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  1. #161
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    Quote Originally Posted by Phredd3 View Post
    Nothing at all in Alaska, Oregon, or Washington? That's shocking. Those states are certainly not devoid of parks, and I know first hand they are also not devoid of good dark-sky viewing. I grew up in Alaska initially unsure of where the North Star was because there were so many stars that I thought could have been it. Granted, the westernmost sections of Oregon and Washington are pretty populated and cloudy, but anything east of the Cascades has excellent viewing more nights than not, and much lower light pollution. I have also seen plenty of people with great telescopes and plenty of interest in all three states.

    It's very surprising to me that none of them have even one designated DSP.
    Probably likely only because nobody has asked for recognition. For lots of those places, it's basically "well, duh". Hell, all of Australia only has three, and I'm guessing that a majority of the country is dark skies.
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  2. #162
    Latest 'dish' on Arecibo.
    https://www.space.com/arecibo-telesc...e=notification

    Some discussion about salvaging the site and building something there. Too early though for solid plans.

    Larry
    DevilHorse

  3. #163
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Greensboro, NC
    Not sure at all it qualifies as astronomy-related, but my wife and I just watched the International Space Station fly directly overhead, starting at 6:52 PM. It was extremely bright, easy to spot, and very, very fast. Took it about 2-3 minutes go from fairly near one horizon to fairly near the other, where it disappeared, possibly behind a wispy cloud. Nice!
    Man, if your Mom made you wear that color when you were a baby, and you're still wearing it, it's time to grow up!

  4. #164
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Outside Philly
    Quote Originally Posted by killerleft View Post
    Not sure at all it qualifies as astronomy-related, but my wife and I just watched the International Space Station fly directly overhead, starting at 6:52 PM. It was extremely bright, easy to spot, and very, very fast. Took it about 2-3 minutes go from fairly near one horizon to fairly near the other, where it disappeared, possibly behind a wispy cloud. Nice!
    Nice! The space station is great fun to sight and watch.

  5. #165
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Greensboro, NC
    Not sure at all it qualifies as astronomy-related, but my wife and I just watched the International Space Station fly directly overhead, starting at 6:52 PM. It was extremely bright, easy to spot, and very, very fast. Took it about 2-3 minutes go from fairly near one horizon to fairly near the other, where it disappeared, possibly behind a wispy cloud. Nice!

    deja vu!
    Man, if your Mom made you wear that color when you were a baby, and you're still wearing it, it's time to grow up!

  6. #166
    Quote Originally Posted by killerleft View Post
    Not sure at all it qualifies as astronomy-related, but my wife and I just watched the International Space Station fly directly overhead, starting at 6:52 PM. It was extremely bright, easy to spot, and very, very fast. Took it about 2-3 minutes go from fairly near one horizon to fairly near the other, where it disappeared, possibly behind a wispy cloud. Nice!
    To put my own twist on an old maxim:

    If it's dead, it's biology.
    If it stinks, it's chemistry.
    If it doesn't work, it's physics.
    If you can't understand it, it's mathamatics.
    If it doesn't run, it's computers.
    If it's in the sky, it's Astronomy (or weather).

    So, yah, it qualifies!

    Larry
    DevilHorse

  7. #167
    I'm willing to bet that although not (exactly) astronomy, that space shots and robot probes are fair game for this forum.

    Here is a short teaser for the Feb 18th 2021 attempted landing by the Perseverance Mars Rover.
    https://www.planetary.org/planetary-...rseverance-edl

    Larry
    DevilHorse

  8. #168
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    Moon pic. This is actually the furthest I can zoom out with my T-Ring adapter and 8" telescope.
    I recently bought a "new to me" Nikon cam on Ebay. All of my old lenses fit, plus it has a remote shutter trigger. That last item is 100% why I bought the cam.

    I'm looking forward to having fun with some long exposure night work, although this photo is not long exposure at all. Just a little bit of fun playing with new tech. Still lots to learn with both focusing and exposure.


    MoonSide.jpg
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  9. #169
    The NC Museum of Natural Sciences is having their "Astronomy Days" virtually this year. Lots of good programs for those interested.

    My 9 year old is geeking out over all the events. He's already got a few plans for his Mars rocket, one powered by magnetism and another powered by neutrinos. He was also trying to tell me about gravity lenses and other stuff. He's been a bit obsessed about space since the Solar Eclipse.

    https://naturalsciences.org/calendar...days/programs/

  10. #170

    Speaking of Famous Antennas

    Hopefully this article is accessible:
    https://asburyparkpress-nj.newsmemor...id_subscriber&

    This article refers to the (famous) horn antenna used by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson to discover the background radiation that "supported" that a Big Bang occurred. The horn antenna is being sold. The story of the horn antenna has many interesting facets. This antenna was located in Holmdel, NJ, is at the highest point near the (famous) Holmdel Bell Labs location (about 7 Nobel Prizes [and counting] won out of Bell Labs including work in that building). On a winter day, you could see the Holmdel Building (huge) both from (either) the Crawfords Corner location of the antenna or from the Garden State Parkway (near exit 114 or 117, looking southbound).

    Robert Dicke, from Princeton, led a group that was going to look for background radiation from the theorized Big Bang, and Penzias/Wilson knew about this. Penzias/Wilson had the equipment so they proceeded to make measurements. They wanted to see where in the sky the Big Bang could be located. But all they got was a buzz from everywhere they pointed their antenna. So they checked their equipment for a malfunction. They couldn't find one. Famously, they thought the birds nesting in the antenna, leaving their excrement, might have been the cause. But after cleaning that out, they still had the buzz. Finally, they concluded that the 2.3K (energy of photons can equate to a temperature) Buzz that they saw everywhere (isotropic) was real, and it made sense that it was the remnant of the Big Bang. It won them the Nobel Prize.

    Penzias and Wilson won the Nobel Prize in 1978. In the summer of 1979, Penzias (a rock star) was at Duke to give a paper at the Walter Gordy honorary Microwave Spectroscopy Conference. There were 2 other Nobel Prize winners there (Charles Townes - Maser/Laser, Gerhart Herzberg - Chemistry) [BTW Townes had a Master of Arts degree in Physics from Duke - MA just means he didn't write a thesis; completed the necessary courses], and several others who would go on to win the Nobel Prize (I could only remember Hans Dehmelt); Ben Lax, "Mr. Magnet" also attended. Dr. Gordy was a stalwart of the Duke Physics department, and had given many physicists their start. He was held in high esteem by all who attended. It was a great tribute to one of Duke's great scientists and professors. He and Fritz London gave Duke a great international reputation in Physics. Dr. Gordy was frail at this meeting and passed away soon after.

    I had the honor of meeting Dr. Penzias several other times during my career. Penzias went on to be a Vice President at AT&T Bell Labs, and then when he hit the (third rail) age of 65, went on to be a venture capitalist in California. Wilson can still be found as a denizen in and around Monmouth County, NJ (not known as a horse player) I'm told by one of my friends who sees him at the gym. Dicke's name was all too familiar to those of us in the Physics Department at Duke because our first year Graduate Quantum Mechanics class text was authored by Dicke and Wittke (not a good book as QM books go BTW).

    One more digression, the Holmdel building, when it was built was an innovative building. It is where Radio Astronomy was invented by Jansky (take that Aracebo)! It was the first of its kind to have mirrors on the outside (very common nowadays). Protests occurred when people thought the local ambient temperature would go up (it was mostly farm land surrounding the building at the time) and folks thought it would blind drivers on the Garden State Parkway (not that the sun hadn't done a number on them for years.. Since the average speed on the GSP was about 20 MPH over the posted speed limit, you'd think that prospect would have been welcomed by local authorities).

    Larry
    DevilHorsed

  11. #171
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Outside Philly
    Quote Originally Posted by bundabergdevil View Post
    This may be a little bit random but I have it on my life list to go to space. I've got about 40-45 years (assuming average lifespan) for technology to ramp up and prices to come down to the point a consumer trip above the Karman Line would be accessible.

    Has anyone run those numbers? Think it'll happen. I think as I near my golden years, the tech will be pretty close and I'm hoping the price point is within my reach.
    Quote Originally Posted by DevilHorse View Post
    I'm not sure what you think you're average lifespan is, but a child born today will have an average lifespan over 100. You could argue that sitting on a rocket could, on average, shorten that average lifespan though

    Larry
    DevilHorse
    Quote Originally Posted by bundabergdevil View Post
    Oh, nice. The first person to respond is the Physics PhD w/ the NASA grant and he promptly craps on my dreams. C'mon, man!

    Aren't tourist trips to ISS on SpaceX already offered? I'm middle-aged and crossing my fingers that my discretionary wealth and the private space travel cost curve will intersect sometime in the next 45 years or so, which would put me mid-80s.
    Quote Originally Posted by DevilHorse View Post
    I apologize if that was a bit heavy. The emoticon was intended to soften it a bit.
    We are living longer, and folks like Virgin Galactic are on the 'verge' of offering seats into space.
    SpaceX is delivering cargo and astronauts to the ISS.
    That's great.

    But just last week I watched the SpaceX experimental Mars ship, had trouble landing:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLw4TB0xvHM

    OK, that is not what they are using to the ISS.
    But it still gave me the willies when thinking about MY stepping on one of these rockets for real.
    These are the same guys, and I imagine similar/same technology, doing the SpaceX astronaut deliveries.
    I imagine if you want to go up in a spaceship, you'll want to come down too?!
    Perhaps this is just the rocket boosters, but still..

    You're not the only one who has thought about it.
    That was the mindset I was in when I posted.

    Larry
    DevilHorse

    You and me DevilHorse, let's do this!

    https://inspiration4.com/

  12. #172
    Quote Originally Posted by bundabergdevil View Post
    You and me DevilHorse, let's do this!

    https://inspiration4.com/
    I saw the article on this on TV. A billionaire, who donated to St. Jude's (a great charity/hospital) will get 1 seat and will bring along 3 other people/donors to St. Judes with him. I'll check my couch for a spare 20 million to donate. I suggest you do the same. I did miss the parlay on the Super Bowl today though.

    (I also noticed a second SpaceX crash at Cape Kennedy/Canaveral last week). Big one! But that was a Mars prototype. No seat belts.
    https://www.theguardian.com/science/...odes-elon-musk

    Larry
    DevilHorse

  13. #173

    Thumbs up Neptune

    OK, raise your hand if you mixed up which is the furthest out, Neptune or Uranus?
    Of course, the classic movie, "Journey to the Seventh Planet" was about Uranus, so that makes it easy to remember, but I digress.

    Here is a most interesting time lapse of Neptune and its moons from the Hubble:
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1358687061335830528

    Even more interesting is this breakdown of Neptune's moons from the pointer:
    http://www.astronoo.com/en/articles/...form=hootsuite

    The variety of moons from gas giants is just sensational. For Neptune: Retrograde moons, cryo-volcanism (take that Enceladus), moon capture, is great stuff.

    We love our moon, but imagine having a zoo of moons and all of the eclipses provided by these guys.
    But then, what a pain it would be trying to have geosynchronous satellites. It would be 'back to cable' for you chord cutters

    Larry
    DevilHorse

  14. #174
    Starting Tuesday morning, 3 probes from earth will be arriving at Mars. One from the UAE, another from China, and the Perserverence from the USA on the 18th of February.

    There is reason to be excited and root for all 3 of these exciting missions, described in this article:
    https://www.upi.com/Science_News/202...2466213/?ur3=1

    Larry
    DevilHorse

  15. #175

    Mars and Dough

    On Thursday, the Perseverance Mars Rover will enter the Martian atmosphere and will attempt to land on the surface. There will be 7 minutes of silence and hopefully a great payoff. This will take place at approximately 3:55pm Eastern Time on the NASA Channel (and perhaps others).

    You can get in the spirit if you are near a local Krispy Kreme shop if they offer the promotional Mars Donut!
    https://covid19.nj.gov/faqs/nj-infor...ne#direct-link
    It looks good!

    If you are not following the other recent Mars missions from China and the UAE, those missions have successfully arrived at Mars and are orbiting the planet.

    Larry
    DevilHorse

  16. #176
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC area
    I want to see the landing video. How does off-the-shelf equipment hold up to space?

    -jk

  17. #177
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    Quote Originally Posted by DevilHorse View Post
    On Thursday, the Perseverance Mars Rover will enter the Martian atmosphere and will attempt to land on the surface. There will be 7 minutes of silence and hopefully a great payoff. This will take place at approximately 3:55pm Eastern Time on the NASA Channel (and perhaps others).

    You can get in the spirit if you are near a local Krispy Kreme shop if they offer the promotional Mars Donut!
    https://covid19.nj.gov/faqs/nj-infor...ne#direct-link
    It looks good!

    If you are not following the other recent Mars missions from China and the UAE, those missions have successfully arrived at Mars and are orbiting the planet.

    Larry
    DevilHorse
    I will be enjoying 30 minutes of silence in my office. If my phone rings or someone is pounding at my door, sucks to be them because I'm not giving them an ounce of attention until I know that Perseverance is safely on the surface or has created a new crater on Mars.
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  18. #178
    Quote Originally Posted by CameronBornAndBred View Post
    I will be enjoying 30 minutes of silence in my office. If my phone rings or someone is pounding at my door, sucks to be them because I'm not giving them an ounce of attention until I know that Perseverance is safely on the surface or has created a new crater on Mars.
    Hopefully not in the shape of a donut!

    Larry
    DevilHorse

  19. #179
    In the upper right hand corner of this link:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tITn...DkNx3q&index=1

    It says, "Mission Control Live: NASA Lands Perseverence... etc "
    This looks like a live streaming link that starts at about 2:15pm Eastern tomorrow toward the 3:55 landing.

    It is not obvious to me if "Percy's" landing is 3:55, or that is when the message is received by NASA.
    There is (obviously) a delay in the message traveling from MARS to earth. There is about an 11 (light) minute delay.
    Only an 8 minute delay to the sun, which is a local call.

    Larry
    DevilHorse

  20. #180
    Loving this thread, hope to see it surpass the UFO one.

    I hope people realize how bold this mission is, beyond the amazing landing feats. We'll directly be looking for evidence of life (the last rover was more focused on whether Mars was "habitable", a subtle but important distinction), in an ancient delta, and collecting samples for eventual return to Earth.

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