Explore Scientific White Light Solar Observing System View Larger Image Price: $699.95 Item Number: ESSO1 Manufacturer: Explore Scientific Quantity: * Whole number only Add to a new shopping list The Explore Scientific White Light Solar Observing System combines the Explore Scientific 127mm f/6.5 air-spaced doublet achromatic refracting telescope and a high quality hand selected glass solar filter. Made with the most durable glass filter on the market, this system allows you to see the solar photosphere with outstanding detail. Watch sunspots change from day to day. Follow these magnetic giants as they rotate across the disk of the sun. It’s truly an amazing view! Transmission is 1/1,000th of 1% resulting in a solar image that is yellow-orange. The solar filter is guaranteed fifteen years.   "Looking at sunspots through a white-light filter is my personal-favorite way to enjoy the sun. I recommend this system to both novice and advanced observers."   --Dr. Tony Phillips, author of spaceweather.com       There's more! The ES127 telescope works great at night without the solar filter. Simply remove the solar filter and you have one of the best nighttime telescopes available at this price. See the rings of Saturn, moons of Jupiter or fall into the craters of the moon.   Double your observing time!   Get a telescope mount to hold your telescope steady and high quality eyepieces to magnify the view. Related Products 82° Series 11mm Eyepiece Price: $149.00   82° Series 24mm Eyepiece Price: $299.00 Twilight II Deluxe Altaz Mount with Heavy Duty Tripod Price: $349.95 Stable and smooth, the new TwiLight II Altaz Mount comes with a dual mount head, and a heavy-duty adjustable-height tripod designed for years of rugged use.

SpaceWeather website Turn your iPhone or iPod into a field-tested satellite tracker. Click here for more information about this application. Eyepieces Software Solar Filters and Telescopes White Light Solar Filters Hydrogen-Alpha Solar Filters Spotting Scopes Sun Pictures Telescope Mounts Telescopes Binoculars Books Parts and Accessories Meteorites Young Hobbyist Select ... Explore Scientific BRESSER® Sungazer Metallic Photos Meteorites Lunt Solar Systems

Galaxies

Artist's Conception - The Milky Way
Where are we?
We live in a somewhat remote arm of the Milky Way. This video shows you the way from our home to a vantage point outside the Local Group.
Animation (Quicktime, 3MB)

Hubble Ultra Deep Field galaxies: Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team

Universe Galaxies-5 Cartwheel The unusual shape of the Cartwheel Galaxy is likely due to a collision with one of the smaller galaxies on the lower left several hundred million years ago. This image combines data from four different observatories: the Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple); the Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite (ultraviolet/blue); the Hubble Space Telescope (visible/green); and the Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared/red).

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is typical: it has hundreds of billions of stars, enough gas and dust to make billions more stars, and at least ten times as much dark matter as all the stars and gas put together. And it’s all held together by gravity.

Like more than two-thirds of the known galaxies, the Milky Way has a spiral shape. At the center of the spiral, a lot of energy and, occasionally, vivid flares. are being generated. Based on the immense gravity that would be required explain the movement of stars and the energy expelled, the astronomers conclude that the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole.

Other galaxies have elliptical shapes, and a few have unusual shapes like toothpicks or rings. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) shows this diversity. Hubble observed a tiny patch of sky (one-tenth the diameter of the moon) for one million seconds (11.6 days) and found approximately 10,000 galaxies, of all sizes, shapes, and colors. From the ground, we see very little in this spot, which is in the constellation Fornax.

Formation

After the Big Bang, the Universe was composed of radiation and subatomic particles. What happened next is up for debate - did small particles slowly team up and gradually form stars, star clusters, and eventually galaxies? Or did the Universe first organize as immense clumps of matter that later subdivided into galaxies?

Collisions

The shapes of galaxies are influenced by their neighbors, and, often, galaxies collide. The Milky Way is itself on a collision course with our nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. Even though it is the same age as the Milky Way, Hubble observations reveal that the stars in Andromeda's halo are much younger than those in the Milky Way. From this and other evidence, astronomers infer that Andromeda has already smashed into at least one and maybe several other galaxies.

 

Our Galactic Neighbors
The "lifestyles" of 75 neighboring galaxies are illuminated in this poster from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
In this composite, blue colors reveal light from an older population of stars. Tints of green represent organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,while red lumps show clouds of warm dust and gas heated by radiation from newborn stars.

CREDIT:NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Gordon (Space Telescope Science Institute) and SINGS Team