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

The programme "2022: The year from space" is on C4 tonight at 7:30pm (hour and a half long). It looks interesting, it's looking at the Earth from space.
 
Information about how people can watch the first orbital space launch from the UK has been released.
The Start Me Up mission will be livestreamed on Virgin Orbit's YouTube channel from 21:00 GMT on Monday.

www.bbc.co.uk

Cornwall space launch viewing information released

The event, scheduled for Monday, will be livestreamed and all tickets available to the public have gone.
www.bbc.co.uk

Thought this may be of interest to some folks
 
Derek W said:
Information about how people can watch the first orbital space launch from the UK has been released.
The Start Me Up mission will be livestreamed on Virgin Orbit's YouTube channel from 21:00 GMT on Monday.

www.bbc.co.uk

Cornwall space launch viewing information released

The event, scheduled for Monday, will be livestreamed and all tickets available to the public have gone.
www.bbc.co.uk

Thought this may be of interest to some folks
Click to expand...
Indeed it is, but it would probably be better posted in...

** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

With the Space Shuttle program having ended many people have expressed a desire not to lose touch with missions into space. So here we are with one thread to cover: Missions Technology Research Anything else spaceflight related Now that Juno mission is on the way we can look forward...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
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PermaBanned said:
Nice images! Are they with a webcam? As always; details! :D

Random image of the day:

JbNSEl.jpg

Because, you know, i can totally understand having 42" of aperture to look at something as dim as... THE SUN?!

Just imagine if something flew through the film... that's one way to make a nice 1.25" diameter hole your skull :p
Click to expand...

Also that's using a foil rather than a higher accuracy wedge so the detail of the foil images would be good (although from experience it wobbles a lot in the sun's atmospheric turbulence). A good high resolution tuneable wedge would show the of the hydrogen alpha spectrum and detail giving the loops and other such details that are invisible with foil.
 
Thought that might be what I could see earlier and remarked how close they were. I'm sure I saw them less than a week ago but much further apart in the sky? Hadn't realised they came together so quickly.
 
gingergundog said:
Venus and Jupiter on show earlier tonight, closest for decades apparently, visible tomorrow night also. Very clear and bright in the sky.
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Moon close by? I think I saw that. Anyone get a glimpse of the famed aurora they kept talking about on the news? Kept taking a look out the north window every so often last night but permanently cloudy/orange haze
 
petridish said:
Thought that might be what I could see earlier and remarked how close they were. I'm sure I saw them less than a week ago but much further apart in the sky? Hadn't realised they came together so quickly.
Click to expand...

The Planets Today : A live view of the solar system

The planets today shows you where the planets are now as a live display - a free online orrery. In this solar system map you can see the planetary positions from 3000 BCE to 3000 CE, and also see when each planet is in retrograde.
www.theplanetstoday.com www.theplanetstoday.com

If you have a look at that site you can imagine how it translates into the view you see when looking out from Earth - with the combined movements of our planet, Venus and Jupiter together it shows why the ancients could pick them out amongst the stars so easily as being different. Even the moon moves 20 times its diameter each night in the sky making its orbit.

When I watched the occultation of Mars in December it fried my brain a bit because I was moving my telescope one way to keep the moon in view as earth rotated, but the occultation was being caused by the moon moving THE OPPOSITE WAY and it took about an hour to cover its own diameter and Mars to reappear…
 
Penfold101 said:
If you have a look at that site you can imagine how it translates into the view you see when looking out from Earth - with the combined movements of our planet, Venus and Jupiter together it shows why the ancients could pick them out amongst the stars so easily as being different. Even the moon moves 20 times its diameter each night in the sky making its orbit.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this, really interesting. So if I'm following that site correctly they crossed over a week or so ago and would have been closer still? Or does it only look that way as it's a top down 2D view?

This is the first time I've popped into this thread so hopefully I'm not making a fool of myself.
 
petridish said:
Thanks for this, really interesting. So if I'm following that site correctly they crossed over a week or so ago and would have been closer still? Or does it only look that way as it's a top down 2D view?

This is the first time I've popped into this thread so hopefully I'm not making a fool of myself.
Click to expand...

Last night was the closest approach - bare in mind that diagram isn’t to scale, so it’s not EXACTLY how you’d see them moving in the sky, but gives you an idea as to why Jupiter appears closer to the Sun than Venus, even though Venus never appears further than a specific distance from the Sun because its orbit is closer than ours.

Orbital dynamics is complicated stuff, and it isn’t always obvious why you’re seeing things move in a specific way so don’t worry about it not making sense immediately. I almost missed Mars coming out the back of the moon because I was looking at the wrong side, it was confusing me at 6am…
 
Penfold101 said:
... bare in mind that diagram isn’t to scale, so it’s not EXACTLY how you’d see them moving in the sky...
Click to expand...
Ah I really should have clocked those perfect ring orbits.

Think I'm getting my head around the website having looked at it a bit more, the geocentric view seems a good one to show it. Looks like Mercury and Saturn are also very close at the moment based on that, are they also visible at any point?

Penfold101 said:
I almost missed Mars coming out the back of the moon because I was looking at the wrong side, it was confusing me at 6am…
Click to expand...
Also I'd say it's rare for me not to be confused doing anything at 6am :p
 
petridish said:
Ah I really should have clocked those perfect ring orbits.

Think I'm getting my head around the website having looked at it a bit more, the geocentric view seems a good one to show it. Looks like Mercury and Saturn are also very close at the moment based on that, are they also visible at any point?
Click to expand...
It’s still heliocentric, just easier to picture where you’re seeing out in the sky.

So yes they will be close together, but mercury is always tricky to see as it’s close to the sun, and although Saturn is a bit further away they’re setting before the sun does so it’s still daylight.
 
Penfold101 said:
It’s still heliocentric, just easier to picture where you’re seeing out in the sky.

So yes they will be close together, but mercury is always tricky to see as it’s close to the sun, and although Saturn is a bit further away they’re setting before the sun does so it’s still daylight.
Click to expand...
Gotcha, that makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain it all.
 
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