Stars / Astronomy / Astrophotography / Telescopes / Astro

Get up for it??? I stayed up all night... Live NASA feed all night followed by some telescope action. All that effort and I got 3 seconds of it just near the edge, and 5 seconds of it transitioning out from in front of the sun. Clouds were a total bastard.

Totally worth it though, looked awesome.

^that. now i will have to stay alive untill 2117

^ cryogenic stasis machine working fine now is it ? ironed out the issues you had last month ?

yes all fixed now, colnago cryostat installed and ready for my bod. just need to loose a few pounds and I will fit right in.

i guess it was the flux capacitors overloading the neutron streams like i told you

#don'twantosayitoldyousobutidid#

that and the sporadic quantum accelerator frammitz was just out by 30nm

OK, this thread's had a couple of months' rest. Time for some stars, these ones shot from the patio of a house I stayed in just west of Cahors.

saw this last night driving back from Glasgow about 12.30 am - very low on the horizon and very bright

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Nd8nV38Sg

Sauron is real:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/oct/04/eye-sky-nasa-helix-nebula#zoomed-picture

Aurora Borealis is supposedly visible in Northern Scotland this evening. Not from East London though, unfortunately.

Ballaugh beach, Isle of man. not my pics. truly magical.

leonid shower this weekend

Oh, nicely played! And forecast is for clear skies down this way!

I watched them in the early hours of the morning back in, I think, 1999 or 2000 when they put on an amazing show. Even through broken cloud and under Forest Hill's polluted skies, there were very few moments when there wasn't at least one meteor visible. I was glad that my youngest son woke me up for that.

just reading about that, i want to see something like this- 1966
"Historically, this shower has produced some of the greatest meteor storms in history – at least one in living memory, 1966 – with rates as high as thousands of meteors per minute during a span of 15 minutes on the morning of November 17, 1966. Indeed, on that beautiful night in 1966, the meteors did, briefly, fall like rain. Some who witnessed the 1966 Leonid meteor storm said they felt as if they needed to grip the ground, so strong was the impression of Earth plowing along through space"

cooooooool

sadly I don't think we're due another Leonid "supershower" for a good many years - I think they run on a 33 year cycle, meaning that earth only passes through the really dense part of the orbiting debris stream once every 33 passes. But the rest of the stream can still put on a good show.

Leonids are predicted to be low rates this year. You need to look after midnight for Leonids as the radiant doesn't rise until after 22:30. You will not see any before this time and very few for a few hours afterward. Best time to look is before dawn on 17th November. There could be another peak on the morning of the 20th as well.

Better to look forward to the Geminids which is the best shower of the year IMO, they are due to peak on the night of 13/14 December. Best rates are usually around 1-2am but you will see them before midnight as the radiant is already high by then. There is no Moon interference this year as well.

Couple of things to look forward to over the next week or so...

27th November - Morning Sky
Saturn and Venus very close together in the pre-dawn sky. Look rather low down in the southeast from around 6.30am. Venus is unmistakable as the brightest point of light in the sky. Saturn will be less than a degree away above it. Also try and spot Mercury to the lower left of the pairing. Mercury has its best morning apparition of 2012 in late November and early December. It is very easy to spot if the sky is clear and you have an unobstructed horizon.

28th/29th November - Evening Sky
The Moon and Jupiter have a close conjunction on this night. Jupiter will be the bright object just to the upper left of the very nearly Full Moon. They are closest together just before 1am on the 29th. The pair are close to the V-shaped head of Taurus the Bull, also known as the Hyades.

The Moon and Jupiter looking groovy tonight.

+1

Top quality moon around 4:30pm. Full, Big, Low, Orange.

Who's ready for tomorrow's opposition of Jupiter? Here's a shot I took on Friday night when Jupiter was a mere 380 million miles away and therefore quite easy to photograph.

^cool

The annual Geminids meteor shower will reach its peak late on Thursday night and into early Friday morning.

From BBC

And what does that mean for us Virgos?

The annual Geminids meteor shower will reach its peak late on Thursday night and into early Friday morning.

From BBC

And after night after night of clear starry skies, we will be treated a blanket of cloud reflecting all the street lighting instead

And what does that mean for us Virgos?

i forsee a great gnashing of teeeth and wailing on sunday
i see a fat spanish person smiling wearing full red kit
i forsee numerous pairs of red trousers