red and a darkness fell over the region. A large cloud of red dust filled the air, and then a fine white ash descended to cover the trees and plants. There then followed...

Preprint: OPTICAL SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC MONITORING OF THE EXTREME LUMINOUS BLUE VARIABLE STAR GR 290 (ROMANO’S STAR) IN M 33

Precovery di 2003 KN18

Rob Matson located PHO 2003 KN18 as the trail in this Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2) scan of a 3 May 1989 plate from the 1.2m U.K. Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring, and he was accessing SkyMorph to work the next predicted position when the service went down. By the time he could get back, the 3 and 8 May 1989 positions had already been reported in yesterday’s Daily Orbit Update MPEC. This work was coded to Fabio Anzellini of the Associazione Romana Astrofili (ARA), whose membership includes several archive sleuths. All this followed Sunday’s announcement of 2003 KN18’s recovery (news),...

NEAR-EARTH OBJECT TRACKING. The Plaskett Tracking System

The Plaskett telescope is the largest telescope in the world that is used in a regular program of near-Earth object (NEO) follow-up astrometry, and the telescope is able to detect these objects long after they have faded from the grasp of other observers. Without this work, many of the near-Earth objects would be permanently lost. The aim of the program is to provide rapid astrometric data for all newly-discovered objects that manifest unusual plane-of-sky motion and could be in close proximity to the Earth-Moon system. In addition, time is allocated for systematic observation of...