- Bashar al-Assad (born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the current and 19th president of Syria since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, which nominally espouses a neo-Ba’athist ideology. His father and predecessor was General Hafiz al-Assad, whose presidency in 1971–2000 marked the transfiguration of Syria from a republican state into a de facto dynastic dictatorship, tightly controlled by an Alawite-dominated elite composed of the armed forces and the Mukhabarat (secret services), who are loyal to the al-Assad family.
- How to find and observe NGC663 (TOTS#4) (eyesonthesky.com)
NGC 663 is an open cluster within our own Milky Way galaxy. It is over 6,800 light years from Earth, so the photons from it reaching your eye in a telescope left that cluster about the time circular ditches - such as the Goseck Circle - were being dug as solar observatories in the 5th millenium BCE. NGC 663 is stil considered a young open cluster, with an estimated age around 20 million years. Here is how to locate it.
