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Space and Astronomy Thread |
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#576 |
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Alacant
Posts: 7,773
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Just a reminder, the shuttle is due to lift off tonight.
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#577 |
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Alacant
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Interesting. The Russians are going to embark on a manned Moon programme.
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#578 |
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Wessex
Posts: 4,874
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Quote:
Just a reminder, the shuttle is due to lift off tonight.
Linky |
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#579 |
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Join Date: May 2003
Location: The Green Hills of Earth
Posts: 80,418
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Galaxies to collide in a few million years:
http://www.physorg.com/news156440810.html (though they are 400 million light years away so it's ancient history now). |
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#580 |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 21,643
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Quote:
Galaxies to collide in a few million years
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#581 |
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: London
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Happy Equinox everybody (few minutes late I know!).
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#582 |
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: London
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Quote:
Well, ours looks set to collide with Andromeda in 3 billion years or so. Mind you, galactic collisions are a lot less dramatic than they sound.
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#583 |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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Quote:
But in space they don't make any sound when they collide
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#584 |
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Join Date: Jan 2007
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Quote:
But in space they don't make any sound when they collide
![]() In the Firefly Universe there is no sound in space! |
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#585 |
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: London
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Quote:
The in Star Trek Universe they do!
![]() In the Firefly Universe there is no sound in space! ![]() Anyway, I am looking forward to the seeing the ISS with the new bits added. Supposedly it should now be brighter than Venus, but the brightest in the next 10 days is 'only' -2.4 according to heavens-above.com. Expect plenty of UFO sightings. |
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#586 |
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Join Date: Oct 2005
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#587 |
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 8,151
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when was that taken ???
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#588 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Alacant
Posts: 7,773
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Quote:
when was that taken ???
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#589 |
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 19,567
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If you have never seen Mercury then the best time is right now. Just look under the crescent moon. See http://www.users.waitrose.com/~spa/I...426-20h30m.gif
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#590 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Alacant
Posts: 7,773
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Here is an interesting movie showing what it would be like to fall into a black hole.
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#591 |
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 19,567
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Here is what Mercury did lok like on Sunday night.
See Here is what Mercury looked like on Sunday night. See http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0904...8_lawrence.jpg Taken from http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html Original. See http://spaceweather.com/submissions/...1240783615.jpg Taken from Selsey UK. |
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#592 |
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: Bishop-Auckland / Darlington
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Any old excuse to 'bump' this thread
![]() Over the last few clear nights I've been dabbling with the lost art of sketching observations through a telescope. Last night the sky here was unusually transparent, so I decided to have a 'proper' go at sketching the globular star cluster, 'Messier 13', in Hercules. Telescope used was a Celestron C8 'classic' schmidt-cassegrain. At 155x magnification for the core detail - and 80x to do the surrounding 'field' stars. Sketched with 2B and 3B pencils on A4 paper - then scanned into PaintShop pro, and made 'negative' to give a natural-looking white-on-black appearance. And a final tweak of brightness & contrast to give a fair estimation of what I could actually see through the telescope. http://i43.tinypic.com/e9u72t.jpg |
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#593 |
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Preston
Posts: 4,755
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Makes me really wish i had a telescope
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#594 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 19,567
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Quote:
Makes me really wish i had a telescope
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#595 |
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Preston
Posts: 4,755
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Quote:
Could you not get access to a telescope? Are you a member of your local astronomy society?
Going to look into it. Thanks.
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#596 |
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Join Date: Jun 2006
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Quote:
Didn't know there was one
Going to look into it. Thanks. |
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#597 |
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 7,104
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About a month ago the moon was near full and looked much bigger than usual- is this a regular occurance?
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#598 |
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Join Date: Jun 2006
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Quote:
About a month ago the moon was near full and looked much bigger than usual- is this a regular occurance?
The media tend to talk up these events. The moon has been at its brightest quite regularly according to the popular media. After all you do not get a story if you report it is a normal full moon. |
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#599 |
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: Bishop-Auckland / Darlington
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I was gonna have a go at sketching the Sombrero galaxy (m104) last night - but alas, sod's-law - just as it was coming to a good position, the flippin' sky clouded over
![]() Henry'll probably already realise this - but objects low down in Virgo - like the Sombrero - only give us in UK a limited time-frame per year to catch them. Also, when sketching, you want things to be as high in the sky as possible, so you can see them better. When something is low near the horizon, you are looking out of the atmosphere at a shallow angle, through A LOT of moving air. High magnification telescope images wobble about a lot, and swim in and out of focus - the effect is like trying to see something on the bottom of a fast-flowing stream. The Sombrero currently reaches it's highest point at around 11pm - so I timed it to give me half an hour either side of that for sketching. Then exactly on cue, at around 10:30, the soddin' clouds moved in
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#600 |
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: Bishop-Auckland / Darlington
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Quote:
The media tend to talk up these events. The moon has been at its brightest quite regularly according to the popular media. After all you do not get a story if you report it is a normal full moon.
And this year already, I've seen a question on a forum about Mars appearing bigger than the Moon this August This goes back to a few oppositions ago, when mars was it's biggest (but still only 100th the size of the Moon) And a sensationalist (but VERY WRONG) story that was doing the rounds in the media and email at the time. |
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