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

Tiny bit of info.
In an unprecedented boost for interstellar travel, the Silicon Valley philanthropist Yuri Milner and the world’s most famous cosmologist Stephen Hawking have announced $100m (£70m) for research into a 20-year voyage to the nearest stars, at one fifth of the speed of light.

Breakthrough Starshot – the third Breakthrough initiative in the past four years – will test the knowhow and technologies necessary to send a featherweight robot spacecraft to the Alpha Centauri star system, at a distance of 4.37 light years: that is, 40,000,000,000,000 kilometres or 25 trillion miles.

A 100 billion-watt laser-powered light beam would accelerate a “nanocraft” – something weighing little more than a sheet of paper and driven by a sail not much bigger than a child’s kite, fashioned from fabric only a few hundred atoms in thickness – to the three nearest stars at 60,000km a second.

Near-lightspeed flight by a spacecraft would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. The gamble is that it could be possible within 15 years, with accelerating advances in microelectronics, nanotechnology and laser engineering. The research programme will be led by Pete Worden, until last year the head of the Nasa Ames research centre. Milner, Hawking and the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, already a partner in the fundamental science initiative, comprise the board, which will advised by a committee of distinguished engineers and scientists. This committee has already identified 20 formidable challenges to be overcome before any possible takeoff for the stars.
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Weighing just 220mg. At todays technology the micro probe would weigh 370mg
Acceleration 60,000G
Launch rate 1 per day. So not just alpha centuri and can send many many probes to get different angles and flybys. With different sensors on them.
 
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Good god, more stuff today, mercury transit of the sun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pCb6hIvK34

Edit - oh wait actually 9th off may. Just some hangout today.

weight of the probe
nnpjec.jpg
 
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Glaucus said:
Tiny bit of info.


Weighing just 220mg. At todays technology the micro probe would weigh 370mg
Acceleration 60,000G
Launch rate 1 per day. So not just alpha centuri and can send many many probes to get different angles and flybys. With different sensors on them.
Click to expand...

I haven't run the science on it... but what if the wow! signal was a maser beam propulsion event as an alien race launched something similar towards us :O (not even sure its even possible for that kind of event to produce that kind of signal or of we'd even be able to detect it).
 
Towering Magnetic Arches on the Sun:



Arches of magnetic field lines towered over the sun’s edge as a pair of active regions began to rotate into view in this video captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on April 5-6, 2016. Active regions are areas of very concentrated magnetic field. Charged particles spiraling along these magnetic fields emit extreme ultraviolet light, which is typically not visible to our eyes, but colorized here in gold. The light given off from the particles helps trace out the magnetic field lines, which are otherwise invisible.

Scientists use images such as this to observe how magnetic fields move around the sun and learn more about what causes active regions.
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NeilFawcett said:
My crummy old childhood telescope can just about see bands of colour across it, and yours should blow mine out of the water :)

I'd love to look at the moon with your scope! And some of the major nebula!
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Thanks, just trying to work out eyepieces, bought some cheap ones of eBay to get an idea of what magnification I will need.

Didn't spend money for Goto trackers, phone apps help a lot to find the objects.

I researched the scope a bit and price per performance I think it's one of the best.

Looks cool too, and doesn't take up much space stored verically.

IMG_20160410_195345.jpg



This was done with the same model.

 
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Just been pushing forward with my astro automation.

Pier now painted with power (12V) from the garage via armoured underground cable. I've ordered a odroid C2 to add to run ubuntu/Kstars/indi without needing a PC to power it. In theory with an SSD and the 32GB of astrometry indexes it should be fully 'aware' to plate solve and to do polar alignment etc. The idea is that I will run everything off 12V and simply be able to connect the scope etc and start imaging in about 10 minutes. The system would then also work well for SGL star parties etc.

Today I'll sort out the f4 300mm cannon lens as an auto focus system then run it using a 383L on the back of it. It will be nice and sensitive wide field :D

I think dobs are excellent however after looking through an 18" dob at the last star party.. it really ruined the idea of a small one :D I still have a desire to get an 18" because I think they're about the sweet spot for one person setup and use.. The image you get is phenomenal.. but the cost of the mirrors also is pretty sharp. I can make my own scope for it but I'd probably buy in the cell and mirrors.

@sityeuropa - when you get eye pieces they can cost anything from peanuts to obscene amounts. I found that the Plossl ones really good (and you can get televue ones quite cheaply). They're good because they have less glass and deliver a lot of light.

I have a few Baader Hyperion and they are better than the William Optics in my view (through the Pentax which is no slouch). When I tried them all with a shoot out with a Televue Nagler then the differences were marked on Saturn on the pentax:
WO - no separation between ring and planet body
Baader - separation between rings and body with some hint at 3D
Nagler - full separation of rings and bod with a lovely 3D appearance.

It's a case of diminishing returns. I would perhaps consider a more expensive EP (I would perhaps even get a pentax piece at £255!) if I found the perfect focal lengths.

The Pentax scope I have is an astro imaging scope and is a little slow for visual use (650mm fl f6.3).
 
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