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

Went to a local dark site with some of the local astronomy group last night. It was superb! Best night i've had for viewing so far, it was extremely dark!

Started off the evening with a lot of cloud though, we waited an hour or two and by midnight it started to shift, and from then on the sky was crystal clear! It was great seeing the milky way for the first time, stretched all the way over from the North to the South East. It was so thick it looked like clouds, and only when you looked through the bins/scope you could see it was a massive amount of stars :D

Used my dob but got a look at a lot of new objects through the 12" dob and 6" RC there, including the Leo triplet, cats eye nebula, veil nebula, and sombrero galaxy... M13 was stunning when it got higher, it was almost overhead at this time. It was the first time i've been able to get truly dark adapted and stayed it for a whole session! Saturn also looked great, as usual! Ended up leaving about 2.30am :)
 
Whoops, forgot about that! Saw that too, so bright :D Just reminded me we saw the Blue snowball too, great to be able to make out some colour in it :)
 
I saw Saturn last night, with rather bad light pollution (and indoors as I was lazy...)

It looked amazingly good. Definitely using some student loan on a better scope! My Astromaster is a good learning tool though ;)
 
Due to starting study leave next week, I think I should be able to get out far more often and when I want for the next 4 months! :D :D
 
Just been revising for my exam on Friday and was reading about Neutron Stars in a book called "Universe" by Freedman, Geller and Kauffmann - truly fascinating objects, they essentially act like huge electric generators due to their rapid rotation and intense magnetic field, producing an immense electric field which can cause pair production (the formation of electrons and positrons from photons essentially) near the neutron star surface. These charged particles are then carried by the E and B fields towards the polar regions at high speeds which causes the emission of radiation which is "fired" away in narrow beams from both the poles resulting in a pulsar.

Truly astonishing! Man, I love Physics... :D

Here is a labelled image of a modelled neutron star:

Model.jpg


You'll notice that it says "Radio Beam" - this is due to the main emission wavelength of the radiation emitted due to the charged particles accelerating near the poles being in the radio part of the spectrum. This is essentially how pulsars were first discovered - using radio sensitive antenna which were designed to detect random radio "blips" from the night sky, instead regular intense radio pulses were detected; leading to pulsar discovery.
 
Tibbz2 said:
Awesome :)

One day I hope to be doing that, I just hope my GCSE grades won't hold me back
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Good luck to you! And don't worry about GCSE grades, the unis won't care about them - when you're applying to universities you will have had your AS Level results, so the unis will only care about them. Same with everything really, it's always the last set of results/experiences that matters the most.

So just nail your A-Levels and you will get into a great uni!
 
physichull said:
At the University of Birmingham?

I did the PTNR MSc there a few years ago. I take it Paul Norman is still kicking around?

If so does Prof Freer still lecture? He was brilliant. Prof Gunn and Peter Jones were also good.
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Yep, at Uni of Birmingham - excellent course, excellent uni in my opinion!

Do you mean Prof. Paul Newman? He lectured our Thermal Physics course this past semester, haven't encountered Prof. Freer yet but I've been taught by Prof. Gunn (once for a cover mathematics for physicists lecture) and Prof. Jones lectured that course this semester - he's retiring this year however, it's unfortunate, he was/is a great lecturer!
 
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