Stars / Astronomy / Astrophotography / Telescopes / Astro

I won't be bothering old Jupiter for a while now - it's sinking into the murk of sunset, and through a scope it's a mostly out of focus wobbly blob now. Mars, on the other hand, is still good (but small). Look out for Saturn rising over the RoebucK late at night. Oh, and Venus will be visiting the seven sisters soon.

so whats with the inca's and all their predictions for the end of the world ?
i heard another related possible fact about this event on the radio a day or two back, according to the inca's there is meant to be a big planetary allignment in 2012 ( is that another one or the one we are seeing up their currently ? ) , an amateur earthquake predictor says that there will be a big earthquake around the time of this planetary allignment / the end of the world due to the gravitational pull of the alligned planets on the earth
seems plausible to me but the end of the world i have my doubts !

The alignment of some planets may look cool and make us think about how the solar system works. It won't cause the end of the world though.

That's not to say the Mayans got it wrong: I'm just saying that the gravitational effect of other planets is not something I'm going to lose sleep over.

but think of the effect the moon has on the earth
allign a bunch of other planets increase the pull by a factor of X surely trees will be being uprooted / cars start floating

i'm not one of this brigade ( see below ) but i am curious about the effects

one of my favourite photo's ever just look at the cat's face .. just look at it's face

Oh, and Venus will be visiting the seven sisters soon.

My take on this from Monday night (although Venus will be closer to Pleiades tonight).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/cyclingnut/moon.jpg

It was beautiful to see a crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter shining brightly in the early evening sky the other night... Magical sight..

I could have got Jupiter in the shot if I was 30 mins earlier. Unfortunately it was behind some trees by the time I stepped out into the back garden.

Went to an astronomy thing last night at Uni of Surrey where my sister's boyfriend is studying Physics, saw Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and the Moon through some awesome telescopes, missed out on the Orion Nebula as the fuck off huge motorised telescope had an issue just as I got there. This is a photo of the moon I took using someone's adaptor on one of the medium sized scopes that were there:

moar planets from two days ago - oof, they're a bit rough

Sweeeet moon photo. Much better than mine!!

That saturn pic is just about the coolest thing ever. I mean I realise there are better pictures out there, but the thought that a hobbyist (which is what I assume you are) can see such wonderful things blows my mind.

There's some space station passing overhead here early evenings. Need more info..

Satellite tracker for android...

http://www.appbrain.com/app/satellite-ar/com.agi.android.augmentedreality

Haven't got anywhere dark and clear enough to use it properly yet so don't know it's real worth.

Yep, just a hobbyist - in fact a very incompetent one. There are folks turning out far better photos than this with similar amateur gear in their back gardens. Saturn can look far better than this when viewed in the eyepiece - none of that fuzziness and purple fringing - but it needs to be a bit higher in the sky, which involves waiting until the early hours of the morning.

There's some space station passing overhead here early evenings. Need more info..

have a look at ludds picture of it a page or two back

...and in my avatar.

Death Star!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17665397

story about light pollution over the UK

good to see this getting a bit of airtime.

Last night's TNRC into Kent really hammered home to me how bad the light pollution is - within half an hour of leaving St Mary Cray we were under a starlit sky where the background was really black and there were so many stars that the familar constellation shapes were quite hard to pick out. Looking back to London it looked like some hellish vision of sulphurous orange glare.

http://vimeo.com/40136171

Yep, got somewhere near Ealing with a solar telescope, so going to see it. Hopefully the weather is good.

last one this century.

This episode of Frontiers is quite interesting - all about how the transit has come at a really useful time to help calibrate the new extra-solar planet hunting techniques.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01j5nx1/Frontiers_Transit_of_Venus/

spotted..

1 Attachment

probably about as good a view as was available this morning
nurse holiday did you get up for it in the end ?

some wanker in aus on the radio this morning said he saw it after having travelled 600km inland and finding beautifully clear sunny skies
WANKER