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

One of the best from SDO:

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Eruptive events on the sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere, the corona.

On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. A moderately powerful solar flare exploded on the sun's lower right hand limb, sending out light and radiation. Next came a CME, which shot off to the right out into space. And then, the sun treated viewers to one of its dazzling magnetic displays – a phenomenon known as coronal rain.

Over the course of the next day, hot plasma in the corona cooled and condensed along strong magnetic fields in the region. Magnetic fields, themselves, are invisible, but the charged plasma is forced to move along the lines, showing up brightly in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 304 Angstroms, which highlights material at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. This plasma acts as a tracer, helping scientists watch the dance of magnetic fields on the sun, outlining the fields as it slowly falls back to the solar surface.

The footage in this video was collected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's AIA instrument. SDO collected one frame every 12 seconds, and the movie plays at 30 frames per second, so each second in this video corresponds to 6 minutes of real time. The video covers 12:30 a.m. EDT to 10:00 p.m. EDT on July 19, 2012.
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http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011100/a011168/
 
I've just recently got myself a telescope (astromaster 130eq), and the eye pieces that came with it were, reasonable - but not unexpected due to the money spent (and I also got mine much cheaper than I've seen it elsewhere, thats for sure!!) :p

So I picked some better ones up this morning (Skywatcher 6mm UltraWide and a Revelation Astro 32mm Plossl & 2.5x Barlow), but its too damn cloudy to use them - but it made the distant farmhouse a very clear picture (even if it was inverted.) :p

I shall try to help Tibbz!
 
Basically I need a decent planetary eyepiece for my 200p when it arrives, but I only have about £50. I'm torn between the Baader Classic Ortho 6mm and the Meade 5000 HD60 6.5mm (on ebay for <£50) :p

I've seen the BSTs but most people say the Baaders are better than them for image quality. I've also seen the TS HR Planetary eyepieces, are they any good?

So now it's between TS, Baader and Meade!
 
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Tibbz2 said:
I grew up with it being a planet and it always will be to me! :p Pluto <3
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ubersonic said:
I find it really really funny that they revoked Pluto's status as a planet (and we all know they did it just to try and cause controversy and raise public interest in space) but now they have found it has five moons :D

There's more evidence for it being a planet than the Earth XD
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That is all :D
 
Ryan-3 said:
I have heard the classic ortho is a very good piece that seems hard to find? Also comes down to eye relief and 'FOV' too I suppose :)
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FLO have the classic othos for sale at the moment. I don't mind eye relief too much as I prefer to remove my glasses while looking down the eyepiece, and FOV is obviously a bonus but im not too concerned as I will be saving for an 82 degree eyepiece soon enough.
 
02/02/13

Finally got the dob out for a first light last night, even if it was for only an hour because of the weather.

I had the dob out since the afternoon as I was aligning the finder, so I placed it next to the house out of the Sun and shoved the cover on it until the evening. It was a superb day, not a cloud in sight. However as the Sun set that soon changed, being England, and the clouds rolled in. I wasn't too happy at this; in fact I was just going outside to recover some things and to put the scope away, when I saw Jupiter sat there, almost directly above me. I couldn't resist but have a quick look before the clouds got to it. After all it may be my only chance of the night.

The seeing was amazing. Far better than I expected, so good Jupiter looked sharp even at 200x mag. I was certainly blown away with both the new scope and the SPL EP! There was no GRS but the clarity more than made up, the 4 moons all pin-sharp and looking great too. However inevitably the clouds came and I wrapped the scope up again, but left it out just in case, and went in for a cuppa and some Saturday Night Takeaway :D

About half eight I checked again. No clouds! :D So I grabbed my jacket and gloves and headed out.
- First stop (as always) Jupiter. Conditions had worsened slightly, probably because of some high cloud or something, but it still looked good at 120x through the stock 10mm.
- Next up M45, which looked fab through the finder, and in the 25mm too, however not all fitting in the FOV. Didn't really spend too long on these.
- The third target usually would have been M42, but Orion's bottom half was hiding behind the house roof for now! So I instead had a look at Betelgeuse. The orange colour of that star never fails to impress!
- Anyway I moved on to see if I could spot M35, but for some reason I'm retarded and couldn't find it through the finder for the life of me. I need a Telrad!
- Next I decided on what probably should have been a far mre difficult target for me, M44. I have never found Cancer or the cluster before but I knew the rough area. This is where I learnt how useful averted vision is! By now my eyes were in full working night vision order and only then did I notice how dark the sky here is. I always thought the LP was far worse, but it was very dark indeed, and many constellations I could easily pick out, surprised myself a lot! I was scanning Leo a bit when I caught a glimpse of fuzzy light above to the right, when I looked I saw it had been between two faint stars. M44! :D I had found it, and the in finder it didn't take long. All I can say is, oh. My. God. That thing looks absolutely stunning through the stock 25mm. Amazed me. Certainly my best observing moment to date!
- I finished off the night with M42, that had appeared from my rooftop once more. No surprise, looked superb, plenty of gas visible around the nice bright stars there. A nice end!

So that was it, and I packed up because of the temp for now. Superb night! Learnt a few things too:

1. I need a Telrad.
2. The light in the shed is very helpful for storing the telescope in the dark.
3. Dobs are a pain to move in 1 piece.
4. I may have too much nail varnish on my torch :o
5. Fingerless gloves <3
6. I need to upgrade the 10mm asap
 
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