St. Lou, MO Astronomy

Of course you would be standing behind something. I can't check out your bod...

 

police blotters do not count as being in the newspaper Jon

 

1st time: For being part of the local SCA group.
2nd time: Being in charge of an astronomy club event last December during a major solar storm.
3rd time: this one.

 

I was on the front page of the St. Charles/St. Peters/O'Fallon paper once. Of course, you couldn't see my face, I had my fencing mask on and I was bouting my friend in a fencing demonstration in Downtown Old St. Charles(Main Street).

 

Front page of the SLPD Everyday section for my gender-equality bake sale.

Congrats though Jon. You even got your pictures printed in there which is even more exciting than having you in there.

 

Look what I just bought today!

I should have it in a week and 1/2

 

WOW!!!! That's a cool toy!

 

Jon, I deeply envy you. But for real, that 'scope looks amazing. Oh, yea, I am coming out of ultraIDLEmode.

 

No kidding Mike!...It's been forever. Welcome back.

 

I just paid for my scope today. It should be shipped Friday. So I should have it within a week after that.

And welcome back _Mike_. Can we look forward to more of your senseless polls?

 

Jon, I hope the mail treats your scope well. And yes, I am plotin- er planing a new one.

 

_Mike_: What kind are you plot... planning on getting? Ever considered building your own?

In other news, the Springfield newspaper Emailed me again asking for assistance in writing an article for the Outdoors section on the "Winter Sky". I'm really getting popular or something.

 

Don't let it get to your head Jon.

 

Typed this up for the Astronomy Club today. Figured I'd share it here too since I'm so nice.

OAAC Random Astronomy Updates

v. 4.0

December 1, 2004

Topics this Article
- Robotic Lunar Base Receives International Support
- Moon Meteor Found in Antarctica
- Chandra Finds Ancient Supermassive Black Hole
- Safely De-orbiting Satellites
- Multiple Black Holes in Milky Way?s center
- Young Galaxy Discovered

Robotic Lunar Base Receives International Support
In his Vision for Space Exploration, President Bush proposes to have a permanent human presence on the moon by 2024. The first step in this endeavor would be sending autonomous robots to begin constructing a habitat suitable for human occupation. Late last month, India?s Physical Research Laboratory and the Indian Space Research Organization to discuss several projects held a meeting. Scientists and engineers from India, China, Japan, the US, and many countries in Europe recommended making the first steps of this program with joint scientific analysis between the countries. Once this step would be complete, the next step would be ?lunar landers cooperating into an international lunar robotic village before 2014.? Another meeting will be held in Montreal, Canada next year.
Many countries are already eagerly pursuing lunar missions. Earlier last month, the ESA?s SMART-1 probe entered orbit around the moon, and several other missions are slated to be launched in the near future including missions from Japan and China. India also began construction of its Chardrayaan-1 probe recently which will map the moon?s surface of the moon at high resolutions in several wavelengths. In the US, NASA is working on the Moon Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Moon Meteor Found in Antarctica
One of the best places to find meteors that have landed on Earth is in Antarctica. There, meteors will stand out and since there is no actual land, anything that?s not ice must have come from space. The large majority of these fallen space rocks are ordinary pieces of asteroids. However, every so often, a piece of the moon (or even more rare, Mars) will be discovered. A meteor collecting survey last year picked up around 1000 rocks. After analysis at the Smithsonian Institute, one of these meteors ended up being lunar in origin. This makes it one of 30 confirmed meteors that have come from the moon. Such rocks are thrown from their parent bodies as ejecta in large collisions and are important because they allow scientists to study locations on the moon that have not been visited by humans.

Chandra Finds Ancient Supermassive Black Hole
Recently, the Chandra X-Ray observatory discovered a supermassive black hole with roughly 1 billion solar masses, producing as much energy from infalling matter as 20 trillion suns. The distance to this black hole has been placed at 12.7 billion light years, which would imply that it formed within the first billion years of the Big Bang. Other supermassive black holes at similar masses and distances have been detected as well. These black holes forming so quickly after the Big Bang are most likely the cores of newly forming galaxies.

Safely De-orbiting Satellites
Since humans first journeyed beyond Earth?s atmosphere, we have been leaving behind bits of machinery from stages of boosters, to dead satellites, to lens caps, to chips of paint. Many of these items pose a potential risk to any future missions. Even a chip of paint, when traveling at such high speeds has been enough to cause noticeable damage to the space shuttle. Most of the time, when a satellite fails it is left in its orbit to decay naturally. For objects in low Earth orbit, this decay time will be usually only a few years. But ones in higher orbits (700km+) will remain in orbit for hundreds of years.
In order to more quickly de-orbit these satellites, a new device known as the Terminator Tether is under development. This small device can be attached to the body of a satellite. It remains dormant, waking up periodically to see if the satellite

 

That's interesting Jon! Very cool. I will have to show this to my astronomy/meterology teacher.

 

Today's been a good day.

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/DVC0079.JPG]
What have we here?

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/DVC0080.JPG]
Ooh! Packing peanuts! What a great present.

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/DVC0082.JPG]
Hmm... Buried treasure?

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/DVC0083.JPG]
Random pink packing peanut?

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/DVC0084.JPG]
More buried treasure!

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/DVC0085.JPG]
Look what else I found in there.

But now what do I do with all the packing peanuts?

How about this:
[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/DVC0091.JPG]

Basically, I got the tripod, camera, and eyepieces for my telescope today. The actual scope should be here Monday.

However, I'm going to try to head out of town tonight and do a little bit of photography with the new camera and my roomate's telescope if he's interested.

 

D.


O.


R.


K.

 

I personally like the bubble wrapping better...

 

I did get a chance to go out and take pictures. Alas, my roomate's telescope is incompatable with photography. I thought I could put the camera at the prime focus, but apparently, his focal length is too long

However, I did quite few shots of the moon, some star trails, a few of the Orion nebula with a telephoto lens and a few others.

My girlfriend also took a picture of stars rising over a treetop. And as luck would have it, she got a meteor shooting straight through the center of her picture. So here's hoping it was bright enough because that will be a really cool picture if it does.

 

If the pic comes out, you oughta send it in to Astronomy Magazine or Sky and Telescope, maybe they'd put it in.

As for me, I'm re reading A.C. Clarke's Odyssey quadrilogy, so my interest in Astronomy is back to "freezing my butt off for a chance at a distant speck in the sky" levels

 

...so my interest in Astronomy is back to "freezing my butt off for a chance at a distant speck in the sky" levels.

LOL!!

 

You could always just go to the Planetarium and watch the sky there in the warm. You get a show with it too

 

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/1.JPG]
Time to go exploring again!

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/2.JPG]
Box in box?

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/3.JPG]
Hmm.. take it out.

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/4.JPG]
Anything in here?

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/5.JPG]
Ah ha!

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/6.JPG]
Bubbly blob!

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/7.JPG]
All set up.

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/8.JPG]
Another angle.

[image=http://s94958815.onlinehome.us/scope/9.JPG]
With the camera set up for magnified views.

 

You could always just go to the Planetarium and watch the sky there in the warm. You get a show with it too

Think they'd let me take my telescope?

 

BUBBLY BLOB!!!