Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Sep 23

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* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - September 23, 2005 * * *

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Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin. Images, the full stories
abridged here, and other enhancements are on our Web site,
SkyandTelescope.com, at the URLs provided. (If the links don't work,
just paste them into your Web browser.) Clear skies!

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ANDROMEDA'S BLACK HOLE SURROUNDED BY YOUNG STARS

It's no secret that supermassive black holes are thought to dwell in
the centers of most galaxies, but what might be less known is that only
two black holes have been directly proven to exist under there. Now,
thanks to some blue stars in a very unlikely place, make that three.

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) has long been known as a likely candidate
for harboring a black hole. Its innermost nucleus emits the X-rays
expected from an accretion disk of gas spiraling into one. In addition,
for almost a decade astronomers have noted a mysterious blue light at
the core. Using Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS),
astronomers have now identified this blue glow as a flat disk of more
than 400 young, hot stars no more than half a light-year from the
nucleus. The stars' unlikely nesting ground gave astronomers the most
solid evidence to date that the Andromeda Galaxy contains a black hole
-- and it's twice as big as they thought....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1599_1.asp

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AN ANSEL ADAMS ENCORE

Just before sunset on Thursday, September 15th, more than 200
photographers and a half dozen media crews (including one from Japan)
converged on Yosemite National Park's Glacier Point in California. What
drew them there was a prediction in SKY & TELESCOPE's October issue,
page 40: At dusk that evening, a nearly full Moon would rise in the
southeast over Gray Peak and Mount Starr King and show almost exactly
the same phase and sky location as in Ansel Adams' famous photograph
"Autumn Moon," taken 57 years earlier to the day....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1595_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* Mars is shining well up in the east by midnight and is already 17
arcseconds wide, larger than it almost ever appears.
* Last-quarter Moon on September 24-25.
* Venus (magnitude -4.0, in Libra) shines brightly in the
west-southwest in early dusk.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance

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Copyright 2005 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is
provided as a free service to the astronomical community by the editors
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Stuart Goldman
Associate Editor http://SkyandTelescope.com
Night Sky Magazine http://NightSkyMag.com
49 Bay State Rd.
Cambridge, MA 02138