Extreme astronomy

How would you describe the feeling you get

stargazer77 — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:20:40 GMT

When it's you and the sky, and you're out there observing. How would you describe the feeling of Astronomy?

I have yet to find words to describe astronomy, the closest I've come is Irriplacable. For me, it's the thought of actually seeing and observing things that are millions of light years away from our own planet. Even just looking at Saturn from my 6 inch reflector makes me think about how there is so much more out there than what crosses the mind daily. It's like, that's one of the only things that doesn't have any limits, the police or FBI can't control it. Which makes it almost scary, but to a point where I just can't get enough of it.

That's as close as I can get with words.

How about you?

Are You Willing To Admit To...?

mr Q — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:44:15 GMT

Breaking (accidentally, of course) some of your observing equipment ? I'm now going to set myself up for a curse by admitting that so far, I have not. I've come close (tripping on mount legs, dropping oculars on the grass, etc.) but so far the Gods of observing have been good to me. How about you? If you are willing to admit to a serious breakage, at least my sympathies are with you!

Mr Q

Scary meteors

space_cowboy — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:05:55 GMT

on 7-18-09 i witnessed an amazing meteor shower, or not shower. The 200 or so meteors we saw came in from multiple directions and some of them where just plain scary to behold, there where about six of them that left huge smoke trails through the sky and on of those skipped twice through the atmosphere from one horizon to the other and left impressive smoke trails the entire way, i have only seen smoke trails in movies and seeing them in real life was quite a amazing sight. I am not sure what the event was or why we witnessed so many or why we saw some that where big enough and low enough to leave the smoke trails. the smoke trails where only visible for ten or 15 seconds after the strike and then i think they cooled and dispersed a tad and just faded from view. but in all i saw enough of that for a life time cause some of the trails where big enough to make me wonder just what would happen if they touched down. By the way i was only 200 ft above sea level in the town of Shelton WA. Light pollution was minimal and mostly on the horizons, i imagine in the mountains it would have been grand to watch. Id love to know if anyone could name the event or if sounds more like a regular occurance, I took my cabin of kids out to the field through out the week and they saw a few meteors too and started asking all sorts of questions which i would like to answer at next years camp.

4 large meteors and 2 smaller ones.

dmk_usa — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:33:42 GMT

Hello,

I am writing this post to see if anybody else had seen these spectacular rocks. Residing in central Florida, On the morning of Aug 11th 1:15 am Eastern time, I spotted a vertical streak of light out of the northwest. Astonished and curious at this light I continued to watch. The light started making its way overhead, clearly visible were 4 large rocks with white end trails in a single file line. There were 2 smaller rocks with white end trails a bit further south. They lasted about 20 seconds in the sky before departing southeast. Another strange part was that the rocks were not spinning.

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Coldest Weather

Bianchina3 — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 01:26:12 GMT

What is the coldest weather you have observed in?

Ever Been To A Professional Observatory?

mr Q — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:16:32 GMT

Many years ago I visited the Ladd Observatory at Brown University in Providence, RI. I was treated with a look through its 1890s 12" refractor after a public meeting by the university's astronomy club.

I patiently waited for all the attendants to leave and then asked the club member if I could pick out something to look at. He asked what I wanted to look at and I said the Pleiades. He said O.K. but I would have to move the dome's roof slit myself for the view. I was surprised at how easy the dome roof turned by chains since it was built back in the 1890s. I got a nice look at Alcyone and detected some of the cluster's faint nebulosity around some of the other cluster's members.

Because he was in kind of a rush to close up the observatory, my observation was short but he invited me back for more observing time, which I now regret to not taking advantage of.

It seemed my knowledge of the sky gave me a special treat at the scope, since all the others attending the meeting knew very little about astronomy.

So I'm wondering if anyone else had had a similar experience at a professional observatory. A look at the observatory and its scope can be seen at the Ladd home page (Ladd Observatory).

Mr Q

Amateur astronomy and the war effort

zachsdad — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:58:10 GMT

According to Dave Kreige at Obsession the mirror in the photo in the attached link is a 25" Galaxy mirror. One of three he provided to Raytheon for the development of this morter-shell blasting laser weapon.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/02/more-lasers-vs.html

Burning Up

TilburyN — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:50:25 GMT

Tonite at aprox 9:45 in the Westenr Australia i viewed a burning up something in the southern sky about the height of the crux did anyone else view this is this part of a metor shower or the satlies that colided the toher day??

Fed up with streetlights?

RedIrocZ-28 — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 17:51:26 GMT

I have only one streetlight to contend with in my backyard. Unfortunately its located where all the cool stuff is. I know that they work on a photo eye and therefore would shut off were enough light shined at that photosensor.

Anyone ever tried to use the Orion Laser Pointer to turn off a street light remotely? I am going to try it. Mark my words.

Not sure if this is "extreme" but I guess I am going to an extreme to reclaim a little bit of my dark skys.

Our forum policies, including no advertising (updated 12/18/2008)

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fireball sighting

craterdavy — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:25:56 GMT

hello, i live in western maine, and in early nov. i saw a fireball low and slow, going west to east.,.,.,. did anyone else see it? im not sure of the time or date , so i can not be more specific,,, good gazin to all,.,.,.,

Solar eclipse and Jupiter occultation on Jan 26 (Bali, ID)

Night sky surfer — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 13:28:41 GMT

Next January I go for a few weeks on a trip to Bali and I take my scope and camera with me. On Jan 26 there is a partial eclipse (84%) visible in late afternoon which I will observe (if it is not cloudy) and a few hours before the Moon will occult Jupiter VERY CLOSE to the Sun.

A few years ago I saw Mercury which was less bright ( -0.7) only 7 degrees from the Sun with the same 10cm scope.

Does anybody have experience with observing Jupiter so close (2 degrees) from the Sun ?

Multiple Satellites

Kyle — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:23:40 GMT

While naked-eye observing in perfectly dark skies in northern California (10 Pleiads visible!) I noticed something amazing. I spotted to slow-moving lights in the sky, obviously satellites. They were moving at the same speed, only around 10 degrees apart from each other, and in roughly parallel lines.

Has anyone seen something like this? I'd like to know.

Disappearing Moon

Kyle — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:31:27 GMT

Something interesting i'd like to share with you

On July 4, I had just finished viewing the fireworks when i noticed the beautiful crescent moon hanging low around five degrees above the horizon. After looking for a minute, I noticed something very strange: The moon began to disappear! Slowly, from the bottom, it began disappear into blackness. It did not sink behind mountains, it was too high for any nearby.

The only explanation I can think of is that it sank behind the smoke clouds whipped up by recent fires. I saw a huge smoke cloud rising from the mountains in June, BTW.

Daylight stars viewing

Night sky surfer — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 10:10:28 GMT

Does somebody of you have experience in seeing stars at daytime ?

I have two categories:
1: without aid of an optical device (eyeglasses allowed of course)
2: with binos and telescopes

My experiences of (1)

Venus, in some rare cases Jupiter and in one occasinal case in March 1986 in Canberra ACT Australia I searched and found Sirius in an 80mm telescope and peered beside the scope and found the very faint dot. Hard to keep it in sight.

My experiences of (2)
Virtually all 1st magnitude stars and sometimes even 2nd and 3rd mag stars, e.g. Beta Cygni and its companion (Sun was 10o above the horizon). In a recent case (Feb 2008, Red Sea coast of Egypt) I saw Antares with the Televue Genesis using 36x power and of course, Venus and Jupiter just from the balcony of my resort room.
I could find Venus with the naked eye and found Jupiter with the 15x70.
Another occation (Jan 2007 Sharm el Sheikh, another Egypt holiday) I found Mercury (mv = +0.1) with the same scope.

What I did not manage until now is seeing stars with the naked eye from a commercial airliner. The sky should be darker blue on 10km altitude.

I am very interested in experiences of somebody else.

Asteroid while viewing jupiter?

pymi — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:47:11 GMT

Hello,

I just got my tasco 60mmx800mm telescope out last night for the first time and was viewing the planets Mars,Saturn and Jupiter with a Konig 12mm wide field of view eyepiece.

I started viewing Jupiter after it got high enough to see and was awestruck with the view of it and it's moons but to top it off while viewing it at around 3:10 AM ET a object entered from the left and crossed the field of view in about 1-2 seconds, it looked like the size of and brightness of one of Jupiters moons.

Could this have been a Asteroid?

Thanks,

Pymi

Unidentified Moving object

rehoboth21 — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:35:27 GMT

On sunday morning, about 4 a.m. eastern time me and a friend were out observing the the eastern sky when i moved my 12" dob about 5 degrees north of m21, we found a very small blinking object, it was blinking once about every 3-5 seconds and it was moving in an irregular pattern in the field of view, it stayed in the field of view for about 10 minutes it never disappeared but after looking at it for about 20 mins we went on to something else. Anyone have any idea what it could be? i have never seen anything like it.

What did I see?

Regina Phallange — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:09:27 GMT

Hi everyone. This is my first post on the forum. I hope someone can help with my question.
Last August, I was in my backyard enjoying the meteor shower. I live in southern Ontario.

As I was looking up, I saw this 'thing' move slowly across the sky, in a south-westerly direction, and I watched it for several seconds before it disappeared. From my perspective, it looked like it was a few inches long, but the puzzling thing is that it looked like a satellite, as in a typical communications satellite, with solar panels etc.

It can't possibly have been a satellite, could it? I know there are satellites which orbit relatively low, but even then...

Does anyone know what it may have been?

Thanks everyone!

Transits from others planets

ricci — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:46:10 GMT

Transits as seen from other planets of our Solar Sistem. www.pierpaoloricci.it/dati/transiti_eng.htm

Occultations between planets as seen from other planets

ricci — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:24:33 GMT

Occultations between planets as seen from other planets www.pierpaoloricci.it/dati/occdapia_eng.htm

POSSIBLE MARTIAN IMPACT IN JANUARY

billyboy — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:42:07 GMT

I THOUGHT THIS SITE WOULD BE FULL OF QUESTIONS AND CONJECTURES ON THE REPURCUSSIONS IF ANY OF THE THE POSSIBLE 1-75 CHANCE OF A ASTEROID? OR OTHER IMPACTING MARS IF THERE IS AN IMPACT, HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE A SHOCK WAVE TO REACH EARTH? IF ANY...

BILLY BOY

Super Nova 1987a Siting?

afs0628 — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:52:42 GMT

I was watching a History channel show about a super nova that occurred in 1987 and recalled that this was around the same time I saw what I considered a strange occurrence in the night sky. I remember when this happened because 1987 was the only year I was living in an apartment. I got up during the late hours of the night, or early morning hours, depending on one's perspective, I looked out of my third floor balcony patio door, which faced west, and saw two large glowing lights in the sky, one above the other. The bright light on the top was quickly fading out. But the other light continued to glow. It faded out in about 20 minutes or so. I searched images and only found pictures of one glowing light. But I clearly remember two. Did I see super nova 1987a or was this something else?

3 Mar. 2008 observing report

jr.astronomer1992 — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:05:44 GMT

alrighty guys. got out last night in the freezing cold of iowa for some observing. Totally worth it...

got some pics of orion, pleadies, cassiopea, hyades. also got to see andromedia through some binos!!!!

winter observing report

MaxKas — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:03:30 GMT

alright it is wednesday, feb.27, 2008, and i am going to go brave the outside. It is 15 deg. outside but the weather channel said it feels like 5. The weather is somewhat cloudy right now but the reports say its going to clear up somewhat to just be partly cloudy. At this point i dont care, i will brave the cold and the partly cloudy just for some views of saturn and some wonderful sky objects. I really hope that the clouds can just part a little bit? plz clouds. Right now i have my scope all set up in the garage just cooling and now i am going to wait. Hopefully none of u are having this problem but im sure if ur in the northern part of the U.S. then u are. I will be sure to update if i can get some good observing in. Best luck to u all!