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Shoutbox - 26 comments
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jacqueline kroft says:
i look at the stars at night
and i can feel that mercury
causing all that delayed action
do i need equipment for that?
jk
xx
posted Oct 15
vertigo25 says:
"So what do you do in your spare time?"
"I look at pictures of galaxies and classify them for an international collective of astrophysicists."
*blank stare*
:)
Check out Glaxy Zoo. It's like SETI at Home meets Mechanical Turk meets Clyde Tombaugh...
posted Jul 12
vertigo25 says:
I just wrote a blog entry about the latest extra-solar planetary discovery and would love to get everyone's feedback on it.
posted Apr 25
Comment replies (1)
Alex N says:
Not much of an amateur myself but i've got a space in my heart for, um, space.
BTW, Pluto = comet??? I mean, i knew it wasn't technically a planet anymore, but...
And anyway, isn't 'exoplanet' a little too cumbersome a term for a post-heliocentric culture? Shouldn't we just be calling 'ours' endoplanets instead, and skip adding the exo prefix to every new planet we come across outside our system (I'm just guessing, but there's probably a few, or a lot), since we're being so exclusive anyhow?
Just a thought.
Anyway, I 'd be interested to know anyone's educated guess what sort of weather we'd expect from our hefty friend (1.5x the size- wonder what sort of gravity we're pulling there. the article says 15 earth mass, so i'm guessing it's a bit more than 9.8 m/sec squared).
I'd like to hope, depending on how nice Gliese 581 b is, that the nicer the weather the sooner we'd get to developing faster means of interplanetary, not to mention interstellar travel.
I mean, if there's nowhere nice to go, what's really the point?.
posted Sep 12
vertigo25 says:
This is seriously cool:http://www.wikisky.org/
posted Mar 25
Comment replies (4)
Eric says:
I also want to point out http://www.skymaps.com for free monthly PDFs of the sky.
posted Mar 27
vertigo25 says:
Since we're link piling, we should point the obvious, just in case someone is somehow not aware of the existence of the always amazing and usually educational Astronomy Picture of the Day.
It should also be noted that many of the pictures are owned by NASA and can be used by anyone (check the credits on APotD and read up on NASA's usage guidelines).
posted Mar 27
Jon-Kyle says:
dang, it's been forever since i went to a star party or anything. i used to be huge into astronomy when i was 10 till i was 13 or so. i saved up and bought a 6" orion dobsonian (xt6 i think) with a friend of mine. ended up moving not soon afterwards and the scope had to stay
posted Mar 16
Comment replies (1)
Benz says:
hey your in the recess group yay:) yeah well I never have been to a star party:( :):(:):(:):(
posted Mar 16
Eric says:
What equipment does everyone have? I've an ETX-90 that I've had for a few years. I got a D50 a few months ago, so I can't wait to get some adapters and turn the 'scope into a giant prime lens (I've had limited success by simply holding the camera up to the eyepieces).
I kind of want to sell it though so I can try to get a 10" Dobsonian.
posted Mar 11
Comment replies (7)
iDanSimpson says:
I like the new group pic. I love me some Ring Nebula.
I got into astronomy this past fall. As a music teacher in training taking a side gig at a place called Astrocamp as a new instructor of earth sciences, elementary physics, ropes courses and astronomy, I had a lot of catching up to do. I learned a shitload about space. We had some really great equipment there A bunch of Meade LX200s as well as some 12" Dobsonians. We also had a CCD camera which took some (IMO) lame pictures.
Overall, my favorite piece of equipment was my green laser pointer. Kids loved it too.
posted Mar 12
vertigo25 says:
I actually have no equipment these days except my eyes :(
I used to have a really nice pair off binoculars, but I lost them in one of my cross-country moves.
I'd really like to buy something, but the amount of cash I'd be able to afford (when I eventually am able to afford anything at all...) will keep me pretty limited. I've heard good things about this scope, and it would allow me to hook up my camera to it. If I can afford it when I get to that point, I think I'd rather pay the extra for This one, though.
Any suggestions for inexpensive entry level scopes?
posted Mar 14
vertigo25 says:
Hmmmm...
My links got stripped for some reason. Respectively, I was talking about:
Zhumell Perigee 100 Maksutov Cassegrain Telescope:http://tinyurl.com/3cg7qo
Celestron NexStar 130 SLT:http://tinyurl.com/2p54jy
posted Mar 14
Eric says:
vertigo25--
Out of those two, perhaps the Celestron. Although the mount on the Zhumell looks nice and sturdy. :)
I would recommend a Dobsonian. It has no computer control or tracking, though. You'll also want to get a chair or build something to lift the telescope off the ground. You can get the Orion XT8 (8") for $370. It comes with two eyepieces, a right-angle viewfinder, and a laser collimator. Throw in another $35 for a 2x barlow lens, and you've got, in a sense, four eyepieces. The 10" comes in at $550. This scope would be great for deep-sky objects, planets, and the Moon. The optics are great and Orion is a good company.
8" --http://tinyurl.com/2q7qrw
10" --http://tinyurl.com/35ka5d
posted Mar 14
vertigo25 says:
Orion is always good company :)
The amount of cool stuff in that region of the sky (along with Taurus) is astounding. One of the nice things about where I live is that there are laws about what kind of lights can be used for outdoor lighting. It cuts down on light pollution so much that even in an area with a population in the millions, I can actually make out six stars in the Pleiades with the naked eye.
posted Mar 14
Eric says:
vertigo25--
M45 is always great to look at. One of my favorites is the Double Cluster (NGC 869 and 884 (although, it requires a telescope and low magnification to see the full beauty)).
My city has terrible light pollution, but I'm surprised the things I can see sometimes (I recall one night finding M57--the ring nebula) Of course, through my eyepiece it was a colorless smudge visible mainly to my peripheral vision, but it was still great. :)
posted Mar 15
vertigo25 says:
Well.. yeah. I mean, I can remember finding planets and even some DSO with my old binoculars, and even though there would be *very* little to no detail, I still felt both awed by seeing something that far away, and proud that I had actually found it. :)
You know... one thing I used to do that was a lot of fun...
I had a little 100x that my folks bought for me on a trip the Smithsonian. It was perfect for solar observations. I remember the first time I did a projection on a card with it and was just amazed that you can actually make things out. I even tracked a a few Sun spots :)
There's nothing like seeing stuff in a big scope, but there's still a lot of stuff you can do on the cheap.
Now that the weather is getting better, I think I may take my daughter up to Chabot one weekend for their telescope viewings.
posted Mar 15
iDanSimpson says:
(click for hi-res)
i found this picture of saturn a little while ago. taken by the cassini mission in the shadow of saturn. i thought it was amazing.
you can find more info on this picture here.
posted Mar 10
Comment replies (2)
vertigo25 says:
The Cassini-Huygens mission is one of the most amazing NASA/JPL projects ever. You can keep up on some amazing things on their news site:http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/
The NASA/JPL pdcast is amazing, BTW:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/tools/podcast.cfm it has both video and audio.
posted Mar 10
Pages: 1 (26 total comments)
Eric says:
Well, a little update from me since I've been gone. I have an opportunity to work with one of my professors and do some original research based on data returned by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that will launch October-ish 2008. I'm doing a lot of reading on Lunar geology and on the LRO mission and instruments.
I'm super-uber-freakishly-excited. :D
posted Oct 28