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mainsheetsister

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mainsheetsister

mainsheetsister 188

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Full Moon on May 7. 

 

The Moon will be located on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun and its face will be will be fully illuminated.

When the moon is full, it rises at dusk, is directly overhead at midnight, and sets at dawn.

This phase occurs at 10:45 UTC.

This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as the Flower Moon because this was the time of year when spring flowers appeared in abundance.

This moon has also been known as the Corn Planting Moon and the Milk Moon.

The Moon will be near its closest approach to the Earth and may look slightly larger and brighter than usual.

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Grande Mastere Dreade

got up at 2:30am   clear skies.. when I saw it , the white part was larger,  looked like a giant eyeball from the side for all you who missed it  

RedTuna

This red dot is the extent of all human radio signals and spacecraft throughout history.  Anyone or anything beyond that tiny speck likely has no idea we're here.  

bmiller

Oh yea, so who took the pic?

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Innocent Bystander

Innocent Bystander 972

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37 minutes ago, Charlie Foxtrot said:

Aliens - or SJB - threw a car sized rock at the earth, and juuuuuust missed:

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-car-size-asteroid-just-made-the-closest-pass-of-earth-on-record-and-we-didn-t-see-it-coming

I like the statement that an undetected larger object could kill lots of people. If we detected it, what would we do?  Duck and cover?

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Charlie Foxtrot

Charlie Foxtrot 603

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1 hour ago, Innocent Bystander said:

I like the statement that an undetected larger object could kill lots of people. If we detected it, what would we do?  Duck and cover?

Eventually... we may be smart enough to develop the capability to move rocks before the cosmic billiard game drops one in the Rome pocket.

There are already efforts afoot to move a metallic asteroid into near earth orbit. The wealth in one metal asteroid - above the gravity well of earth - is staggering.  

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Charlie Foxtrot

Charlie Foxtrot 603

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1 hour ago, Snaggletooth said:

The vallue of a niew alloye ist staggereng!

Just one metal asteroid, Snags: $100 Trillion.  That'll buy you and Ozzie a lot of lap-dances. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2147404/Found-The-single-asteroid-thats-worth-60-billion-years-financial-output-entire-WORLD.html 
 

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Snaggletooth

Snaggletooth 5,170

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What happens on the autumnal equinox?
Autumnal equinox, two moments in the year when the Sun is exactly above the Equator and day and night are of equal length; also, either of the two points in the sky where the ecliptic (the Sun's annual pathway) and the celestial equator intersect.
 
Autumn Equinox 2020 in Northern Hemisphere will be at 9:30 AM on
Tuesday, September 22
All times are in Eastern Time.

(Sis, wheare our you?)
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nolatom

nolatom 585

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Okay, this is part astronomy, part cycling, part New Orleans at sunset.

During these Covid days, many Orleanians have gathered at the "Fly", that part of Audubon Park riverward of the railroad tracks and the Zoo, with a great view of the Mississippi river and its west bank, to watch the sunset over Westwego and points west.  I've been riding up there on my road bike, nice bit of exercise and maskless biking feels like a luxury (yes, i have it in my pocket, but we are spread way out).  Many college-age kids from Tulane and Loyola.

Pretty sunset indeed.  Then as I picked up the bike to head back east,  and wow, it's that gorgeous almost-full Moon in a clear dark-blue sky, and rising.  We are lucky that ball of whatever crashed into us, what, four billion years ago?  It gave us (eventually) our Moon, our rotation, and the polar tilt that gave us our seasons (I know all this because I'm an English major so just humor me if i'm wrong).

Zoom, hurtling down the land-side of the levee fast enough to scare me a little, then across Magazine street into the main park, with the golf course in the middle and the trees a circumference around it. Almost deserted at 7:15pm, so the cart paths become my easygoing bike trail.  Just a few of us in the park, but what a show --gorgeous red and yellow western sky, seen though the silhouette of the oak and cypress trees. And that ever-brighter Moon rising higher in the East.  So this beautiful park isn't all that dark, you can see to walk and ride, but the combination of celestial  bodies is just breathtaking.  So I circled the park again rather than just ride across it, it was too beautiful to leave.  

But I did, and headed east ("downriver" for us locals), on St Charles Avenue, and then the much quieter and darker Carondelet and Baronne streets.  On these last two streets it was dark enough that my white-flashing headlight made all the street signs and parked-car license plates light up and flash in sequence,  beginning almost two blocks ahead of me.  It's nice to have all of them happy to see me.

So, that's it.  Astronomy is our friend.  So is light, whether natural, or generated.


 

 

 

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nolatom

nolatom 585

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Okay, so nobody liked my bike thread. 

Definitely more popular will be the Moon and Mars close to each other after sunset, in the eastern sky, sorta tonight but closest on Friday eve Oct 2..

May you have clear sky, and the Force with you....

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nolatom

nolatom 585

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New Orleans post-Zeta, three nights with no electricity for most of us, “back to basics” at home.  Kerosene lantern, gas stove and a couple of gas fake-briquettes fireplaces, kept us lit, fed, and warm.

I think cruising on sailboats was good practice in those basics.

I got blasted awake at 4am this morning, lights, TV,  back to 21st century.

Okay, back to topic: What was especially good was was the night sky over the dark city.  Near-full Moon close to bright pink Mars in the east, Jupiter and Saturn in the southwest, and the “Summer Triangle”, Vega, Altair, Deneb, overhead. Excellent show with no light- pollution.
And closer to Earth, we got to see and feel and the brief  dead calm and quiet of standing outdoors in the center of the eye of a hurricane,  just before sunset.  Beautiful and kind of scary orange sky to the west, and a small patch of blue sky overhead.

Now back to “normal” life, gradually.

One more thing—this topic is kind of quiet lately.  Can we rev it up a little?  Go skywatch and share.  We owe it to MSG, and sister MSS.

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Charlie Foxtrot

Charlie Foxtrot 603

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I remember the six days we spent in primordial Florida after Hurricane Irma blew though the state. There wasn't an outdoor electric light for hundreds of leagues.  Everything, as a neighbor poetically put it, was as dark as 6 feet up a cow's ass.

However, the unrivaled stars and planets shone like diamonds, and the Milky Way was a broad, turbulent swath of brilliant color across the firmament. I sat out under our now semi-screened room for hours in the heat and humidity and just watched the glorious sky. Post Irma pretty much sucked in every way, except for the (hopefully) once in a lifetime Dark Sky opportunity. 

 

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nolatom

nolatom 585

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This has been a Looooooong hurricane season, and not even over yet.  New Orleans has been in the cone at least six times, got away with just one hit.

Maybe it's global warming.

But.   Maybe it's us?  Are we secretly addicted to Hurricanes, even though they're bad for us?    Hmmmmmm...  maybe we need a new twelve-step group:

"H.A.A."  ---   Hurricane Addicts Anonymous?

"Grant us the serenity to accept those Hurricanes we cannot dodge; the blind luck to dodge the Hurricanes we can; and the wisdom to know the difference"???

 

Here it is from the local news, but seeing it all set out like this, is, uh, humbling:

 

https://www.nola.com/news/article_1ffefce4-203e-11eb-b971-d35c474a0aa9.html

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nolatom

nolatom 585

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Once again, Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, southwest sky, pretty, catch em before they set.  Tomorrow evening too, Moon will be higher on those two.

also bright pinkish Mars high in the East.

Step right up folks, the show’s free.

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Bump-n-Grind

Bump-n-Grind 2,663

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we've had remarkably bad cloud cover around here for the Jupiter/Saturn thingy.. hoping it will clear up a bit tonight, but you know.. #because2020

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ropetrick

ropetrick 197

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Last night we took advantage of our first break in the cloud cover this month in SE Michigan.

With a 25x spotting scope we could see five moons around Jupiter and the tilt of Saturn's rings made it look like an ellipse.

Get an early start if you have clear skies, they hit the horizon about an hour after sunset.

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Mid

Mid 4,409

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It took over a decade and 1,000 hours of photography to create this picture of the Milky Way

It took over a decade and 1,000 hours of photography to create this picture of the Milky Way

Finnish astrophotographer, JP Metsavainio, took on the daunting task of creating a mosaic of the Milky Way back in 2009. It took him twelve years to get the whole picture which is around 100,000 pixels wide and has 234 individual mosaic panels stitched together.

Not only did he manage to capture the entire galaxy but also 20 million stars within the Milky Way. You can check out the entire picture in its full resolution here.

https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/finnish-photographer-jp-metsavainio-took-over-a-decade-and-1000-hours-of-photography-to-create-this-picture-of-the-milky-way-and-20-million-stars/slidelist/81563516.cms

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RedTuna

RedTuna 1,293

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I shouldn't complain about all the rain we've been getting, but the viewing conditions here have sucked for the last few months.  I haven't been able to use my ten inch since April.

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ShortForBob

ShortForBob 2,955

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Herbig–Haro object

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-09-02/hubble-space-telescope-captures-rare-herbig-haro-object/100428328

Jets of blue gas blast out of a cloud of dust in a photo of a rare space object just released by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The image captures a phenomenon known as a Herbig-Haro object.

Snapped in the constellation of Orion, the object known as HH-111 is around 1,300 light years away from Earth.

So what are we seeing in this striking image?

A Herbig … what?

Essentially what you are looking at is the birth of a star system, explains astronomer Brad Tucker of the Australian National University.

"At the centre you have what we call a protostar — where gas from a previous star has been collapsing down into a new baby star," Dr Tucker explains.

The new object is rapidly spinning and as it does so, it shoots out a stream of ionised gas — gas that's so hot it's had all its electrons stripped off — from its north and south poles.

The gas moves out through clouds of dust in the stellar nursery.

As it moves further away, it starts to spread out in much the same way your breath does on a frosty morning, Dr Tucker explains.

"As this gas disperses into the neighbouring areas, it starts to mix and spread in the area and starts to create what we call a bow shock," he says.

"And that's why you get these nice kind of clear edges that we see at the end of this object." 

So why is it so rare?

Despite being so spectacular, these objects are hard to spot.

For a start, they only hang around for 10,000–20,000 years.

"That sounds like a long time, but in the scheme of astronomy that's actually a short time frame for something to exist," Dr Tucker says.

The objects are not very bright because the dust absorbs much of their light, so we can only see them if they are nearby.

"We can't see them in other galaxies — you only see them in the Milky Way," Dr Tucker says.

And as for how rare they are? There's a hint in the numbers in their name.

"When their number is 111, there's not many of them," he adds.

How did we spot this one?

The image was captured by the Hubble Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3.

"The great thing about Hubble is that you can see things in both the visible light spectrum and the infrared spectrum," Dr Tucker says.

"So you kind of get this nice complete picture of what's going on."

Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope can see objects in visible and infrared light.(

NASA

)

While we can see the gas jet in the visible light, the infrared gives us more detail about the dust cloud.

"This is especially important for these objects; because it's a baby or forming star, they have lots of dust," Dr Tucker says.

"If you don't look in the infrared you'll just completely miss it, and miss a lot of the physics that's going on."

Launched 31 years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope is coming to the end of its life and has recently had some equipment failures.

Its replacement, the James Webb telescope, is due to be launched in November or December this year.

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This telescope will have greater infrared capacity than Hubble, but not as much visual ability.

That means an image of an object like HH-111 would look different than the one above, with even more detail in the dust clouds but less visual definition.

But Dr Tucker says optical images will be picked up eventually by other telescopes on the ground.

"We'll be able to see better in the optical colours than what Hubble can."

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RedTuna

RedTuna 1,293

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16 hours ago, Grande Mastere Dreade said:

get yo' asses up..

4am EST..

lunar-eclipse-nov19-2021-North-America-e

 

https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/partial-lunar-eclipse-november-19-2021/

 

 

Pretty cool that's it's happening in Taurus, as well.  Should be fun to watch with my big ten inch.  Gonna be a long night.

Lascaux Cave, ca 16000 BCE

 

Lascaux Star Map.jpg

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nolatom

nolatom 585

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2 hours ago, RedTuna said:

Pretty cool that's it's happening in Taurus, as well.  Should be fun to watch with my big ten inch.  Gonna be a long night.

Lascaux Cave, ca 16000 BCE

 

Lascaux Star Map.jpg

Very cool, thanks.  I would have thought the sky of 160-thousand years ago would have looked much different. 

But "not".  Orion still faithfully there, and the belt still points outward towards the Pleiades. 

 

P.S.   Astronomy on this board makes me miss MSG.  I wonder, is she looking at the same sky as we are? 

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RedTuna

RedTuna 1,293

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It clouded up here about 3AM.  Since a front was blowing through in advance of that, so was too windy to use the telescope anyway.

Disappointed that I didn't get to try out the moon filter during an eclipse, but so it goes.

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Bump-n-Grind

Bump-n-Grind 2,663

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tried to stay up for it, but gave up when I heard rain on my windows .... had my scope ready to take out into the yard.

 

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SloopJonB

SloopJonB 12,584

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On 11/16/2021 at 12:22 PM, RedTuna said:

This red dot is the extent of all human radio signals and spacecraft throughout history.  Anyone or anything beyond that tiny speck likely has no idea we're here.

 

This red dot is the extent of all human radio signals and spacecraft throughout history..jpg

I've recently seen a couple of episodes of Nova on The Big Bang, black holes etc.

Every time the scale of things in the universe comes up it makes my head hurt.

We simply don't have words for it

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βhyde

βhyde 1,828

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Just in case anyone wants to get a little more "hands on" with their astronomy, I have a pristine 10" Meade LX200GPS (UHTC) scope I would like to find a new home for.

Specs are here https://www.opticsplanet.com/meade-10-lx200gps-telescopes.html

The scope has all the original factory parts, manuals, and shipping containers. In addition to the factory 1.25" eyepiece setup, it has a 2" setup with a super bright 1RPD 30mm eyepiece. Plus a bunch of other stuff (camera t-mounts for Pentax and Nikon, F/6.3 Focal reducer, etc). It also has upgraded collimation screws and low backlash ball bearing focusing. This is a nice piece of equipment.

IMAG0178.thumb.jpg.65d91b001929a468707448819bf9dd79.jpgIMAG0181.thumb.jpg.239d6a94c91507971f827ac5698d8682.jpgIMAG0186.thumb.jpg.ddf94665d74be79e1d5f1b7eaa230443.jpg

If you are interested, or know someone who is, drop me a PM, I have more pics. Prefer a local pickup or drop off near San Francisco since this thing weighs about 100lbs and would be a bitch to ship.

 

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bmiller

bmiller 1,147

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On 11/16/2021 at 1:22 PM, RedTuna said:

This red dot is the extent of all human radio signals and spacecraft throughout history.  Anyone or anything beyond that tiny speck likely has no idea we're here.

 

This red dot is the extent of all human radio signals and spacecraft throughout history..jpg

Oh yea, so who took the pic?

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Pertinacious Tom

Pertinacious Tom 1,926

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On 9/2/2021 at 7:25 AM, ShortForBob said:

Its replacement, the James Webb telescope, is due to be launched in November or December this year.

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This telescope will have greater infrared capacity than Hubble, but not as much visual ability.

That means an image of an object like HH-111 would look different than the one above, with even more detail in the dust clouds but less visual definition.

But Dr Tucker says optical images will be picked up eventually by other telescopes on the ground.

"We'll be able to see better in the optical colours than what Hubble can."

The James Webb telescope is to be launched a week from tomorrow.

I haven't followed it so am not sure what is meant by "not as much visual ability." Huh? Haven't all cameras been getting better? I figured my drone probably has a better camera than Hubble.

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