*** The Official Astronomy & Universe Thread ***

[scotty365]

snip
So don't waste your money on these schemes. You are better off buying your son a telescope, binoculars or a book on the solar system to get him interested in the subject.

I read it as Significant Other not son - but still no reason for the missus to miss out either

 

[Cosimo]

Viewing times for a partial eclipse of the Sun in the UK on 20th March:

 

[Cosimo]

Megaflares and black holes:

 

[Glaucus]

Any newspapers giving out glasses like they did last time? Haven't heard or seen any mention of get your glasses yet.

 

[Cosimo]

Any newspapers giving out glasses like they did last time? Haven't heard or seen any mention of get your glasses yet.

Too early for that but BBC Sky at Night magazine has some.

 

[Cosimo]

Views of Ceres:

NASA's Dawn mission will arrive at Ceres on March 6, 2015, and will be the first spacecraft to explore a dwarf planet. Ceres is the largest body in the main asteroid belt. At the time of its discovery in 1801 it was considered a planet and later demoted.

 

[Cosimo]

What will we find on Ceres:

 

[Cosimo]

An intermediate-mass black hole:

 

[NickK]

^^ her monotonic voice reminds me of the woman introducing ruby rod in fifth element..

 

[NickK]

Clearish day and clear evening.. so some solar later if it remains unclouded.. and tonight I will be targeting one of my favourites.. the bear paw galaxy.

It's small it's invisible to human eye.. and take a lot of time to get some decent images..
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/phys/observatory/images/Astr111.Spring2007/Smith.html

I will be trying out the new ATIK 414EX camera.. at 50%+ more sensitive but with slightly large pixels.. it should mean more data that I can use.

 

[Cosimo]

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/astronomy/nightsky/

 

[Cosimo]

To celebrate the telescope's 25th birthday in April, NASA has launched Hubble Mania which will determine it's most popular image:

http://hubble25th.org/education/23

Cast you votes.

 

[Cosimo]

How much water was there on Mars:

 

[mrk]

Since the vast Martian Ocean existed that long ago, it could every well be that we are indeed all Martians. What could have been our home planet but the loss of its Atmosphere probably resulted in failure, but constant meteor strikes throwing debris off the surface and into a you Earth's direction maybe kick started "life" here instead?

Hello Martian bros

 

[Ayahuasca]

They'll find microbes on Mars eventually.

 

[mrk]

Come 2018 when the new rover specifically designed to look for them below the surface sets foot on Mars, perhaps

 

[Cosimo]

How cosmic precipitation can affect the growth and evolution of galaxies:

 

[Cosimo]

The mystery of "magnetic reconnection"...

 

[Glaucus]

Any good guides on how to take pictures with a dslr of the eclipse.
And what's the program you can use to show you where the sun, stars and everything else will be in the sky at a certain location and time. Wondering if it'll be low enough in the sky to get the suspension bridge in the foreground, as it's not a total eclipse will the sun be far to bright.

Useless with the camera so will need a decent guide.

 

[NeilF]

Any good guides on how to take pictures with a dslr of the eclipse.
And what's the program you can use to show you where the sun, stars and everything else will be in the sky at a certain location and time. Wondering if it'll be low enough in the sky to get the suspension bridge in the foreground, as it's not a total eclipse will the sun be far to bright.

Useless with the camera so will need a decent guide.

I'd imagine the filter required to photograph the sun directly will reduce the exposure of any other object in the field of view to such an extent you simply won't see it.