Stars / Astronomy / Astrophotography / Telescopes / Astro

Commercial human spaceflight has arrived... In the next ten years, these will be become very routine, in twenty I reckon we will have some asteroid mining...

Not sure if this really counts as astronomy, but the moon was looking good this morning, with the first glimmer of sunlight showing on the church tower.

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Very good.

Fab pic :)

Cheers, here it is without architectural clutter.

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The solution to the riddle of the meaning of life is 42:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jun/15/scientists-say-most-likely-number-of-contactable-alien-civilisations-is-36

I don't want to make fun of it, as I'm sure it's based on some serious number-crunching and a good piece of probability calculus, but it did make me laugh.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jun/28/beyond-pluto-the-hunt-for-our-solar-system-new-ninth-planet

There's another comet that's appeared, the snappily titled Comet Neowise C/2020 F3. It's not the one earlier in the year that fizzled out, but it looks like it's going to be too close to the Sun to be observed from London. Hopefully I'm wrong.

https://youtu.be/1Bvo9RwR_as

I would have loved to have seen Comet Neowise C/2020 F3 like this.. from Hungary this morning

Comet is visible in binoculars, but can’t see with naked eye at the moment.

Highly visible from here right now with no optical aid!

Here’s a mobile phone shot of a 3.2 sec exposure as seen on the screen of my camera. I went out at about 1am thinking it would be a long wait, but there it was as I walked down the street, looking just like a storybook comet.

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Properer picture

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Awesome.

Great! I was up last night, didn't see it up here in Edinburgh, too much cloud and maybe not even visible this far north?

Probably easier to see further north, but clouds are a bit of a problem!

Comet looking good from our back garden last night

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I've been waiting to see that but it appears that isn't gonna happen in the southern hemisphere... Booooooo!!!

Well you had McNaught in about 2007 with its multiple fantails...

I was doing whip skids in Brixton in 2007!!! 😭😂

Oh how quickly we forget those halcyon days...

Have you got the coords for the comet. The internet says it's at 8h55 RA which puts it on top of the sun almost, which makes sense but I can't reconcile that with waiting up until the middle of the night to see it!

was doing whip skids in Brixton in 2007!!!

Lies

8h55 sounds right to me - it is north of the sun, about 48 deg declination so well above the horizon in the north while to sun trundles along below the horizon

Well, I think I did once see him wheeling a bike along...

Yeah, had a second check, just east of the sun at the moment but a long way north so visible after sunset.
From When do you reckon it was visible against the sky?