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Anyone for an astronomy thread?

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    I'm hoping so.

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      Thanks for the tip. I've looked it up and we will supposedly get a good show Sunday night.

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        Wonderful seeing conditions around my way this evening, with the days rain followed by cloudless skies leaving things crystal clear. My benchmark for what qualifies as very good is being able to see the Milky Way with the naked eye, and there it is tonight.

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          Saw 3 or 4 last night while laying on a sunlounger by our private pool with a beer next to me.
          I'll probably try again tonight.

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            The Parker Solar probe is whizzing off to become the a) fastest thing we've ever made b) become the thing that goes nearer the sun than anything we'd tried before. Heading off to learn about the solar wind, to figure out what it is, how it works, how to protect astronauts from it and how to protect the earth from it frying all electronic systems. It's a grown up space thing, operating at the cutting edge of our abilities, to learn things about something important that we know very little about. Exactly the sort of thing that any sane person would like to see.



            Meanwhile Trump is doing his big thing in space that looks big, but doesn't cost any money, and that is "Space Force". Something that sounds really big and strong, and sounds like the future in the 1950's, which will go down really well with his low information older voters. While allowing the US govt to funnel a lot of money to Lockheed martin and Boeing. Now that is the cynical view of it. It's equally likely that he was sitting bored in some briefing while Mike Pence was droning on about space policy, and the dementing 8 year old with a limited attention span looks at the rocket landing on its tail and starts thinking about "Pew-Pew". I mean Look at the way he talks about it. It doesn't seem like he's thought about it too much.

            It's nuts. America can't yet launch humans into space, and trump is talking about building a space force. Now really all this boils down to is moving control of the space element of the military from the Air Force, to a new military bureaucracy. now the Pentagon really isn't a fan of this because a) this is pointless b) it strips things from the Air Force, which they're not keen on and c) the entire thrust of American military policy is to reduce the distinction between the various branches of the military to make them work better together.

            Essentially, it's not enough that they do the traditional new president thing of switching the unfunded target for human exploration from the moon to mars, or from mars to the moon, to put it off for another 8 years. They need to do something involving bureaucracy here on earth. You can only assume that they're going to wind up doing something completely negative, purely because they not ignoring this area. Meanwhile the Senate held a hearing about what the US is doing about going to Mars by 2030, even though the white house has told NASA to go to the Moon. The hearing took place with no witnesses from either NASA, who were supposed to be carrying out this plan, or Spacex who are actually building a rocket that can actually go there. The reason they didn't call NASA witnesses is that NASA would have told them that "We're doing nothing about going to Mars, we were told to go to the Moon." Sometimes the American political system can be extremely confusing.
            Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 13-08-2018, 13:01.

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              So far, so Trump, eh.

              I watched the Parker Solar Probe's launch yesterday, having watched the abortive first attempt the day before that was called off with like a minute to go. Amazing bit of kit, and apparently the first time NASA have ever named a spacecraft after a living person. Dr Eugene Parker himself was present to witness it (and be interviewed shortly afterward), aged 91, over 60 years since he first developed the theory of the solar wind.

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                Quick question for you amateur astronomers: that bright thing in the sky which right now, from the UK, is due south maybe a tiny bit east, and pretty low in the sky (20 degrees above horizon perhaps) - so maybe 10 degrees to the left of the moon and a tiny bit lower - is that Venus?

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                  Have you got a smart device? Download Star Walk and just point it at the object.

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                    Reading that news about ice found on the surface of the moon, I wonder if one major hurdle to a permanent base has not been cleared. Provided the quantities are substantial enough...

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                      I don't know if it matters that much tbh. It would depend on what you want to use it for. Mining it is going to require a lot of specialized heavy equipment, and doing anything with it would also require specialized heavy equipment. And it's really hard to get lots of really heavy equipment to the moon. There was talk of using it to create hydrogen and oxygen for spaceship fuel, but the advent of reusable rockets, and the likely future developments on these lines is going to mean that it is always easier to launch fuel from earth, than the moon.

                      Something that is important to remember about the moon, is that the lack of atmosphere makes it a massive throbbing pain in the arse to land on, and also to get back from. If you send a rocket ship to mars, it going to use the martian atmosphere, such as it is, to wipe off 90% of of the speed of the rocket, and you only need to be heading off to mars with enough fuel to slow you down by the 10% needed to ensure that you arrive on the surface of the planet mars travelling at exactly 0 m/s. You then spend the next 2 years waiting for the opportunity to go home, manufacturing fuel out of the atmosphere, and out of water.

                      If you go to the moon, the lack of atmosphere, means that you have to arrive there carrying enough fuel to completely cancel out 100% of your speed. and then you have to be carrying enough fuel to get you home. To give you an idea of the impact of this, this planned rocket that SpaceX are building right now, can go to the Moon or Mars. But it requires one launch of a shuttle, and five launches of a tanker, to send 150 tonnes to mars. But it would require one launch of a shuttle, and 10 tanker launches to get 50 tonnes to the surface of the moon and back. But you wouldn't have to wait two years to go back.

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                        Originally posted by Evariste Euler Gauss View Post
                        Quick question for you amateur astronomers: that bright thing in the sky which right now, from the UK, is due south maybe a tiny bit east, and pretty low in the sky (20 degrees above horizon perhaps) - so maybe 10 degrees to the left of the moon and a tiny bit lower - is that Venus?
                        Whatever it is, it won't be Venus. The latter is poetically known as the "Morning Star" or "Evening Star" because it is invariably found near the Sun in the sky from our perspective here on Earth, due to being closer to it than we are. So at the moment it's the bright thing (brighter than anything else in the night sky bar the Moon) you'll see in the west for not long after sunset, following the Sun down.

                        I can't remember where the Moon was the last night or two but you'll find that Jupiter and Saturn are to be seen to the south, with the latter some way further east (i.e. to the left) and lower down, i.e. rising later in the night and not making it as high above the horizon. Jupiter is brighter than anything bar the Moon and Venus, Saturn is bright too but not so much so. Binoculars and a steady hand will show the latter has characteristic 'ears', which are the rings stretching out on either side of the planet.

                        As GY suggests, there's some good and free apps available. I have two on my phone, Star Chart and [Google] Sky Map, both of which enable you to hold your device up to the region of sky and show what you should be seeing in that same direction (provided you've got some sort of compass sensor in it), with constellations marked out and the paths of the planets and so forth.
                        Last edited by Various Artist; 23-08-2018, 16:38.

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                          Could Venus. In Cyprus last week we could see Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars all up just after sundown.

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                            Not due south-maybe-a-tiny-bit-east though! Jupiter, Saturn then Mars all come up in that direction, but Venus is much further round to the west.

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                              Mars is just below the Moon tonight, by the way and its been atypically bright lately so easier than normal to confuse with the giant planets.

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                                We’re still getting Venus and Mars nice and bright in the evening sky, roughly opposite one another. Both about 20 degrees elevation, Venus WNW and Mars SSE. Jupiter above but gradually getting nearer Venus.
                                Last edited by Sits; 24-08-2018, 02:13.

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                                  Was trying to work out last night what the southern hemisphere perspective on the current arrangement is, Sits. Did Mars appear just above the Moon from your point of view?

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                                    Thanks all, and especially VA. Sounds as if it must have been Mars that I was looking at.

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                                      Originally posted by Various Artist View Post
                                      Was trying to work out last night what the southern hemisphere perspective on the current arrangement is, Sits. Did Mars appear just above the Moon from your point of view?
                                      I'm not paying terribly close attention, but last time a saw a planet in close proximity to the moon it was Venus, below and to the left of the moon. Mars was opposite in the sky.

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                                        As this appalling photo shows, my memory is playing tricks, although this is a month ago so it's changed since:

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                                          Insight touches down on Mars!!!

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                                            Proper sci-fi jet landing too. None of this sky hook or bouncy ball stuff.

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                                              hah, I don't think some of their instruments would have appreciated bouncing across the surface. That's a big step forward for them.

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                                                It has a twitter account if anyone is interested @NASAInSight

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                                                  I thought it was a bit twee. I had to give up when I read something like "Mars, I feel you". Otherwise this is of course brilliant.

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                                                    I find stuff like this just amazing.

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