WHAT IS HAPPENING TO JUPITER'S CLOUD SYSTEM?
The atmosphere of Jupiter is chaotic and turbulent, given the various swirling cloud formations that can be seen by orbiting satellites and through telescopes. In general, the darker cloud material is deeper in Jupiter’s atmosphere, while bright cloud material is high. The bright clouds are most likely ammonia or ammonia and water, mixed with a sprinkling of unknown chemical ingredients. How does the fine-scale structure within this weather system, including additional structures within it, vary over time? Znith Observatory has in the past imaged the disappearance of full, planetary-wide cloud systems only to re-emerge after many months.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO SURROUNDING STARS AND PLANETS?
Stars orbiting each other is a very common thing in the Universe; but very often these stars are in conflict with each other, with the dominant star or even a black hole devouring mass from the orbiting, subdued one(s). Znith Observatory consistently contributes high quality research to the professional astronomical community with observations of variable star system photometry, asteroid orbital periods, planetary and lunar imagery and visual observations. This is done through local and international networks, including the local ASPIRE Group, ALPO, VSNET and the AAVSO.
HOW DO CATACLYSMIC VARIABLE STARS BEHAVE?
Variable stars play a crucial role in our understanding of the universe. Cepheid variables have played a major part in determining distances to far-away galaxies and determining the age of the Universe. Mira variables give us a glimpse into the future evolution of our own star, the Sun. Accretion disks in cataclysmic variables help us to understand larger scale disk behavior, like the activity inside active galaxies with supermassive black holes. Supernovae made us realise that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. Znith Observatory continues to submit standard and calibrated photometric observations of stellar targets and alerts to international astronomy databases and networks.
HOW DO STARS ORBITING BLACK HOLES BEHAVE?
By following their orbits and loss of mass, deviations in the star's orbit can be measured with a view of uncovering the existence of new physics. I'm always fascinated by photometric data that numerically picture the cataclysmic loss of considerable mass from the star into a black hole! When my data is processed by professional astronomers, we just might deduce that even Einstein's theories of gravity were not entirely complete.
ARE THERE MORE VARIABLE STARS OUT THERE WAITING TO BE DISCOVERED?
Variable stars need to be systematically observed over decades in order to determine their long-time behavior. Professional astronomers have neither the available time nor the unlimited telescope access needed to gather data on the brightness changes of thousands of variable stars. It is thanks to amateur astronomers who with their own telescopes are making a truly useful contribution to astronomy by observing variable stars and submitting observations to International Databases. These important data are needed to analyze variable star behavior, to schedule satellite observations of certain stars, to correlate data from satellite and ground-based observations, and to test out theoretical models of variable stars.
IS STARSPOT ACTIVITY ON DISTANT STARS THE SAME AS THAT ON OUR SUN?
The "starspot hypothesis" on distant stars dates back since 1667 when the French astronomer Ismael Boulliau used it to explain the periodic light variability of Omicron Ceti. Although Boulliau's assumption was not applicable to explain his observations, starspots on distant stars is now a well proven fact. Observations of stars with existing starspots was established way back in 1947 when Kron G. observed four eclipsing systems later called RS CVn binaries. Since then the starspot model has been used to explain rotational modulation of the RS CVn stars light curves due to dark starspots moving in and out of view. What is the long-term behaviour and evolution of starspots?