"SOLSTICE SOLARGRAPHS: Last December, the staff of the Philippus Lansbergen Observatory in Middelburg, the Netherlands, invited members of the general public to join them for a solargraph-making party. A solargraph is a simple pinhole camera made from a soda or beer can lined with a piece of photographic paper. About a 100 cans were deployed around the observatory and, six months later, here are the results:…"

"Much of pinhole photography relates to the use of time and being creative with the light from the sun, similar wonders to that found in astronomy. A 6-month exposure will enable you to image the arc of the sun as it rises or sinks throughout 6 months of the year. As well as this you will get some foreground detail and a camera to look at with awe as a small hole etches its 6-month exposure from your window ledge, garden shed, lamp post, tree etc.

Being able to capture a period of time far beyond our own vision is incredible enough, but even more amazing is how simple it is to do. The final camera gives an extreme wide angle of view of 160 degrees."

"Humans have been seeing strange things on the surface of Mars for centuries. From the 1700s up through the present day, widespread fame has been available to anyone able to produce even the slightest bit of flimsy evidence that there's Martian life."

"…We find that a well-defined temporal component exists and accounts for some of the variance in the data. This temporal component arises because active regions with high magnetic field strength evolve, breaking up into small-scale magnetic elements with low field strength, and radiative and magnetic fluxes are sensitive to different active-region components. We generate empirical models that relate radiative flux to magnetic flux, allowing us to predict spectral-irradiance variations from observations of disk-averaged magnetic-flux density. In most cases, the model reconstructions can account for 85-90% of the variability of the radiative flux from the chromosphere and corona. Our results are important for understanding the relationship between magnetic and radiative measures of solar and stellar variability."

"It is now clear that cladistics can be applied and be useful to the study of galaxy diversification. Many difficulties, conceptual and practical, have been solved,. Significant astrophysical results have been obtained and will be extended to larger samples of galaxies and globular clusters. However, many paths remain in the exploration of this new and large field of research."

"… Here we discuss some literature on stellar bow shocks and show observations of some of them, enhanced by image processing techniques, in particular by the recently proposed AstroFracTool software."

"The goals of this challenge are to (1) learn the relative strengths and weaknesses of the different classification algorithms, (2) use the results to improve classification algorithms, and (3) understand what spectroscopically confirmed sub-sets are needed to properly train these algorithms. The challenge is available at www.hep.anl.gov/SNchallenge, and the due date for classifications is May 1, 2010."

"Beginning with a historical account of the spectral classification, its refinement through additional criteria is presented. The line strengths and ratios used in two dimensional classifications of each spectral class are described. A parallel classification scheme for metal-poor stars and the standards used for classification are presented. The extension of spectral classification beyond M to L and T and spectroscopic classification criteria relevant to these classes are described. Contemporary methods of classifications based upon different automated approaches are introduced."

"February 17, 2010: Imagine holding the entire sun in the palm of your hand. Now you can. A new iPhone app developed by NASA-supported programmers delivers a live global view of the sun directly to your cell phone. Users can fly around the star, zoom in on active regions, and monitor solar activity.

"This is more than cool," says Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington DC. "It's transformative. For the first time ever, we can monitor the sun as a living, breathing 3-dimensional sphere.""

"Extrasolar planets are not named and are referred to only by their assigned scientific designation. The reason given by the IAU to not name the planets is that it is considered impractical as planets are expected to be common. I advance some reasons as to why this logic is flawed, and suggest names for the 403 extrasolar planet candidates known as of Oct 2009. The names follow a scheme of association with the constellation that the host star pertains to, and therefore are mostly drawn from Roman-Greek mythology. Other mythologies may also be used given that a suitable association is established."

"Or the methane could be produced by some kind of Martian cows, buried no doubt. On Earth each Earth-type cow produces .6 metric tons of methane annually. One of the comments to yesterday’s NASA press conference on this discovery pointed out that since the plume contained about 19,000 tons of CH4 that indicates (if Martian cows are similar to Earth cows) that we should be looking for about 19,000/.6 = 31,000 (hidden or buried) Martian cows. This possibility will probably be reported on extensively in supermarket publications over the next several weeks."

You mean all my old Traveller maps are wrong now?

So it begins. We know where the Shadows lie.