Astronomers on forum?

[marinyork]

Personally I think that it's much more angst driving than that, that only a tiny amount of the energy density of the universe is made up of stars etc (less than 1%). Looking up and seeing billions and billions of galaxies and that's just a tiny fraction of it all.

 

[andyoxon]

And also on the mind-boggle front... that all of the known immense universe possibly began at the same moment, out of nothing, and has been expanding into ‘something’ ever since... It's amazing that ever since humans have been able, we've been looking up at the stars thinking wow; but now we know there are a 100+ billion galaxies...

unkraut - one of these planetarium packages will tell you when Orion is due to appear... My daughter fast forwarded ours to something like the yr 3950, and it crashed...

 

[Pete]

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

Andy

Not mine - I use good old-fashioned 'star hopping' to get to my chosen object, and then image without auto-guiding. But automated 'GOTO' systems, as they are known, are becoming increasingly popular: go to any astronomy suppliers website and browse around! It all depends on how many ££££££ (or as often as not $$$$$$$$$$$) you're willing to sink into the hobby!

Usually the link between PC and telescope (or, more accurately, the mount) will be an ordinary USB lead. I have the laptop handy because keeping CdC running sure helps with the star-hopping, especially when you're hunting for a faint object!

A word of caution: many 'starters' change their mind as to what they want to do, in mid-purchase, or, as often as not, after purchase! Can pile on the £££££s spent even more! You'd be welcome to introduce yourself to UKAI, I'm sure you'd get a wealth of ideas and suggestions there, better than I can give!

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 Unkraut's and others' posts too)

Spot on, Kirstie, Unkraut and others, you're not alone. I already said: I spend long periods just sitting in a garden chair while the telescope does its stuff. Plenty of time to reflect on what I'm really looking at, 'out there'. Of course, all that's 'really' happening (memo: define 'really') is that a precious few of the countless zillions of photons being spewed out by that galaxy, happen to be hitting a 10" mirror that I plonked in the way, bouncing back onto a camera sensor, and giving a sort of representation of the shape of - whatever they came from. That's about it. Of course, it's quite likely to be, whole vast civilisations 'up there' are developing, flourishing, decaying, all in less than the space of time it took for the light, which eventually reached my garden, to cross from one side of the galaxy to the other, let alone reach Earth! It's a very humbling thought.

I just hope that somewhere up there, some sort of sentient being, bug-eyed or whatever, will be squatting in his (her? its?) back garden (or whatever passes for a 'garden' up there...) and capturing the photons emanating from our galaxy. Maybe even one or two photons from our humble Sun will land on his camera sensor? If so, I'll feel we have 'shared' or 'exchanged' something, their civilisation and ours. Though neither we nor they can ever know the truth, it's comforting to know there's a bit of give and take.

But of course this is all idle speculation. Isn't that what all philosophy is about?

 

[Unkraut]

unkraut - one of these planetarium packages will tell you when Orion is due to appear... My daughter fast forwarded ours to something like the yr 3950, and it crashed...

Thanks. The advent of Orion signals impending cold cycling weather, so I was surprised to see the whole constellation at about 4:00 in the morning on 20 August from the Autobahn just outside of Heidelberg!
Talking of advents, btw, it amuses me that each Sunday the C of E recites from thence he shall come to judge the quick the dead, but obviously do not believe this is imminent, as they have worked out the dates of Easter until the year 7000!!

Pete - But of course this is all idle speculation. Isn't that what all philosophy is about?
You should start a thread in Soapbox entitled Philosophy is Nothing but Idle Speculation - Discuss. That'll get Flying Monkey going a treat.

 

[Pete]

Pete - But of course this is all idle speculation. Isn't that what all philosophy is about?
You should start a thread in Soapbox entitled Philosophy is Nothing but Idle Speculation - Discuss. That'll get Flying Monkey going a treat.

I'll have to have a think about that! Where Flying Monkey flutters, there too are the Spire's and SimonCP's of this world! Hmmmm....

 

[andyoxon]

Not mine - I use good old-fashioned 'star hopping' to get to my chosen object, and then image without auto-guiding. .....
I already said: I spend long periods just sitting in a garden chair while the telescope does its stuff. Plenty of time to reflect on what I'm really looking at, 'out there'. ...

That sounds the best way to me...you've just got to be 'out there' under those stars.
When looking up Go To telescopes I read about someone who had amazed his wife by being able to control his telescope by PC from his front room...

 

[Arch]

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.

Yes, it was like that for me, in Leicester - I think we were 90something %. And the birds stopped singing.

 

[Pete]

Yes, it was like that for me, in Leicester - I think we were 90something %. And the birds stopped singing.

We were in France - in Compiegne, bang on the path of totality . It was cloudy all day, raining heavily most of the time, and we didn't see a thing, . People who watched from Rheims, a few miles to the east, were luckier, they got a glimpse of the eclipsed sun.

At least we got the 'rushing storm' effect which you see when you view a total eclipse under cloud cover. And a tawny owl hooted in the nearby woods. I have a photo of my family peering up through the gloom at - nothing. But it's on film, I haven't scanned it in.

After that I couldn't face the prospect of a second disappointment, so, although tempted, we ducked out of the opportunity in Turkey last year. Those whom I know, who went to Antalya, had a glorious spectacle in cloudless skies!

 

[andyoxon]

Lanoue-wiki

Just to 'throw' this out...

Andromeda our nearest, but larger, spiral galaxy neighbour, has ~one trillion stars; the milky way ~10 billion stars; as we know universe = 100+ billion galaxies. So how many have 'earth-like' planets do you reckon...? Millions, if not billions... must be the answer. But how many have life...? Well it's something I think about every now and again...

 

[marinyork]

There was an interesting piece a few months back in nature about the spectra of two exoplanets. Again in July's Nature.

 

[mosschops2]

Just for you Kirstie:

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour.
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!

 

[andyoxon]

There was an interesting piece a few months back in nature about the spectra of two exoplanets. Again in July's Nature.

This looks like the bbc report...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6292076.stm

Must admit it's a bit of a puzzle to find water on a planet so close to a star...? "more than 30 times closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun."

Found this - seems like the definitive list so far... http://exoplanets.org/planets.shtml

I suppose given the distances and proximity to other stars it's pretty difficult to say much about the planet. Perhaps someone will know what those parameters in the list are...?

mc2...it's an oldie...

Andy

 

[Kirstie]

Just for you Kirstie:

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour.
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!

Aw thanks mosschops.
Now I feel like the Cyberdyne computer in Terminator 2 - it becomes self aware and then self destructs

 

[marinyork]

Well P and e are simple enough. Periastron just means periapsis or pericentre of a star. Capital Omega is the angle of the orbit of the ascending node (longitude of the ascending node - dragon's head!). Quite hard to explain without a diagram but the ecliptic and orbit cross over and Omega is the angle between the vernal point and pericentre. Not to be confused with little omega.

Didn't see the article, that's the day Nature came out. Got a good write up I guess.

 

[andyoxon]

Aw thanks mosschops.
Now I feel like the Cyberdyne computer in Terminator 2 - it becomes self aware and then self destructs

What I was never sure of - was where the original CPU (in Arnie T1) that cyberdyne subsequently reverse engineered came from, if it was this chip that supposedly led to skynet and the rise of the machines... post nuclear holocaust wars etc...in the first place But I've learned to cope with my confusion on this as the years have passed...