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NASA has decided to re-fit the HST during a mission in 2008. Hubble has probably done more to advance science than any other machine ever built by man. There is a replacement waiting in the wings. Hopefully, this work will keep astronomers in goodies until the JWST can launch and come on line.
V838 Monocerotis is a very strange animal. It's officially called a variable star but it's also one that is still in formative stages and does weird things like periodically making huge jumps in magnitude.
In 2002, V838 Mon went into outburst and increased in magnitude to become a staggering 600,000 times brighter than our Sun. In addition, there's lots of dust around the star and, when it goes into outburst, the dust is excited by light from the star, causing what some call a "light echo" caused by the delay between light that comes directly to Earth and scattered light from the interstellar dust.
As an example of how this star can vary, here's a data page from the AAVSO web site showing that it changed 
magnitude by a factor of better than 1 (brightness change of more than 2.5) between October 1 and October 9, 2006. The chart shown here gives an indication of how much change has occurred in past. You can see that it's been all over the place.
And here is a comparison image from Hubble showing changes between November, 2005 and September, 2006.
Lots more stuff here.
Leaving the realm of astronomy for a moment and exploring a scientific "hard question."
Back in the 1970s NASA created some intriguing art work coupled with studies of potential space colonies. Some 
pretty nifty stuff right here.
Texas style, that is.
The national astronomy day is usually in April or May but in our neck of the woods, it's October because most of the heat has died down and there's only a few bloodsuckers left in the woods.
This year's event at the George Observatory was a little different. We actually had clear skies for a change. If I remember correctly the two prior years were not exactly washouts but the day was pretty well messed up by clouds. This time was different. A strong front blew through on Thursday night, cleaning all the clouds and pollution from the sky by Friday night. And, because we've been wilted from the heat for the past 6 months, the cool weather reved up everybody's primal urge to get back to nature causing Brazos Bend State Park to fill up and the observatory to overflow with people.
I'm told that we had between 1500 and 2000 people through the observatory last Saturday. This is a huge number, probably as good or better than any public event we've done in the past. A great day for promoting astronomy to say the least.
I've posted a photo blog here.
At any given time, there is usually one comet that can be observed in amateur telescopes. Comet Swan is a case in point and, since earlier this year, has been viewable from a dark site in just a pair of binoculars.
Interestingly enough, this one was discovered by a sun staring scope, the SOHO (SOlar Heliospheric Observatory), an Earth orbiter launched back in 1995. It has on board one instrument that sort of scans the entire solar system for solar Lyman alpha radiation that emanates from the Sun. So, SOHO has been doing double duty so to speak.
Comet Swan is a little on the strange side. Most of those that we see over time are periodic i.e. they return on a set timetable. For instance, Comet Halley returns every 76 years and I think it made a pass somewhere around 1986. A lot of us won't live to see the next pass it makes.
But some comets are non-periodic and have a strange trajectory that puts them in the solar system and then they shoot off into intergalactic space. Swan's trajectory is hyperbolic so once it leaves, we won't see it again...ever.
It's not too bright right now and will quickly fade over the next few weeks. Look for it around M13 in Hercules at the end of October.
Hat tip: Paul Downing
At the Fort Bend Astronomy Club, we have an outreach program called Astronomy On Wheels. Our goal is to present the science and the hobby of astronomy to kids and even grown-ups who are interested.
Lately we've been pretty busy, averaging one star party a month at various schools. Last night we did our second one for the kids at Rita Drabek elementary in Sugar Land, TX. I was the presenter and we had 4 other club members there to back me up and answer the questions that the kids managed to stump me on.
Nowadays we adults spend a lot of time grousing about the quality and state of education in our schools. Since I'm of the Dick, Jane, and Spot generation, it's pretty easy to guess that it's been a long since I was in elementary school. I don't remember that we even had science classes until at least fifth grade but last night third graders were reciting the names of all the planets along with their locations. And they didn't even have to stop and think about it. I'm willing to bet that 90% of their parents couldn't do it even with some prompting. I hear all the time that schools are turning out a bunch of illiterates who can barely read. Somehow I don't think the kids at Rita Drabek will be in that bunch.
We usually do a talk then show and tell through the telescopes. But we had clouds last night, clouds that later turned into some mighty nasty thunderstorms. No telescope viewing for these kids this time. But they'll be smarter next year and maybe they'll enjoy the scopes more by then. And maybe by then it'll be easier to explain to those smarter kids why a bevy of scientists got a lot dumber and turned Pluto into a dwarf.
When our kids were little, we took a driving trip through northern Nevada and Southern Utah. While the mountainous terrain and deserts held a fascination to me, the kids were mostly unimpressed and spent their time playing with Game Boys in the back seat.
Now it's become apparent that scientific instruments can, after extended periods in the field, become quite bored with things. How, you say, could that happen? Well, I guess the Martian terrain looks pretty much the same after a couple of years.
I monitor a few astronomy listservers, one of which is AmAstro. One of the contributors, David Vansteelant, has built a really cool list of the Top 200 Most Beautiful Double Stars. Not only are they listed by right ascension but he has added lists for constellations and descriptions, a huge amount of work to say the least. Go here to find it for your observing pleasure.
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