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  • Various Artist
    replied
    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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  • The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
    replied
    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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  • hobbes
    replied
    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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  • Janik
    replied
    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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  • Sits
    replied
    Thanks for the tip. I've looked it up and we will supposedly get a good show Sunday night.

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  • hobbes
    replied
    I'm hoping so.

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  • Rogin the Armchair fan
    replied
    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.

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  • Guy Profumo
    replied
    Perseids about to kick into full swing, people!

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

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

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  • The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
    replied
    yep. Watching previews of the Blood moon, and it's so dark all the lights are on.

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  • Diable Rouge
    replied
    As always during an Irish eclipse, skies totally overcast here.

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  • ad hoc
    replied
    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

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  • Snake Plissken
    replied
    Mars is supposed to be visible isn't it?

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

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  • Sits
    replied
    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.

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  • Gerontophile
    replied
    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.)

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  • The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
    replied
    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.

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  • Gangster Octopus
    replied
    Water on Mars.

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

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  • The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
    replied
    Space. It's just so sexy.

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  • hobbes
    replied
    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.

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  • Janik
    replied
    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.

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  • Ginger Yellow
    replied
    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.

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  • Kevin S
    replied
    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...

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