Baby the stars shine bright...

[hush]

Happy 28th anniversary. Here's to 28 more years (and then 28 more after that x ∞).

:<3lightblue:

 

[James]

 

[Wyote]

@James "Wylie's over there holding our Sun" ... o.o

...damn right.

 

[John K]

Does anyone on the forum like astronomy ? I saw this today and really loved the pictures of Jupiter from the hubble telescope.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...jupiters-auroras-revealed-by-hubble-telescope

I have a small telescope myself, which I haven't used in ages. I'm going to dig it out tonight and try to get it set up. It's not powerful enough to really see a great deal, but you can clearly see surface detail on the moon, and see far more stars etc. If I can sort things out, I will save up and get something better. I think there is something quite amazing about astronomy, just seeing the vast beautiful scale of things. I used to be friends with a member on here who was an INTJ and she was quite into science. Her husband had died some years before, I tried my best to console her and make her laugh, she was a lovely person. She was very insightful and helped me think things through at times.

I remember telling her about the transit of Venus in 2012 and initially she did not have any interest in it, I think she was probably just too down. I watched it all through several websites and I loved seeing it, even if not through my own telescope. Later on she told me she had changed her mind and did watch it herself, and I was pleased as they really are 'once in a lifetime' events.

Here in Britain we had a partial eclipse in March last year, and I made sure to buy some proper glasses to use to watch it. My ex had similarly no interest, but I bought two pairs anyway. On the day, suddenly she was interested, and it was amazing (to me anyway) to watch the thing unfold. It must have been terrifying in history when these things happened and people had no idea what was going on. The whole street seemed to want to see it, and I noticed a lot of people outside across the street but none of them had any glasses. As ever I was reluctant to approach them, but I persuaded my ex to offer to let them use a pair of our glasses so they could properly look. They looked thrilled, and shared them among the group.

If I ever get a lot of money together (never) I'd really love to sort out a well equipped mini-observatory of my own. What a way to say goodnight to the world, to be able to gaze up at the stars, instead of just watching TV. It does really make me wonder what is out there, and whether as a human race we can stop trying to argue, kill and enslave each other long enough to get out there and find out. I think that would be kind of cool.

Astronomy/Cosmology is one of my favourite interests, but I'm more armchair than observer. I bought a 5" refractor about 10 years ago, but it's hopeless setting it up where I live because there's just too much light spill from the neighbours and from our local town. I should have saved up more and bought one of the gps driven computerised ones, but it seems to take away the "tactile" contact with the sky when it's all automatic. Come the Revolution, perhaps all the lights will get turned off and I can get it down from the loft. It gives a fantastic view of the moon though, and not a bad view of the planets.

I love the mystery that you find all over astronomy. Like this one for example, the Triple Alpha Process - a resonance in stellar nuclear reactions within large stars


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process

There would be almost no carbon in the universe and we wouldn't be here without this process, but it's totally unlikely and unexpected. Only a few percentage points in the physical parameters either way and it wouldn't work. The story of it's prediction by Fred Hoyle is almost as fascinating as the process itself - science discovery in action, red in tooth and claw (metaphorically speaking of course!). These fine tuning characteristics of the universe are really gripping.

 

[James]

These fine tuning characteristics of the universe are really gripping.

View attachment 42285

 

[John K]

View attachment 42285

I start to boggle when people twist and turn to try and find ways of explaining the fine tuning of the Universe in every possible way except by design. Massively populated multiverse theories certainly do provide a rationale, but they sound to me just as difficult to accept as the idea of design. And I don't see they are any more scientific / objective either because neither approaches are falsifiable at present. Both these ideas look equally metaphysical to me - and equally plausible once you accept that consciousness is not a thing distinct from any other facet of reality.

I don't think an appeal to design necessarily implies belief in God. I suspect that the actual theory behind setting off a new universe could be quite simple and easy to work through once we have a full Theory of Everything - and again, it may be quite easy to set up the initial conditions so that it would be inhabitable. After all, the techniques would probably be analogous to those in standard particle physics today. Actually engineering a new universe would be another matter entirely, but again it sounds like it may not be impossible for a very advanced civilisation to set off that kind of firework.

Delicious stuff to dream with .......

 

[heartcore]

View attachment 42023



:<3lightblue:

So gorgeous!

 

[John K]

Great view of Venus this evening - very clear sky near the sunset, which is unusual in my part of the UK

 

[John K]

I bought a copy of program called Redshift some years ago - its a planetarium app for my desktop pc. Got a love hate relationship with it, because it does a lot of things I want but seems to go out of its way to make them hard to find.

It's pretty amazing though. This is a simulation of the night sky looking approximately South from Bethlehem at 1:00am on 25 December in the year 0001 AD:


The terrain is not the real one, just to give an idea of where the horizon lies.

The program is apparently accurate till about 4000 BC - gobsmacking stuff

 

[John K]

Not up to the standard of the amazing Hubble Telescope pictures, but it's possible to get interesting shots of the Moon with an ordinary SLR and a 300mm zoom. Took this one this evening 3 days before full moon.

 

[James]

Not up to the standard of the amazing Hubble Telescope pictures, but it's possible to get interesting shots of the Moon with an ordinary SLR and a 300mm zoom. Took this one this evening 3 days before full moon.

View attachment 42500

Terrific picture. I had a look at that Redshift program. It looks very detailed.

 

[John K]

Terrific picture. I had a look at that Redshift program. It looks very detailed.

It is. I got to be quite familiar with an earlier version of it that stopped working after XP. They changed the user interface radically in the later versions, and I've never really got used to the changes. There's stuff missing as well - you used to be able to print out star charts but there's no way to do that now as far as I can see - I took a screenshot for the Bethlehem sky post. I think they assume you will use the app on a tablet or laptop out in the field, rather than a printout.

The app is great fun once you get the hang of it - you can do things like hover a few thousand miles above one of Jupiter's poles and watch it rotating while its moons orbit around it, or land on Mars and get a view of the Earth as an evening or morning star. I think you can fly out of the galaxy and look back at it, but I'm not too sure about that one - I'll have to try and see.

It can drive a connected automated telescope, and I wouldn't mind having a go with that - you can get something on the sky chart, press GO and the telescope automatically goes to the object. Don't know if you've ever looked at modern enthusiast telescopes - I did a few years ago, and they are quite something. This sort of kit isn't cheap though, so I'd have to be a serious observer to justify it.

 

[James]

View attachment 42501

RIP Alan Bean.

The fourth man to walk on the moon has died at the age of 86.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-man-moon-nasa-apollo-12-skylab-a8370931.html

 

[Lady Jolanda]

View attachment 42501

RIP Alan Bean.

The fourth man to walk on the moon has died at the age of 86.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-man-moon-nasa-apollo-12-skylab-a8370931.html

That's sad news. May you rest in peace Alan Bean, and thank you for your wonderful contributions to our knowledge about the moon.

 

[Lady Jolanda]

Not up to the standard of the amazing Hubble Telescope pictures, but it's possible to get interesting shots of the Moon with an ordinary SLR and a 300mm zoom. Took this one this evening 3 days before full moon.

View attachment 42500

Woooow. That is awesome John. Thank you. mggg::loveyeyes:
What kind of pictures can you take of the nearby planets?

 

[John K]

Woooow. That is awesome John. Thank you. mggg::loveyeyes:
What kind of pictures can you take of the nearby planets?

Well I’m feeling really guilty because I bought a 5” telescope about 15 years ago that I could use to take piccies of the planets with, or detailed moon shots. It’s such a faff setting it up though, and being an introverted idiot I feel a fool mucking about with it in the garden in front of all the neighbours. I really would like one of the modern computerised telescopes that look fantastic and dump straight onto computer- perhaps I’ll have a go but they aren’t cheap. But then you haven’t a hope of matching the stuff from NASA - the sheer poetry and science combo .....

There’s nothing like seeing it for real yourself though, even if it’s just looking at the moon through binoculars - no picture can match the present moment experience.

 

[Lady Jolanda]

I would love to see it for real, but unfortunately I do not own a telescope. You don't have to feel guilty John, if you don't like being watched by the neighbors (and who does?), then you don't have to make yourself uncomfortable for my sake!

Although, that gives me an idea.

James, how about we visit Cheshire Cat here together and use the evening for stargazing? I'll chase away all the peeping neighbors. James can make sure you don't hit your big TOE. As long as we don't have to go into Liverpool. I'd really, really like to survive the trip.

 

[James]

James can make sure you don't hit your big TOE

You're, mad, bad, and dangerous to know.. lol

 

[John K]

I would love to see it for real, but unfortunately I do not own a telescope. You don't have to feel guilty John, if you don't like being watched by the neighbors (and who does?), then you don't have to make yourself uncomfortable for my sake!

Although, that gives me an idea.

James, how about we visit Cheshire Cat here together and use the evening for stargazing? I'll chase away all the peeping neighbors. James can make sure you don't hit your big TOE. As long as we don't have to go into Liverpool. I'd really, really like to survive the trip.

:smilehearts:

 

[JennyDaniella]

Astronomy is the only scientific subject where it takes me away from our current reality on this planet. Its a wonderful distraction. It is nice to think of space and the grand possibilities. For as long as I can remember, I would literally stare at the moon and I was so intrigued by the lunar marias. When I learned as a kid that the moon used to have volcanic eruptions that caused those dark shadows. I was hooked.

Right now, I have been obsessed with the Voyager 1 & 2 lately. Just been researching some of Carl Sagan's work and the contributions he did for the golden records and how he wished that he could've lived longer to see if extraterrestrial life exists. If only he knew that we have progressed so much. I know he would've been ecstatic.