Haven't had time to get the Zhummel out this year, but I'm still keep looking up. Any other space nuts?
Not hard core, but there isn't much I enjoy more than staring at the sky while out in the bush or even in the hot tub. Tell me JtK, those slow moving stars I see (about three and hour these days), are they satellites?
I was when I was a kid, only had a couple of cheap refractors though. The moon was about the only object I could definitively find Had dreamed of a fancy S-C scope, looking at celestrons ,etc in astronomy mags but lost interest as I got older and into other hobbies. Maybe pick it up with the kids when they get older. What type of scope is your Zhummel?
Yep, those are satellites,'you can even find schedules For them online. I use the term satellite quite litterally, this would include the ISS.
I've always had a keen interest in astronomy, I still have a few books that I've had since I was a kid, and still enjoy reading one in particular that is an advanced school text book on astronomy that was written when I was 3 years old, although it has a lot of detailed information about the stars and planets, and movements of celestial objects, it was written before men had landed on the moon and probes had gone to other planets. Although most of the information in the book is quite accurate, it is only able to speculate on many of the things we now know for certain. Reading it is like stepping back in time, and makes me realize how much knowledge has been gained in the course of my life span. I had a 4 1/2" Tasco reflector telescope when I was a teen, with it I was able to observe the phases of Venus, see the polar is caps on Mars, see the giant red spot on Jupiter and distinguish it's cloud bands and observe the movement of the it's moons, see the moons of Saturn, and observe the rings and the way they tilt over the course of years. But for viewing a lot of celestial objects a good pair of binoculars works much better than a telescope, for instance due it it's apparent size in the sky (3 1/2 times the size of the full moon), looking at the Andromeda galaxy (and most nebula) is much better accomplished with large aperture binoculars. But ya, I still like to keep up with what's happening in astronomy. It's been cool seeing the probes exploring Mars, but I think they've explored Mars enough now to know there really isn't much happening there, and not really much potential for human colonization. They'd be better of setting up a colony on the moon, because it is closer and it would be cheaper and more practical, and that would make it safer for the people who might go there. Where they need to send more probes right now is Titan, that place has some cool stuff going on. It will be a long time before it become practical to send humans there.
Don't forget about Europa and Enceladus. I have a book on the shelf from the brief period when there was an official planet with an orbit even closer to the sun that Mercury, it's name was Vulcan. Yeah, let that sink in for a while.
It's interesting that those moons (may?) have liquid water under the ice, but on the surface they are likely just frozen waste lands lacking any significant atmosphere. Titan on the other hand has a thick atmosphere, with at atmospheric pressure very similar to Earths, except that the composition is much different, with methane clouds and rain, and rivers and lakes. A roving probe there would be pretty exciting.
I'll take that as a reply to my ISEC post. I think the weak link (pun intended) is the carbon fibre tether. The powering of the elevator is just a technological hurdle that is doable with current knowledge if the right minds and money were applied. But dream of the possibilities! $10/lb to get anything into space. Space vacations for the cost of a months wages. A cheap launching pad to the moon, Mars and beyond. Cheap solar power 24/7 beamed to earth. Almost limitless mining opportunities with no environmental repercussions. The list goes on.
Yes, some great science fiction will come of it too! Maybe they can finally put Lance Bass into space and keep him there.
I thought the idea for the space elevator was to make it out of carbon nanotubes - C60 buckyball atoms...? Has anyone actually figured out how to manufacture nanotubes?
Last I heard they were going to scrap carbon out of chimneys, no joke. I think when my dad quit running his smoke dragon it set the whole project back decades.
"Attempt No Landings There" I have a Celestron 130mm. Back in Feb '09 we had a total lunar eclipse and I decided to try my hand at some astrophotography. It was 16F that night but I stayed out for the whole thing. Here are a few of the results.
Reflector or refractor? If I recall, the old Meade refractor I converted to a dob was a 130. There's a thread on that too.
Reflector. Basically a beginners scope but it works for me. Some years back I belonged to the Harrisburg Astronomical Society. Here is a list of everything that is available for members to use. 17" f/15 Classical Cassegrain •14" f/10 Meade LX200GPS Completely Computerized Go-To Schmidt-Cassegrain with GPS •14" f/11 Celestron C-14 Schmidt-Cassegrain •12.5" f/6.5 Cave Newtonian •10" Cave Newtonian on a portable pier. •Coronado Solar Telescope for viewing the Sun in Hydrogen Alpha
Hmmm? That's a great idea having a club so you could share those telescopes. A lot of time when people buy a telescope it sits and collects dust most of the time. Much better idea to invest in one (or a few) and share them. Did they allow you take them home? The coolest thing I've ever done or saw with my small 4 1/2" reflector telescope, and I discovered it sort of by accident when I was living in an apartment at the time, was when I tried looking at the sun one afternoon just as the sun was going down below the mountains. I set it up and pointed it out the window and project the sun's image onto a small white board, but then I noticed the image also projected onto the wall in that room that happen to be at a perfect 90 deg angle, so I closed the curtains tightly around the telescope so it was totally dark in the room and focused the image directly onto the wall and it created an image of the sun about 6 ft in diameter. I was doing this just as the sun was dipping below the mountains so the tree line was being projected and silhouetted in front of the sun. It was very intense, the image of the sun and the trees were so sharp I could see sun spots so clear and vividly it was like they were actual black ink marks right there on the wall, and the silhouette of the trees (even though they were about 5 miles away) were so sharp I could see the branches swaying in the wind and birds flying from the trees across the the sun past the sun spots. Of course it only lasted for a minute or so and then the sun disappeared completely below the horizon, but to this day it is still the most spectacular live image I've ever seen with a telescope, and I've never been in a place where I could duplicate it.
