Stars / Astronomy / Astrophotography / Telescopes / Astro

Partner took this whilst we’re in Iceland and reading through this I said to her that we possibly missed seeing the planets. To which she said ‘oh maybe that’s what the two things on my photo are’. Could that be the case?

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Yes, Venus and Jupiter

Ha, that’s brilliant. Is that the moon setting?

The moon is the very small slither just above the island silhouette, not sure what the bright dot at the bottom is possibly just a light off in the distance. She wants me to say it’s taken on a 2nd generation iPhone SE.

The midday sun in Iceland does look pretty in that photo.

managed to get the bright side and the reflection

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another one

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Wow! Great pics and @ric_a5

Northern lights above the river Tay and Dundee last night.

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^fab shots, as ever! Hoping it will be clear again tonight, I gather the lights may be on again.

Wow! Love those.

I'm tempted to head up to the nearest dark skies area (Bedfordshire I think) this evening to see if I can see them. Depends on predicted cloud coverage....

Yeah, I've heard it might be good again tonight, worth a try I'd say!

Heres some from my recent Iceland hol

edit: these are better

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I tried, and at about 9.20 when I went down to the field on the north edge of the village I could just make out a faint vertical band of light. It showed up quite red on the camera, and another fainter one appeared a while later.

Second image stretched to bring out more colours

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how is this possible and is the number right

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/03/09/do-we-need-an-orbital-treaty-there-are-now-100-trillion-bits-of-space-junk-circling-our-planet-and-its-about-to-get-a-lot-worse/

100 trillion .... that seems like a very big number

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg8989

This seems to agree with the figure. Interesting link/comparison to plastic pollution in the Earth's oceans. Elon seems to have a hand in it (satellites) all too.

Also linked to Guardian article:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/mar/09/global-treaty-space-debris-earth-orbit-junk?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Scary stuff really.

but there are 7 billion people on earth polluting with plastic while there can't be more than a few hundred thousand satellites ( complete guess at number <== ) what the heck is creating all the junk

can't just be jettisoned poop bags from the space station, what are satellites ejecting to create trillions of bits ?

Isn't it larger items that are constantly hitting into other larger items or asteroids etc and being broken down and down into a multitude or smaller items. Still seems like a very high number but 🤷🏽‍♂️

Did anyone get a picture?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/mar/28/planetary-parade-mercury-venus-mars-jupiter-uranus

Didn't get a pic but had a good view on the outskirts of Bristol

No launch today :(

Did look incredible getting going. That slow acceleration with all that fire. Impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ07ZV3kji4

Also love that it experienced a "rapid unscheduled disassembly". Rocket science speak for "it blew up"

Very enthusiastic crowd

It was tumbling for quite a long time, I wonder if they initiated self-destruct for safety reasons?