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Old 06-08-2012, 07:44
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Old 11-08-2012, 00:20
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Live audio feed of meteor 'pings' available at http://spaceweatherradio.com/

There's a bit of a whistle noise which fades in and out, but I've definitely heard a few in the last hour or so. Should be quite noisy at Perseid peak tomorrow night.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...r-Britain.html
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Old 22-08-2012, 10:41
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Sat in a hot tub in the Elveden Centreparcs on the night of the 12th and watched the Perseids. Despite only having a small section of sky to see we counted about 6 very bright meteors and by sheer chance the ISS - not a bad night's observation! If only all astronomy could be done in such conditions
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Old 22-08-2012, 12:05
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Nice work, I sat out after the closing ceremony and watched for an hour, counted up to 3 per minute at one point. It’s been good weather recently, starting to get back into observing. From my garden I have trees blocking all views to the east up to and altitude of 20 degree, finally Andromeda has started breaking above that and I’ve been getting some great views of M31, managing to pick out dust lanes and see it's companion satellite galaxies. Going for an depth view of Perseus this week if the weather’s good, there’s a huge concentration of galaxies lurking in there...albeit 250 million light years away so they’re nothing more than a smudge!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseus_Cluster
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Old 05-09-2012, 08:13
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According to SpaceWeather.com
A relatively large asteroid, just discovered on August 28th, will fly past the Earth-Moon system on Sept 14th only 2.8 million km (7.4 lunar distances) away. 2012 QG42 is about as wide as three football fields and comes to us from just beyond the orbit of Mars. Astronomers who are now monitoring the space rock say it shines about as brightly as a 15th magnitude star.
Do not be led into thinking that you will be able to nip outside and see this thing whizzing by. Despite the possible impression given by the wording, a 15th magnitude star is in fact very faint indeed and you would need a fairly large telescope to stand any chance at all of even glimpsing this relatively distant object.
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Old 05-09-2012, 09:18
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Hello stargazing chums. I have been wanting a telescope for some time and , having been given some Amazon vouchers for my birthday, I am going to buy one. But which one? My budget is less than 200 of your Earth pounds but I want to be able to see stuff.

I am also a complete beginner, only having had a pair of binoculars to use up till now. I broke the thingy that fits the binoculars to the tripod recently so I havent been able to use them because you can't see anything if you hand hold them
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Old 05-09-2012, 09:50
HenryGarten
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Hello stargazing chums. I have been wanting a telescope for some time and , having been given some Amazon vouchers for my birthday, I am going to buy one. But which one? My budget is less than 200 of your Earth pounds but I want to be able to see stuff.

I am also a complete beginner, only having had a pair of binoculars to use up till now. I broke the thingy that fits the binoculars to the tripod recently so I havent been able to use them because you can't see anything if you hand hold them
Do you have an astronomy society anywhere near you? That is probably the best source of sound advice and gets you talking to fellow astronomy enthusiasts at the same time.
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Old 05-09-2012, 19:16
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35 Years Ago today since the launch of Voyager 1

Interresting Presentation at JPL today to celebrate the Program.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/25191976
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Old 05-09-2012, 19:18
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Sat in a hot tub in the Elveden Centreparcs
My ideal observatory.
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Old 05-09-2012, 20:18
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Stellarium. Watching humanity's satellites drift past (CO-56) or just hang there (AO-40).
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Old 05-09-2012, 20:48
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Hello stargazing chums. I have been wanting a telescope for some time and , having been given some Amazon vouchers for my birthday, I am going to buy one. But which one? My budget is less than 200 of your Earth pounds but I want to be able to see stuff.

I am also a complete beginner, only having had a pair of binoculars to use up till now. I broke the thingy that fits the binoculars to the tripod recently so I havent been able to use them because you can't see anything if you hand hold them
There's some technical advice here and here, burton07, but not on what's best to buy for different budgets. With your £200 budget, a spotting scope or smaller dobsonian reflecting telescope might fit the bill. I'd suggest asking for advice in this specialised forum here.
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Old 19-09-2012, 21:51
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Dark energy camera snaps first images ahead of survey

The most powerful sky-scanning camera yet built has begun its quest to pin down the mysterious stuff that makes up nearly three-quarters of our Universe...The goal is to discover the nature of dark energy, which is theorised to be responsible for the ever-faster expansion of the Universe.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19634700

NASA's Dawn probe has departed the giant asteroid Vesta and is now on its way to Ceres, the largest asteroid


"As we respectfully say goodbye to Vesta and reflect on the amazing discoveries over the past year, we eagerly look forward to the next phase of our adventure at Ceres, where even more exciting discoveries await," said Robert Mase, Dawn project manager, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/feature_sto...arts_vesta.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_%28dwarf_planet%29

Astronomers see bright impact on gas giant Jupiter

Amateur astronomers in the United States of America have reported a bright fireball in the Jupiter clouds tops as a result of an apparent impact. The first to see and report the event was amateur astronomer Dan Peterson from Racine, Wisconsin, who just happened to be observing the gas giant through his 300-mm LX200 'scope when the fireball burst into view.
http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1209/11jupiter/

Another Atlas 5 readied to launch mini space shuttle

United Launch Alliance's Atlas-Centaur rocket has been put together for deploying the Air Force's third Orbital Test Vehicle flight, a mission that will demonstrate the reusability of the X-37B spaceplane when it blasts off Oct. 25.
http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av034/stacking.html
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Old 20-09-2012, 16:35
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2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19637073
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Old 20-09-2012, 22:15
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Wow, there were some stunning pictures in that collection.My favourites were the very first picture and the photo of the Veil Nebula at 3:30 mins.
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Old 21-09-2012, 00:50
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According to my notebook....
18th July 2011.... Russia launches a telescope that will be 1000 times sharper than Hubble.....
quite an extravagent claim to make...
I wonder, did things work out that way ?
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Old 25-09-2012, 09:39
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Apparently a new comet has just been discovered which may become quite bright towards the end of 2013. There is not enough information yet available for them to make any definitive predictions so we will have to wait and see.

Rather technical announcement here.
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Old 25-09-2012, 18:08
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Apparently a new comet has just been discovered which may become quite bright towards the end of 2013. There is not enough information yet available for them to make any definitive predictions so we will have to wait and see.

Rather technical announcement here.
Some less technical stuff here:

http://www.popastro.com/news/newsdetail.php?id_nw=142
http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2012/...-in-fall-2013/
http://astronomynow.com/news/n1209/25comet/
http://www.skymania.com/wp/2012/09/c...013.html/6978/
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Old 25-09-2012, 18:15
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According to my notebook....
18th July 2011.... Russia launches a telescope that will be 1000 times sharper than Hubble.....
quite an extravagent claim to make...
I wonder, did things work out that way ?
Russia? Maybe they mean 'pointier'.
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Old 07-10-2012, 21:13
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This shower is a moderate shower and can produce a reasonable amount of meteors. It's worth looking for them tonight and the next couple of nights: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draconids

The relatively poor Southern Taurids shower peaks on 10 October and the moderate Delta Aurigids shower peaks on 11 October. More info below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Taurids
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Aurigids
List of forthcoming meteor showers

...and now for more astro news:

Australia unveils powerful radio telescope

Australia has launched one of the world's fastest telescopes tasked with surveying outer space and probing the origins of stars and galaxies. The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (Askap) in Western Australia's outback has 36 antennas with a diameter of 12m (40ft) each.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19840545

A curious cold layer in the atmosphere of Venus

But in a new analysis based on five years of observations using ESA's Venus Express, scientists have uncovered a very chilly layer at temperatures of around -175 degrees C in the atmosphere 125 km above the planet's surface. The curious cold layer is far frostier than any part of Earth's atmosphere, for example, despite Venus being much closer to the Sun.
http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1210/02venus/

SpaceX Dragon set to blast off to space station

A privately owned rocket was poised to blast off Sunday night on the first of a dozen space station supply missions under a mega-contract with NASA. It will be the second time that the California-based SpaceX company tries to launch a Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. Last May, a test flight went well. Now the real work is about to begin under a $1.6 billion contract between NASA and SpaceX. This will be the first of 12 resupply missions under that contract.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/...space-station/

NASA wants to send astronauts beyond the Moon

Top NASA officials have picked a leading candidate for the agency's next major mission: construction of a new outpost that would send astronauts farther from Earth than at any time in history. The so-called "gateway spacecraft" would hover in orbit on the far side of the moon, support a small astronaut crew and function as a staging area for future missions to the moon and Mars. At 277,000 miles from Earth, the outpost would be far more remote than the current space station, which orbits a little more than 200 miles above Earth. The distance raises complex questions of how to protect astronauts from the radiation of deep space — and rescue them if something goes wrong.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/...charlie-bolden

NASA's Swift Satellite Discovers A New Black Hole In Our Galaxy

NASA's Swift satellite recently detected a rising tide of high-energy X-rays from a source toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The outburst, produced by a rare X-ray nova, announced the presence of a previously unknown stellar-mass black hole. "Bright X-ray novae are so rare that they're essentially once-a-mission events and this is the first one Swift has seen," said Neil Gehrels, the mission's principal investigator, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This is really something we've been waiting for."
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012...lack_Hole.html
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Old 08-10-2012, 17:18
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A commercial cargo ship rocketed into orbit Sunday in pursuit of the International Space Station, the first of a dozen supply runs under a mega-contract with NASA. It was the second launch of a Dragon capsule to the orbiting lab by the California-based SpaceX company. The first was last spring.
http://www.boston.com/business/techn...oPM/story.html
http://www.itwire.com/science-news/s...-space-station (launch video)
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Old 08-10-2012, 18:38
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That smooth SpaceX launch? Turns out one of the engines exploded

I think that's a feature not a bug, an awesome example of engineering fault tolerance.
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Old 08-10-2012, 18:40
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Very good thread. When I help run church camps in the summer, they're in the country side and we get the clearest skys around there! Just beautiful.
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Old 23-10-2012, 18:35
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BBC Four, tomorrow night at 9pm.

This is the story of the most extraordinary journey in human exploration, the Voyager space mission.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nj48v
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Old 03-11-2012, 20:52
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Here's something to drive the conspiracy nuts crazy. MSL Self Portrait.
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Old 04-11-2012, 15:36
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Here's something to drive the conspiracy nuts crazy. MSL Self Portrait.
That was the first thing I thought when I saw that 'photo', who's going to be the first to ask "Who took it?".
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