Post by: Wyand on July 31, 2018, 11:25:54 pm
but I do have a nice telescope, and if I have the chance - quite heavy stuff - I like to check out the ever-beautiful sky.
Sometimes there are nice events which are clearly visible to the naked eye, or even a binocular is enough to amplify
the enjoyment.
If there is interest and/or like-minded people it would be great to consult the topic and announce coming spectacular events.
Tonight the Mars will be quite close to Earth, only 35,8 million miles away (to have some idea about these distances: the average
Sun-Earth distance is about 92,8 million miles). Maybe you noticed that shiny orange-reddish dot on the evening sky lately.
Yep, that's the Mars. It will look that spectacular for a few weeks, and until then will stay shinier than all of the stars (except the Sun, of
course ;) but it is not on the night sky :D ). It will even outshine Jupiter! Only the Venus and the Moon will be shinier than it for these weeks.
Post by: Wyand on August 11, 2018, 12:28:17 am
Depending on your site (how much light pollution hinders your eyesight) you may see 10-100+ meteors/hour. Get ready for some
fireballs, too! Fireballs (or bolides) are a bit larger meteors which are even shinier than the Venus. Prognosis says that this year
we may see more fireballs than usual.
Every important info is collected together here (https://www.space.com/32868-perseid-meteor-shower-guide.html).
Post by: InsignificantWeeaboo on August 11, 2018, 04:39:10 am
Post by: Wyand on August 11, 2018, 10:38:00 am
Post by: shockcannon on August 11, 2018, 03:09:28 pm
EDIT: Mars and Jupiter are very visible and bright right now as well.
Post by: Wyand on August 13, 2018, 09:31:52 pm
smartguy thought that it is a good idea to put brutal city lights into a small village. One could even read in the proximity of
these lights. It is such a pity because the place has such a beautiful night sky. Few years ago I even saw here 100+ meteors/night
on Perseid nights. So, because of the light pollution I had to find another spot on our small parcel of a land, but that costed
in visibility (~20% smaller field of view due to neighboring trees).
Aug. 11->12. - 32 meteors in ~5 hours. Maybe I should add 5-6 but I wasn't sure about them, my peripherial
vision saw something, maybe a meteor, maybe just a flicker. In these cases if I saw the afterglow I added that one to the statistics.
One of the meteors was just brutal. I saw the meteor's fall peeking THROUGH ONE OF THE BLOCKING TREE'S FOLIAGE. It wasn't part
of the Perseids - maybe this was an Alpha Capricornid, this meteor shower doesn't produce many meteors, but usually there are
some huge flares. Even saw a similar one a few years ago. To imagine the brightness of that meteor: huge streak running through
half of the sky, meanwhile illuminating the sky like the gibbous (almost full) moon...
Aug. 12->13. - 83 meteors in ~5,5 hours. This was clearly the peak. Both days between 2 and 3 AM was the best
time to catch them. (I mean seeing... ah, you understand. :) ) Saw 4 really luminous one, but I would dare calling only 2 of these
fireball.
Also saw a ton of aeroplanes... how I hate them... their continuous blinking... and a bunch of satellites. :)
Tried to make pictures, but alas, I don't have a DSLR camera, only this (https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/canon-powershot-sx40-hs). Kinda good stuff for learning, but not enough
sensitivity to use it effectively for short duration objects (lightnings, meteors etc.). Clearly, you can make pictures of these,
but you would need godly reflexes or a lot of luck. You can do long-exposure shots, but in my experiences you will have a
hard time getting some acceptable shots.
But I really don't want to leave you empty-handed.
Made this picture (https://i.imgur.com/6flk5RX.jpg) 5 years ago. The picture is filled with artifacts because of ISO 3200, but
you can clearly see 2 beauties: the red-green streak of a Perseid, plus the Andromeda Galaxy mid-right.
And two pictures from last night. One (https://i.imgur.com/CQ8whbg.jpg)(a faint streak upper-mid, a bit to the left) and two (https://i.imgur.com/59ZcU76.jpg)
(you will clearly see this one).
All in all I would say these were good skywatching nights, despite the stupid streetlamps.
Post by: Wyand on September 02, 2018, 05:05:22 pm
This night the Moon will be visible in the horn of the Taurus constellation. Bright orange Aldebaran will be left from the Moon. Right from the Moon
there will be a star cluster visible - that's the Hyads. You will need a binocular to see them - unless you are far from city lights.
Enjoy! :)
Post by: Wyand on December 21, 2018, 07:17:14 pm
Post by: MasterWalks on January 03, 2019, 06:28:05 am
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/world/asia/china-change-4-moon.html
Post by: Wyand on January 03, 2019, 11:21:21 am
China launched a spacecraft last month and was able to land it on the dark side of the Moon. I'm very very excited about this because China may actually upset the current space supremacy of USA, Canada and Russia. This *could* usher a new space race. And I hope it does. Especially with China's "bouncing" rovers that can hop from asteroid to asteroid.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/world/asia/china-change-4-moon.html
Isn't the hopper Japanese?
Post by: MasterWalks on January 03, 2019, 06:48:52 pm
Post by: Wyand on January 03, 2019, 10:03:21 pm
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2019-january-21
Post by: dragonsdemesne on January 04, 2019, 12:48:59 am
Post by: Wyand on January 04, 2019, 11:44:48 am
Fun fact: Queen-guitarist Brian May is an astrophysicist. :)
Post by: Wyand on January 20, 2019, 11:24:42 pm
Link again (https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2019-january-21).
Post by: MasterWalks on February 13, 2019, 08:06:42 pm
Opportunity is said to now be offline after losing communications with NASA. The rover was supposed to last 90 days on Mars before losing communication but had miraculously lasted 15 Years.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/02/13/mars-rover-opportunity-nasa-announce-whether-pull-plug/2860881002/
Post Silence card to show respect.
Post by: iancudorinmarian on February 13, 2019, 08:19:11 pm
Post by: InsignificantWeeaboo on February 13, 2019, 08:21:15 pm
Post by: Anorous on February 13, 2019, 08:33:30 pm
Post by: Wyand on February 13, 2019, 08:40:19 pm
The homestead I live on is dubbed 'The West View Farm'. Beautiful sunsets w/o near zero light pollution. (1/2 the neighbors are Amish.) But to the point; in this rarified winter air, I noticed *6* red static objects in the sky. Most were in the east near Orion's belt and a couple were to the SE. They were as bright as Mars. So I was wondering if anyone is aware of any new low orbit satellites w/ red light output, or some other explanation - like a natural phenomena - to explain this?
I advise you to check Stellarium to figure out what you were seeing.
Here is a snapshot, could you edit the pic where did you see those red lights?
(https://i.ibb.co/cbQKSCY/orion.png)
Post by: MasterWalks on February 13, 2019, 08:41:37 pm
The homestead I live on is dubbed 'The West View Farm'. Beautiful sunsets w/o near zero light pollution. (1/2 the neighbors are Amish.) But to the point; in this rarified winter air, I noticed *6* red static objects in the sky. Most were in the east near Orion's belt and a couple were to the SE. They were as bright as Mars. So I was wondering if anyone is aware of any new low orbit satellites w/ red light output, or some other explanation - like a natural phenomena - to explain this?
If you're a
https://www.ajc.com/news/nat/mysterious-glowing-red-lights-spotted-skies-over-west-texas/5U9TYBxIZN1eW6F1pGadYP/
Other than that, Stop Lights are also known to refract off ice crystals in the air and cause some glowing. Can you confirm if the would disappear and reappear?
Post by: dragonsdemesne on February 14, 2019, 12:29:41 am
https://www.space.com/43275-ultima-thule-pancake-shape-new-horizons.html
It turns out that what early pics showed Ultima Thule as looking like was basically a snowman, two spherical things mashed together. It turns out that the shapes are a lot flatter than that, and that it only looked that way because of the angle that early picture was taken. (New Horizons has something like 5gb of pics to send home, and due to the vast distances involved this will take about a year and a half, i.e. about as fast as dial-up felt when I was a kid)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceIL
I'd literally never heard of this group, but it looks like they have a privately funded planned lunar lander launch for 22 Feb, in nine days. I have no idea how this hasn't been news (or how I missed it if it has) but it's very interesting as well.
Post by: Anorous on February 14, 2019, 12:08:10 pm
Post by: Wyand on July 10, 2020, 04:00:45 pm
(https://media.9news.com/assets/KTHV/images/e55e3c2c-91f7-47b1-ac4d-3a7872344b58/e55e3c2c-91f7-47b1-ac4d-3a7872344b58_1920x1080.jpg)
Post by: Wyand on November 29, 2020, 03:49:26 am
and they will very very very close around Dec 19-22. They are very shiny objects, easily visible by the naked eye,
but getting a binocular will help enjoying it better, since with that you can also check Jupiter's 4 Galilean moons, too...
Maybe a bit more about it later, rn my stomach wants to jump out of my body.
Post by: dragonsdemesne on November 29, 2020, 08:45:26 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa2
NASA also sent a similar probe to another asteroid, Bennu, but it's still a few years away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSIRIS-REx
There should be some pretty cool scientific discoveries there. Probably nothing paradigm shattering, but very interesting nonetheless.