Astronomers on forum?

[Pete]

Light Pollution! ! Don't I just know it! Where I live (Burgess Hill, 10 miles from Brighton), not as bad as the big cities, indeed at this time of year you can see the MW on clear nights where it crosses the zenith (Cygnus). But a couple of years ago, just at the time I transported the telescope to France, I did a simple test. Images of the same area of sky, same telescope, exactly identical exposures, similar weather, one from B.H. before the move, one from France after the move. Apart from the fact that the left hand image wasn't properly aligned and so the stars are badly trailed, spot the other obvious difference!

That's yer' good ol' sodium street lamps showing their worth! However serious astro's can filter or process out quite a lot of LP - it does spoil it for visual work though.

One or two points about Cartes du Ciel (not trying to start a 'planetarium software wars' thread here ) ... (a) it's faster ( it can be driven entirely by the mouse (even entering numbers), AFAIK Stellarium needs keyboard input sometimes. If you've ever tried to type anything on the laptop keyboard, out in the garden, in pitch darkness, you'll know what I mean!

 

[Arch]

Arch, ARCH!! Don't fret yourself, m'girl! Ain't no telescope on Earth that, set up in Llangollen, would enable the user to peer through a lady's bedroom window in York... ... Laws of optics, resolving power specifically, will put paid to that - besides, the Earth is round!

What even if he'd fixed a giant mirror under a zeppelin hovering somewhere over the Pennines?

Drat. Those new undies are wasted then...

On the other hand, I do have a good ten-inch...

...

...

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Newtonian telescope at my disposal...

I say!


My brother-out-law (they ain't married so he isn't really in-law)
had some computer software, not sure which. Cool stuff all of it..

I can't help thinking that astronomy is a really clever hobby for him to have taken up, with the baby due any day. I bet he won't be able to hear it from the bottom of the garden...

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

Yeah, yeah, while you just reach around me to adjust the focus...

Well, I would need to show you what to do.

 

[Unkraut]

.... with the baby due any day. I bet he won't be able to hear it from the bottom of the garden...

I bet he will!! There's no sound barrier will keep that sound out.

Talking of astronomy, does anyone know the exact date the next meteorite shower is due? I know there is one in early August but don't know the exact date. A couple of years ago it was a pretty good display.

 

[Fnaar]

A heavenly body is entering Uranus!

 

[TimO]

Talking of astronomy, does anyone know the exact date the next meteorite shower is due? I know there is one in early August but don't know the exact date. A couple of years ago it was a pretty good display.

I guess you're probably thinking of the Perseids. The BAA site reckons that this year they will peak on August 13th at 0200 UTC (0300 BST). They have a ZHR of around 80. IIRC, so should give a reasonable display. The sky should also be moonless, which help (The best you get for sporadic meteors, ie those that aren't associated with a particular meteor shower, is around 16 an hour, so 80 is good).

 

[Unkraut]

Thanks, TimO. We will be on our hols in Bavaria, so should be able to see this year's display. Little light polution and clear cool air as well.

 

[Arch]

Well, I would need to show you what to do.

In a conveniently darkened room...

"How come these photos are all shaky?"
"Not my fault, the Earth kept moving..."

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

In a conveniently darkened room...

"..."

If you use a light yoy lose your night vision. So, it's important that you learn to do it all by feel. If you grab the knob incorrectly, what you're looking at doesn't magnify sufficiently.

 

[Arch]

If you use a light you lose your night vision. So, it's important that you learn to do it all by feel. If you grab the knob incorrectly, what you're looking at doesn't magnify sufficiently.

Sorry chaps, we seem to have morphed into "Carry On Astronomer"...

 

[Pete]

(*studiously ignores a few recent posts, and 'conveniently' forgets having joined in the innuendo oneself... *)

Meteors? Yes, most people think of the Perseids and worth looking out for, late-August-ish. The radiant, the best place to look, will be a bit below and to the left of the familiar "W" of Cassiopeia which will be rising in the north-east about that time.

But to tell the truth, you don't need to wait for the major showers. One of the things with my astroimaging habit, is that when I'm lucky enough to be working with the 'scope, I'm spending a lot of time doing nothing. The drives churn away, the scope and camera do their stuff, I only have to intervene to manually start and end exposures which are typically three minutes. So what better than to plonk oneself down in a garden chair, relax and scan the heavens! That's when I see the meteors. I keep diaries of all my astro nights (pity I'm not so diligent when it comes to cycling). Anything interesting or unusual I notice, it goes in the book. If a barn owl swoops overhead, bats flutter near my head, that goes down. And of course the meteors! There are sporadic meteors throughout the year: you would be unlucky to spend a couple of hours outside on a clear dark night (especially after midnight) and not see a few. I find entries like:

Brilliant fireball about midnight, descending through Leo popped out somewhere near Alphard. Magnitude around -6?

That was written in April last year. For those who don't understand what 'magnitude' means, what I'm saying is that it was about five times as bright as Venus at its brightest. That was a big 'un!

 

[Pete]

A heavenly body is entering Uranus!

Sorry to spoil the fun, chaps and chapesses, but even the Great and Good Sir Patrick Moore doesn't say "yoor-AYN-us" any more! Reckon someone from the Beeb had a quiet mutter in Sir P.'s ear during one of his more lucid moments ... he now says "YOOR-uh-nus". Rather spoils it I think...

 

[andyoxon]

Apparently the fastest man man object (Ullyses probe) would take ~30 000 years to reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to us, at 4.4 light yrs away. At 1% of speed of light it would take 440 yrs... http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/8450/centauri.htm

100+ billion galaxies in the known universe!
Millions of light years...

We're not going to get to much are we... Where’s that warp drive...?


Pete - I'm looking into getting a decent starter telescope; laptop in the garden sounds serious stuff. Does it 'drive' your scope...?

Andy

 

[Kirstie]

I always have philosophical problems and existential angst when i consider that you can see other entire galaxies from here - although those images are incredible, and I've stared at saturn through a telescope and was awestruck by it. My other half and I get all scared when we consider it so we always end up moving swiftly on in the discussion. To these astronomers on this thread: Doesn't it raise all kind of existential questions looking into space, and if it does, how do you deal with it?

Don't mean to kill the thread so ignore the question if you want...

 

[Unkraut]

To these astronomers on this thread: Doesn't it raise all kind of existential questions looking into space, and if it does, how do you deal with it?

Don't mean to kill the thread so ignore the question if you want...

There is always the danger of this turning into a theism/Dawkins type thread, which would definitely kill it, but I know what you mean about the sheer immensity of space, and the wonder of looking up at the stars on a moonless clear night when it is really dark. It is certainly something glorious to behold!

If I were to wax lyrical about it, it also makes me think of all the many generations who have looked up at just those same stars, and all the myths that have became attached to them. Won't be too long before Orion is visible again, which signals that Autumn is in the offing (the earliest I have seen the constellation is 20 August in the early morning, will be interesting to see how much earlier he will be recognisable).

I remember the total eclipse of 1999, when I was living in north Germany, and from our vantage point there was about an 85% eclipse. There was a noticeably rapid drop in temperature for several minutes, and the colours of everything went a sort of matt. It certainly gave some of the staff watching the creeps.