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Old 09-09-2013, 16:31
TelevisionUser
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Thank you, I did wonder if it had dropped off the radar...!
I sincerely hope that it puts on a better display than the damp squib that was Comet PanSTARRS which was best seen from southern hemisphere skies - https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=co...w=1024&bih=578

Hopefully, there should be some clear skies over UK when Comet ISON becomes visible. In any event, the Slooh Space Camera will probably feature it at some stage with a live feed from an observatory with good observing conditions so I'd suggest keeping a watch on that website: http://events.slooh.com/

And now for some astro news...

Scientists Find A Water-Rich Planet Outside Our Solar System. Japanese scientists have determined that a planet outside our solar system that most likely has a water-rich atmosphere. The planet, Gliese 1214b, is only 40 light years from Earth.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknap...ampaign=Buffer

Unmanned Moon mission lifts off. Nasa has launched its latest mission to the Moon to study its tenuous atmosphere and strange-behaving dust.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23939448

New, huge extinct volcano discovered that rivals Mars' Mount Olympus.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24007339

Following on from the story above, the largest mountain in the solar system is Mount Rheasilvia which is one of those central crater impact mountains on the asteroid Vesta. It's 22 km or 14 miles high.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheasilvia
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15667


Mars' moon Phobos eclipses the Sun, as seen by the Curiosity rover.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyZoD...ature=youtu.be

Phobos is Mars' largest and innermost moon whilst Deimos is smaller and further away from Mars and, as such, it undergoes transits across the Sun as opposed to proper eclipses. Both Phobos and Deimos are shaped like huge baking potatoes and are presumably captured asteroids (Mars being nearer the asteroid belt) although that theory is under review.

Links:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...11_634x432.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcHkXgesG0M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glah07CTS7c
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Old 12-09-2013, 19:29
tiger2000
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Voyager-1 spacecraft has become the first manmade object to leave the Solar System.

Scientists say the probe's instruments indicate it has moved beyond the bubble of hot gas from our Sun and is now moving in the space between the stars.

Launched in 1977, Voyager was sent initially to study the outer planets, but then just kept on going.

Today, the veteran Nasa mission is almost 19 billion km (12 billion miles) from home.

This distance is so vast that it takes 17 hours now for a radio signal sent from Voyager to reach receivers here on Earth.

"This is really a key milestone that we'd been hoping we would reach when we started this project over 40 years ago - that we would get a spacecraft into interstellar space," said Prof Ed Stone, the chief scientist on the venture.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24026153
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Old 12-09-2013, 19:32
Marc_Duckworth
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Such an interesting piece, but personally Im amazed it is still functioning. The amount of space debris, micrometeors, radiation etc its amazing it hasnt burnt out.
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Old 12-09-2013, 21:58
TelevisionUser
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Such an interesting piece, but personally Im amazed it is still functioning. The amount of space debris, micrometeors, radiation etc its amazing it hasnt burnt out.
It is an awesome achievement, not just to be the first human object to reach interstellar space but to still be transmitting signals back to Earth with only 23 Watts of power from that great distance: http://theweek.com/article/index/249...e-solar-system
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Old 13-09-2013, 12:06
balthasar
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:So does everyone now agree that Voyager 1 has left the Solar System or should we leave it a couple of years "just to be sure" after last years yes/no/maybe debate.:
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Old 13-09-2013, 13:15
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:So does everyone now agree that Voyager 1 has left the Solar System or should we leave it a couple of years "just to be sure" after last years yes/no/maybe debate.:
Apparently it's now been confirmed but it actually happened last year.
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Old 13-09-2013, 19:51
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All the attention on Voyager has meant that the latest successful test of the Virgin Galactic suborbital spacecraft has been overlooked:

Spectacular test flight footage released by Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic has released breathtaking video footage of its second, rocket-powered supersonic flight Virgin Galactic, preparing for commencing its tourist space flights from 2014, has successfully completed a second supersonic test flight. Taking off from California's Mojave desert on Thursday morning, carrier aircraft WhiteKnightTwo took SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of 46,000 feet, before releasing it. After a short drop, the rocket engine of SpaceShipTwo propelled the craft to an altitude of 69,000 feet and accelerated it to Mach 1.43.
http://www.onenewspage.us/n/Business...n-Galactic.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/virgin-galactic2.htm
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Old 09-10-2013, 22:54
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Supervolcanoes ripped up early Mars
Mars may have had giant explosive volcanoes in its ancient past that spewed billions upon billions of tonnes of rock and ash into the sky. Vast areas of collapsed ground in a region of the planet called Arabia Terra are their likely remains, believe Joe Michalski and Jacob Bleache.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24348673

LADEE arrives at the moon for lunar science mission
NASA's LADEE spacecraft slipped into orbit around the moon Sunday, beginning a feverish four-month campaign to demonstrate a next-generation laser communications system and answer long-standing questions about the nature and origin of the tenuous lunar atmosphere.
http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n13.../#.UlXPmFONtXc

Orbiting telescope cooling off to find asteroids near Earth
Approved for an extended mission in August, NASA has reactivated the orbiting NEOWISE mission from hibernation, and the telescope's infrared detectors are cooling off to undertake a renewed survey for asteroids coming perilously close to Earth, the project's top scientist said Tuesday.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1310.../#.UlXQIVONtXc

India putting final touches on Mars-bound spacecraft
Set for lift off as soon as Oct. 28, the Mars Orbiter Mission will demonstrate deep space navigation and communications, interplanetary travel, spacecraft autonomy, and the complex make-or-break rocket burn to place the spacecraft in orbit around Mars...The Indian orbiter also carries a small camera to return medium-resolution color imagery of the Martian terrain, a thermal infrared spectrometer to measure the chemical composition of the surface, and instruments to assess the Mars atmosphere, including a methane detector.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1310.../#.UlXRLlONtXc

Exoplanets
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss exoplanets. Astronomers have speculated about the existence of planets beyond our solar system for centuries. Although strenuous efforts were made to find such planets orbiting distant stars, it was not until the 1990s that instruments became sophisticated enough to detect such remote objects. In 1992 Dale Frail and Aleksander Wolszczan discovered the first confirmed exoplanets: two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03brwql
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Old 16-10-2013, 21:53
Gneiss
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It was nice to catch sight of Venus low on the horizon tonight as I was driving home....
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Old 18-10-2013, 00:21
atg
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Astronomy Picture of the Day was back up yesterday, with a nice effort from Pete Lawrence.

That fella does do some decent pics.
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Old 18-10-2013, 01:19
Carlos_dfc
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Astronomy Picture of the Day was back up yesterday, with a nice effort from Pete Lawrence.

That fella does do some decent pics.
Nice shot - Comet ISON up there at the top.

I'm currently trying to see it visually for the first time - and tonight is the first properly clear night I've had since it broke through 10th magnitude a couple of weeks ago.

It's a diffuse little bugger, and what with the Moon being almost full at the moment, washing out the sky - and ISON not being high enough until 4am or so - it's a matter of timing.
Catching it as high as possible, with the Moon near to setting, preferably just before the first brightening of dawn.

'Scope is already out in the garden - planning to nod on the couch for a bit - got my alarm set for 4am.
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Old 18-10-2013, 04:38
Carlos_dfc
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To paraphrase Victor Meldrew... I don't flamin' believe it.
A patch of cloud has squatted itself across the part of the sky I want - Crystal-clear everywhere else, apart from exactly the wrong 10% of sky,
And it's not budging - 25 mins and it's hardly moved an inch.
Not happy
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Old 18-10-2013, 07:43
njp
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Nice shot - Comet ISON up there at the top.

I'm currently trying to see it visually for the first time - and tonight is the first properly clear night I've had since it broke through 10th magnitude a couple of weeks ago.
At what point will we know just how good a naked eye object ISON is likely to be? I realise this is all rather uncertain, depending as it does on the precise composition of the comet, but is there a predictive model based on "early" observations of magnitude?
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Old 18-10-2013, 08:24
HenryGarten
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Nice shot - Comet ISON up there at the top.

I'm currently trying to see it visually for the first time - and tonight is the first properly clear night I've had since it broke through 10th magnitude a couple of weeks ago.

It's a diffuse little bugger, and what with the Moon being almost full at the moment, washing out the sky - and ISON not being high enough until 4am or so - it's a matter of timing.
Catching it as high as possible, with the Moon near to setting, preferably just before the first brightening of dawn.

'Scope is already out in the garden - planning to nod on the couch for a bit - got my alarm set for 4am.
Look forward to seeing the result. This comet must be going to do a lot of brightening in the next month.
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Old 19-10-2013, 06:31
Carlos_dfc
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At what point will we know just how good a naked eye object ISON is likely to be? I realise this is all rather uncertain, depending as it does on the precise composition of the comet, but is there a predictive model based on "early" observations of magnitude?
It's now looking like ISON probably won't be much at all for naked-eye viewers.

It IS expected to get to about -4 magnitude, which is about as bright as Venus - unfortunately, it'll probably be that bright for only a day or so - and that will be at the time it slingshots around the Sun, so it won't be visible in the glare.

If it holds together when it rounds the Sun (28th/29th Nov), then by the time it gets enough elongation to be viewable before dawn again, it might still be 3rd or 4th magnitude if we're lucky - somewhere around the 6th to 9th December.
4th magnitude, for a diffuse object like a comet, won't be naked-eye visible from within a large town, but would be quite obvious from a rural dark-site.
(Roughly: Milky-Way / Andromeda galaxy, kind of brightness)
Closest approach to Earth is on Boxing Day (about 40 million miles), and it's expected to be only borderline naked-eye visible from a dark-site by then (6th magnitude)

Comets, by their very nature, are unpredictable though.
And the above is only a projection based on it's recent brightness.
It could disintegrate when it's near the Sun, or if we're very lucky, it might do what McNaught did in 2007.
McNaught's structure was disturbed, but not catastrophically, as it passed perihelion - and it generated a spectacular fanned tail when it dropped into Southern hemisphere skies.
ISON will be in the Northern hemisphere sky after perihelion, albeit, in the wee small hours.

Fingers are crossed, but realistically, only expecting at best, a nice binocular/telescopic sight.
Though you never know for sure........

Oh! and clouded out again this morning
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Old 19-10-2013, 07:36
balthasar
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It's now looking like ISON probably won't be much at all for naked-eye viewers.

It IS expected to get to about -4 magnitude, which is about as bright as Venus - unfortunately, it'll probably be that bright for only a day or so - and that will be at the time it slingshots around the Sun, so it won't be visible in the glare.

If it holds together when it rounds the Sun (28th/29th Nov), then by the time it gets enough elongation to be viewable before dawn again, it might still be 3rd or 4th magnitude if we're lucky - somewhere around the 6th to 9th December.
4th magnitude, for a diffuse object like a comet, won't be naked-eye visible from within a large town, but would be quite obvious from a rural dark-site.
(Roughly: Milky-Way / Andromeda galaxy, kind of brightness)
Closest approach to Earth is on Boxing Day (about 40 million miles), and it's expected to be only borderline naked-eye visible from a dark-site by then (6th magnitude)

Comets, by their very nature, are unpredictable though.
And the above is only a projection based on it's recent brightness.
It could disintegrate when it's near the Sun, or if we're very lucky, it might do what McNaught did in 2007.
McNaught's structure was disturbed, but not catastrophically, as it passed perihelion - and it generated a spectacular fanned tail when it dropped into Southern hemisphere skies.
ISON will be in the Northern hemisphere sky after perihelion, albeit, in the wee small hours.

Fingers are crossed, but realistically, only expecting at best, a nice binocular/telescopic sight.
Though you never know for sure........

Oh! and clouded out again this morning
Thanks for the update.
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Old 19-10-2013, 07:39
HenryGarten
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It's now looking like ISON probably won't be much at all for naked-eye viewers.

It IS expected to get to about -4 magnitude, which is about as bright as Venus - unfortunately, it'll probably be that bright for only a day or so - and that will be at the time it slingshots around the Sun, so it won't be visible in the glare.

If it holds together when it rounds the Sun (28th/29th Nov), then by the time it gets enough elongation to be viewable before dawn again, it might still be 3rd or 4th magnitude if we're lucky - somewhere around the 6th to 9th December.
4th magnitude, for a diffuse object like a comet, won't be naked-eye visible from within a large town, but would be quite obvious from a rural dark-site.
(Roughly: Milky-Way / Andromeda galaxy, kind of brightness)
Closest approach to Earth is on Boxing Day (about 40 million miles), and it's expected to be only borderline naked-eye visible from a dark-site by then (6th magnitude)

Comets, by their very nature, are unpredictable though.
And the above is only a projection based on it's recent brightness.
It could disintegrate when it's near the Sun, or if we're very lucky, it might do what McNaught did in 2007.
McNaught's structure was disturbed, but not catastrophically, as it passed perihelion - and it generated a spectacular fanned tail when it dropped into Southern hemisphere skies.
ISON will be in the Northern hemisphere sky after perihelion, albeit, in the wee small hours.

Fingers are crossed, but realistically, only expecting at best, a nice binocular/telescopic sight.
Though you never know for sure........

Oh! and clouded out again this morning
That is deeply disappointing news. Thanks for the analysis which is great as always.
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Old 19-10-2013, 09:01
balthasar
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That is deeply disappointing news. Thanks for the analysis which is great as always.
Has anyone thought of naming a comet DAMP SQUIB and viewing the the results.
What with the law of sod and all.
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Old 19-10-2013, 09:31
njp
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It's now looking like ISON probably won't be much at all for naked-eye viewers.
[...]
That's a shame. I guess the ISON finder app on my tablet isn't going to get much use! But thanks for the reply, and I hope you have better luck with your telescope observations.
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Old 19-10-2013, 13:36
Carlos_dfc
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That is deeply disappointing news.
That's a shame.
Notice I said 'probably' though...
There's always the possibility it might outburst like McNaught did after perihelion. The main thing is that it doesn't disintegrate completely - like 'Elenin'.

There's still a little hope - just don't hold your breath.
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Old 19-10-2013, 13:38
Carlos_dfc
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I hope you have better luck with your telescope observations.
Thanks.
I'm not an astrophotographer, but I do sketch - If I manage to get anywhere near a decent sketch, I'll post it up.
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Old 19-10-2013, 15:49
atg
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Notice I said 'probably' though...
There's always the possibility it might outburst like McNaught did after perihelion.
Or Holmes. Remember Holmes?
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Old 19-10-2013, 16:23
gkec
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Has anyone thought of naming a comet DAMP SQUIB and viewing the the results.
What with the law of sod and all.
That would only happen if someone called Damp Squib discovered a comet.
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Old 19-10-2013, 17:06
njp
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That would only happen if someone called Damp Squib discovered a comet.
That would be a non-standard nomenclature. What could happen is that two people independently discover the same comet, one with the surname Damp, and the other with the surname Squib.

Both these surnames do exist!
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Old 19-10-2013, 17:29
Carlos_dfc
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Or Holmes. Remember Holmes?
Oh yeah! The Holmes outburst was so good because it was unexpected - a very nice bonus, and it was great to watch it develop over a few months.*

I've been banging on about McNaught, because I'm hoping against hope that ISON behaves in a similar way (as opposed to emulating Elenin, which seems more likely)


*Holmes comes back to perihelion next spring BTW
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