Anyone for an astronomy thread?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Imagine what we will learn from the insight lander?

[Kevin S]

Get a load of Mars tonight. Reddest I've ever seen it, I'm sure.

[Various Artist]

That's annoying, it's behind trees from here now so can't compare. Great view of both Jupiter and Saturn in the southern sky either side of a fine gibbous Moon, though.

[Sits]

Mars, Saturn and a moon looking like a big smile all looked good from Mauritius last week.

#placedrop

[hobbes]

There have been 2 proper clear nights in the last fortnight. On one of which we had people over for dinner and the other I was at a gig.
My giant new telescope is getting lonely.
Still, Mars won't be much of a view. It's nearest approach has coincided with a global dust storm so it's just a big red blob right now.

[Kevin S]

Looks like we've still got a while to catch him at his most beautiful at least:
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essent...ometimes-faint

[Kevin S]

Ah, I've just read about what you mean hobbes - a global dust storm on Mars itself. In my case I was just looking at it with my naked eye, but I can imagine it would be very frustrating for someone with all the gear...

[Ginger Yellow]

Greenwich gets a telescope again. Not sure central London is the best place for £50k worth of observation equipment, but I guess it's primarily an educational/promotional thing.

[Janik]

I went round my parents for dinner last night, and the seeing conditions were good so my Mum dug her scope out. My highly scientific observation: Jupiter - still there.

[hobbes]

I was nerding up on the kit they have*.
Skywatcher guide scope, Takahashi wide field, Lunt Solar and a 14" Celestron Mak.

Even with light pollution, planetary and narrow band observing can be done well.

*Greenwich observatory, not your Mum.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Space. It's just so sexy.

[Sits]

Venus is absolutely massive here lately. God knows what it must look like away from light pollution.

[Gangster Octopus]

Water on Mars.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

oooh.

There were two near simultaneous rocket launches this morning. Ariane launched one of the galileo satellites from french Guyana, and when that was just about up in space, spaceX launched a load of iridium satellites from Vandenberg. It's impressive just how bad the fog is there. A rocket launch at night should be really easy to see, but these are almost entirely invisible to anyone over 2 km away from the launch.

I'd never seen an ariane launch before. It looks amazing. Particularly the bit from about 33 seconds on. The really eye catching thing about Ariane is the speed at which it leaves the pad. Those strap on boosters really give it a lot of welly.

[Gerontophile]

Just sat outside for about an hour, with my thought, and looking at the moon, and the thing slightly above and to the left.

It lasted the whole hour, so ... what was it?

(I was looking almost exactly, southwest.)

[Sits]

Well I'm crap at this stuff, and I live in completely the wrong place. But when I got home from work about three hours ago, a very bright Mars was in close proximity to the moon.

I'm sure those on here who understand these things will explain that being in the wrong hemisphere I'm seeing something completely different.

[hobbes]

Mars appears pretty near the moon in the sky right now. As does Saturn. Jupiter is SW while Mars is SE.

[Snake Plissken]

Mars is supposed to be visible isn't it?

[ad hoc]

Woohoo. Clouds cleared for the first time in weeks so we can see the lunar eclipse. And Mars doing something that I don't really understand too

[Diable Rouge]

As always during an Irish eclipse, skies totally overcast here.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

yep. Watching previews of the Blood moon, and it's so dark all the lights are on.

[ad hoc]

Clouds came back just about 30 seconds after the eclipse was full. Still cool though

[ad hoc]

Only my phone so terrible shot, but the eclipse is still on and still full. Mars is below

[Guy Profumo]

Perseids about to kick into full swing, people!

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

About nine weeks of clear skies in Lancs and the Perseids start and it's going to be cloudy all weekend. Hope Hobbes gets a good view from a dark beach in Cyprus.