Stars / Astronomy / Astrophotography / Telescopes / Astro

Indeed, and I love the orbital mechanics being used to keep the scope cool - the Lagrange point L2 is weird in the way it is further out than Earth but has the same orbital period because it is captured by Earth’s gravity.

On that note, watched this recently and it was the best explanation of Lagrange points I've seen before, especially around why L4/5 are (relatively) stable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PHvDj4TDfM

It's amazing it's come to this to correct ChainBreaker's eyesight.

You mean there's not a better one in the Kerbal Space Program?

Unfortunately Kerbal Space Program only simulates forces based of a single sphere of influence so Lagrange points are not a feature!

Wish the devs would hurry up and sort out this three-body problem thing, should be pretty trivial I'd imagine! ;)

I briefly worked in the same clean room as the MIRI instrument now strapped to the JWST. Almost my scientific claim to fame.

It was weirdly unnerving knowing what was hidden under the gold foil just a couple of metres behind some tensa barriers.

It's been a while since I last tried any widefield shots of the sky, but tonight I popped out for an hour or so and snapped this.

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Wonderful as always @Ludd !

That's a very real claim to fame!! Great stuff!!

So cool, @Ludd... 😍

Oldest story relates to The Seven Sisters

https://webbcountdown.com/

Countdown to JWST

Amazing!

This sort of thing fascinates me: to think we still remember what our very earliest ancestors spoke about...

That's probably the most interesting article I've read all year.
Thanks for the link.

Oldest story

Rhetorical:- But how, thousands of miles apart, different cultures decide these are female stars. Not families, not dogs, cats, horses, kangeroos....
Mystifying

The answer's in the article: The stories are suggested to have originated in one culture - our common ancestor in Africa.

The question is in the article. No one knows the answer.

Ok, fair enough. Like a lot of science the 'answer' is merely the most plausible hypothesis. I guess it's that or...

😂😂😂

I just like mystery.

Today's APOD is pretty great, comet Leonard and M3
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211212.html

Jwst launch went down fine. 6 months till science operations still but the most exploding risk has passed .

10 billion and the hopes of astronomers for a generation are tied up in this thing.

NASA will be fuxking relieved when it starts taking pictures, it nearly killed the agencies funding over the last decade. They'll be glad to be thinking of spending money on something else.

Only concern now is the 344 single points of failure...

Also watched it! Its the start of a new era for us! Can't wait. There a way to get regular updates.

Here is a slightly pointless youtube channel reporting the distance in real time: https://youtu.be/MuQRHdwZXWw

Other than that look out for twitter call outs from NASA.

An interesting collection from of bits from APOD: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
, which is an excellent site for space information.

Apparently 2021 was pretty interesting, in terms of blackholes...

I don't think I have ever felt so insignificant.

https://www.livescience.com/black-holes-2021

It's been a good year for all things space too. May this year be as good!