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Space and Astronomy Thread |
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#551 |
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Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 76,805
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Bit short notice but just about to start, 8 pm, on Discovery Channel...........
Journey to The Edge of The Universe Using Hubble pictures and CGI we journey from the Earth to the outer reaches of the universe.............. It's on for 2 hours but I'm gonna start watching and see how it goes............. |
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#552 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Alacant
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Space Week starts tomorrow on Nat Geo.
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#553 |
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That would be National Geographic, swing, not Discovery
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#554 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
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Well that was a cheery thought to start with: we could end up like Venus
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#555 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Quote:
Well that was a cheery thought to start with: we could end up like Venus
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#556 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
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Oh sorry...!
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#557 |
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Join Date: Nov 2002
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Oh yeah..........Nat geo.........chers, mark........
Well...........I dozed off when they got to Jupiter and didn't wake up till Andromeda............. ![]() So I've jettisoned it and will wait for the repeat........... |
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#558 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
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I won't give anything away...but it's certainly worth watching!
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#559 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Alacant
Posts: 7,773
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For those that missed it before, NASA's Greatest Missions has just started on Discovery Channel.
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#560 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: ♫ At The Keyboard ♫
Posts: 11,556
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NASA SCIENCE UPDATE TO DISCUSS MARS ATMOSPHERE ACTIVITY
WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a science update at 2 p.m. EST, Thursday, Jan. 15, to discuss analysis of the Martian atmosphere that raises the possibility of life or geologic activity. The briefing will take place in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St., S.W., Washington, and carried live on NASA Television. interesting stuff |
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#561 |
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Join Date: Feb 2003
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Quote:
NASA SCIENCE UPDATE TO DISCUSS MARS ATMOSPHERE ACTIVITY
WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a science update at 2 p.m. EST, Thursday, Jan. 15, to discuss analysis of the Martian atmosphere that raises the possibility of life or geologic activity. The briefing will take place in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St., S.W., Washington, and carried live on NASA Television. interesting stuff Also astronomers are now getting clues to might have been outside our universe before it began with the big bang. The universe appears to be misshapen. Deep man! It's all happening this week.http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...-big-bang.html Just in time for pro science Obama's arrival and hopes for beefing up NASA's budget!
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#562 |
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Join Date: Jun 2006
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Has anyone heard that the life of the shuttle may be extended to 2015?
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#563 |
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Alacant
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Quote:
Has anyone heard that the life of the shuttle may be extended to 2015?
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#564 |
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Join Date: Jun 2006
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Not a word Henry. I listen to a lot of space podcasts and nothing's been mentioned.
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#565 |
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Join Date: May 2004
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Smallest ever exoplanet found...
The good news is that the European Space Agency's Corot probe has found the smallest ever exoplanet less than twice the size of Earth and going round a sun-like star.
Bad news - it has an orbit period of 20 hours so it's like a brutally roasted Mercury - no chance of life there then! More on this story can be seen here at http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM7G6XPXPF_index_0.html. |
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#566 |
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Join Date: May 2002
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For Iridium flare watchers.....
There's now one less Iridium satellite up there. Tuesday Tea-time (UK time) a defunct Russian satellite (Cosmos 2251) ran into an active Iridium satellite. The result - at least 600 bits of debris ![]() http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0902/11iridium/ |
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#567 |
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Join Date: Mar 2007
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Posts: 4,755
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Ariane 5 will be launching in a couple of hours (two hour launch window) I'm going to be watching!
Linky for live launch. |
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#568 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Looks like Obama is going to be good for NASA.
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#569 |
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Join Date: May 2004
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And just where is Comet Lulin?
At least, we might have some clear skies tonight after days of cloud and so we might just get to see the elusive Comet Lulin with binoculars, etc.
Fortunately, there's a star map here http://www.earthsky.org/article/catc...ek-of-february which indicates where to look in the night sky (just up the road from Regulus in Leo). I hope it's been worth waiting for. |
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#570 |
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Join Date: May 2002
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I've been watching Lulin, on and off, since around the 12th Feb.
Every night it's been a little further on, and higher up (shame about the cloudy nights which have spoiled the sequence ![]() Past it's best now, but still fairly easy to spot as a hazy patch in binoculars. For the benefit of anyone who uses Stellarium - the free planetarium software...... www.stellarium.org Here's how to add Comet Lulin, so it shows you where to find it...... Locate the '.ini' file called 'ssystem' It's under the filepath... Program Files - Stellarium - Data First - copy this file, and paste a copy somewhere safe on your hard-drive, as backup. Now - open the original 'ssystem' with 'notepead'.... Then copy and paste the following lines of text, at the bottom, after the other text. [Lulin] name = Lulin parent = Sun radius = 1000 oblateness = 0.0 halo = true color = 0.7,1.4,0.7 tex_halo = star16×16.png tex_map = nomap.png coord_func = comet_orbit orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2454842.15 orbit_PericenterDistance = 1.212267 orbit_Eccentricity = 0.999986 orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 136.8660 orbit_AscendingNode = 338.5392 orbit_Inclination = 178.3736 lighting = false albedo = 1 sidereal_period = Close notepad, and save the changes. Now - when you start up Stellarium - Comet Lulin will be highlighted **NOTE** The stated magnitude (brightness) is a LOT brighter than Lulin really is. This is deliberate, so that Lulin will be obvious, and automatically highlighted by Stellarium. Position will be correct though. Any problems, simply paste your saved copy of 'ssystem' back into the 'data' folder, and overwrite the one you altered. Also - when Lulin has faded away - doing the same will remove the Lulin entry from Stellarium's database. edit... For Mac or other OS users - I'm sorry, I don't know the filepath for finding the 'ssystem' file - but editing in the same lines of text will work the same as it does for Window$ machines. |
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#571 |
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 8,709
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Quite a clear night. Looked in the right area , up from Saturn , found Regulus but no sign of Lulin. Oh well.
Looked over to the Northern sky and was surprised by the brightness of Venus , even though it's in the slight city twilight I've never seen it that bright.
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#572 |
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Join Date: May 2002
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I've seen Lulin quite a few times tonight already - popping out every half-hour or so. Quite easy to see it's moving (relatively) fast against the faint background Stars.
Regulus is up and right of Saturn at the moment - If you extend a line from Saturn to Regulus, then carry on about half as far again in the same direction - that's where Lulin is tonight. No need for a telescope - already tonight, I've used 3 different pairs of binocs (7x50, 10x50, and 15x70), and a 25x90mm spotter-scope. Best view was in the 15x70s - the higher magnification of the spotter scope made it appear a tad dimmer. Faint hint of the tail is visible in the 15x70s |
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#573 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Alacant
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Mars had 'recent' running water
Story here.
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#574 |
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: Bishop-Auckland / Darlington
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Just a quickie....
Happy Birthday Sir Patrick Moore 86 not-out - and still presenting monthly TV progs. Best wishes for plenty more to come.
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#575 |
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Join Date: May 2003
Location: The Green Hills of Earth
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Well done, Sir Patrick.
TV hero. |
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