Astronomy Group

[CaptTom]

Am I the only one who cringes at calling a perigean full moon "super?" It started out as click bait from the likes of The Weather Channel. You know, the ones who started naming every snowstorm. Now I've noticed legitimate meteorologists are picking it up.

Reality: You won't notice anything different about this full moon, whether you call it blue, super or perigean. I guess a little hype to get folks to look up isn't a bad thing.

Saturn, however, is at opposition and so will be noticeably brighter than usual. It'll still look like a point of light to the naked eye though.

[Bill Seal]

Saturn, however, is at opposition and so will be noticeably brighter than usual. It'll still look like a point of light to the naked eye though.

Thanks for reminding me, I think I'll dig out my little Meade ETX60 and see if I can get some good pictures of it

[GordMay]

An annular solar eclipse is set be visible next month, across a large swath of the Americas, appearing as a ring of fire in the sky as the Earth, moon and sun come into direct alignment.
Occurring on October 14, the path of its totality will cross portions of North, Central, and South America.
An annular solar eclipse happens, when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, but when it is at, or near, its farthest point from Earth. Because the Moon is farther away from Earth, it appears smaller than the Sun, and does not completely cover the Sun. As a result, the Moon appears as a dark disk, on top of a larger, bright disk, creating what looks like a ring around the Moon.
Because he Sun is never completely blocked by the Moon, during an annular solar eclipse, it is never safe to look directly at the Sun, without specialized eye protection, designed for solar viewing. Regular sunglasses, no matter how dark, are not safe for viewing the Sun. Safe solar viewers are thousands of times darker, and must comply with the ISO 12312-2 international standard.
You can also use an indirect viewing method, such as a pinhole projector.
More ➥ https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eclipse...ar/where-when/

Eclipse Shadow Path ➥ https://c.tadst.com/gfx/eclipses2/20...anim2d-380.mp4

[GordMay]

I really wish someone would have told me how long this solar eclipse was going to take.
Don't get me wrong, I had been enjoying watching it, but had I known it would still be going on, for this long, I would have bought a pair of those fancy NASA glasses.


You can directly look at the solar eclipse.
Once with your left eye, once with your right eye.


Thankfully, someone created an online resource, for everyone who suffered retinal damage, watching the solar eclipse.
It truly is a site... for sore eyes.

[OldManMirage]

Gord, don't those belong in the joke thread ?

[GordMay]

To Study Atmosphere, NASA Rockets Will Fly into Oct. 14 Eclipse’s Shadow
A NASA sounding rocket mission will launch three rockets during the 2023 annular eclipse in October to study how the sudden drop in sunlight affects our upper atmosphere.
Atmospheric Perturbations around the Eclipse Path
APEP ➥ https://science.nasa.gov/solar-syste...lipses-shadow/

[GordMay]

Astronomy Photograph’s of the Year 2023
Every year, the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London, England, holds an international competition for the best space photography.
➥ https://www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/post/pho...-of-this-world

[slowlysailing]

Originally Posted by Ocean Girl

My brother is a member of an Astronomy Society, he has worked the big telescope over at the George Observatory and has a big beautiful one of his own (I will hunt up a picture). I have gone to the observatory's star partys (too cool). Well I learned real quick not to lean or touch the teles (ask me how I know ) they are very sensitive and the slightest touch could put the scope a million light years from what you were viewing (maybe not a million but it sounds so cool..a million light years ). Anyways, people really freak out when you touch their telescopes so I gather it is a bit hard to find that little dot in the sky.
binox work great on the boat. Can't sleep tonight so I am hitting the hammock for some stargazing..wish me luck.
Erika

Hmm this post begs the question..what is the difference between a geek, a nerd, and a dweeb?

Speaking of light years, any other star gazers ever considered that the light they are seeing from these distant objects has been traveling for years-sometimes millions of years? For example, M31 (the Andromeda galaxy) is 1.5 (?) million LY from us, so when you see it (quite clearly with just binocs on a good night), you are seeing it as it appeared millions of years ago!!!
AND ....space is so darn empty, mostly, that M31 is the closest galaxy to our own, with over a million LY of mostly nothing in between.

As for the question; I don't know about dweeb but the key difference, IMHO, between a geek and a nerd is that a geek might actually have sex with another person in their lifetime.
And no, I'm not a virgin...therefore a geek.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by slowlysailing

Speaking of light years, any other star gazers ever considered that the light they are seeing from these distant objects has been traveling for years-sometimes millions of years? For example, M31 (the Andromeda galaxy) is 1.5 (?) million LY from us, so when you see it (quite clearly with just binocs on a good night), you are seeing it as it appeared millions of years ago!! ...

Q: What’s a light-year?
A: The same as a regular year, but with less calories.

[OldManMirage]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Q: What’s a light-year?
A: The same as a regular year, but with less calories.

Quite the buzz there Gord !

[Briis]

Originally Posted by slowlysailing

million LY from us, so when you see it (quite clearly with just binocs on a good night), you are seeing it as it appeared millions of years ago!!!

That's why astronomers themselves say: telescope is a time machine.

The bigger they are, the more you can go back in time (read: see deeper into the Universe, when it was much younger)

[SeanPatrick]

Originally Posted by slowlysailing

Speaking of light years, any other star gazers ever considered that the light they are seeing from these distant objects has been traveling for years-sometimes millions of years?

Yes! That's exactly what I think every time I look up at the night sky!

BTW, I just joined the astronomy group (even though it appears there has been no activity there since about 2018). Anyway, here is a copy of my recent post there:



This is my new Celestron Omni XLT 120mm telescope. A gift to myself for my 45th birthday. It has a focal length of 1000mm. So, with the 25mm, 20mm and 10mm eyepieces I have, combined with my 2x and 3x Barlow lenses, I can choose from magnifications of 40x, 50x, 80x, 100x, 120x, 150x, 200x and 300x.

I also bought a "zoom" lens, which can be set anywhere from 8mm to 24mm, giving a range of magnification of 41.6666...x to 375x with the 3x Barlow. However, the maximum useful magnification of this telescope is 283x, so I only use the 2x Barlow with it for a maximum magnification of 250x.

So far, I have observed Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon. The views were amazing, and that is an understatement. I could clearly see the Galilean Moons and some of the bands in Jupiter's atmosphere. I could just barely make out the Cassini Division in Saturn's rings. And I could see details of the mountains in the middle of the Moon's craters.

[Astrochef]

OK, so I'm still in "learning to sail" mode. I don't have much to contribute to most of the forum... yet. But I'm a big astronomy enthusiast. Maybe this is a yard I can play in.
Like SeanPatrick I joined the group even though it seems, a bit, deserted.
Always looking up,
Ty

[CaptTom]

Welcome! A familiarity with the night sky gives you a huge edge in learning navigation.

[Astrochef]

For sure. I can always get a good sense of direction from the night sky just based on what I can recognize and am very intrigued by celestial navigation, but starting this late in life, odds are I'm just an aspiring coastal cruiser at best. I can see myself sort of "dabbling" though, just to see if I can learn it... eventually.