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Space and Astronomy Thread
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Ricardodaforce
15-03-2009
Just a reminder, the shuttle is due to lift off tonight.
Ricardodaforce
16-03-2009
Interesting. The Russians are going to embark on a manned Moon programme.
dsnik
16-03-2009
Originally Posted by Ricardodaforce:
“Just a reminder, the shuttle is due to lift off tonight.”

You may be able to see it closing in on the ISS tonight
Linky
CLL Dodge
20-03-2009
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).
njp
20-03-2009
Originally Posted by CLL Dodge:
“Galaxies to collide in a few million years”

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.
atg
20-03-2009
Happy Equinox everybody (few minutes late I know!).
atg
20-03-2009
Originally Posted by njp:
“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.”

But in space they don't make any sound when they collide
njp
20-03-2009
Originally Posted by atg:
“But in space they don't make any sound when they collide ”

D'oh!
vinba
20-03-2009
Originally Posted by atg:
“But in space they don't make any sound when they collide ”

The in Star Trek Universe they do!
In the Firefly Universe there is no sound in space!
atg
20-03-2009
Originally Posted by vinba:
“The in Star Trek Universe they do!
In the Firefly Universe there is no sound in space!”

Star Trek are dramatic preconstructions and so I allow them a certain amount of artistic license

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.
Ricardodaforce
21-04-2009
This is a cool pic.

One of the last times we'll see this.
paulyoung666
21-04-2009
when was that taken ???
Ricardodaforce
21-04-2009
Originally Posted by paulyoung666:
“when was that taken ??? ”

Last Friday.
HenryGarten
26-04-2009
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
Ricardodaforce
28-04-2009
Here is an interesting movie showing what it would be like to fall into a black hole.
HenryGarten
30-04-2009
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.
Carlos_dfc
02-05-2009
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
boxx
03-05-2009
Makes me really wish i had a telescope
HenryGarten
03-05-2009
Originally Posted by boxx:
“Makes me really wish i had a telescope”

Could you not get access to a telescope? Are you a member of your local astronomy society?
boxx
03-05-2009
Originally Posted by HenryGarten:
“Could you not get access to a telescope? Are you a member of your local astronomy society?”

Didn't know there was one Going to look into it. Thanks.
HenryGarten
03-05-2009
Originally Posted by boxx:
“Didn't know there was one Going to look into it. Thanks.”

Here you are: http://fedastro.org.uk/fas/index.php...apper&Itemid=8
Darthchaffinch
03-05-2009
About a month ago the moon was near full and looked much bigger than usual- is this a regular occurance?
HenryGarten
03-05-2009
Originally Posted by Darthchaffinch:
“About a month ago the moon was near full and looked much bigger than usual- is this a regular occurance?”

The size of the moon varies from a minum to a maximum depending on whether the the moon is at perigee or apogee at the time of the full moon.

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.
Carlos_dfc
03-05-2009
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
Carlos_dfc
03-05-2009
Originally Posted by HenryGarten:
“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.”

LOL - Yep

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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