JCC The All-New, All-Different JCC Astronomy Thread

Can't find an open one via the google search & I really wanna share this clip of the NZ night time sky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz7XWtWJPDE

Edit: and this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKvq4A7v1hc



The original thread does not exist in our archives.

Oh my Gawd...it's a double galaxy!!!!!!!

If you can't find it, I tend to think it doesn't exist.

But very cool videos!

I didn't look as hard as I usually do.

I figure a mod will let me know if there's an open Astronomy thread more suited to this sort of thing, and I'll repost there and have this locked.

The best thing I ever saw through a telescope was the Shoemaker-Levy event on Jupiter. We tracked the whole thing from seeing Jupiter before the impact, to seeing the scars a few hours later thanks to Jupiter's fast rotation.

The other night my friends and I went to a viewing session with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. It was incredible. They had a whole variety of telescopes set up, and we got to see Saturn's rings, and you could see Titan as this little red dat off to the left. It was just mind-blowing. We also got to see the Space Station go by. (Then we had to leave because all my friends showed up in shorts, because apparently, mosquitoes don't come out after dark. wth?)

I'm going camping waaay out in the middle of nowhere for the next few nights, so I expect I'll get to see lots of cool stuff.

Those are amazing. I read once that Aboriginal tribes in the Oceania area were the only ones in the world that had negative constellations. The Milky Way was so bright that they named constellations out of the dark spots within it.

My telescope (plus my Dad!):

[image=http://www.bluealert.co.uk/images/photos/celestron.jpg]

I remember seeing Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997, in my yard without a telescope. It was like a fuzzy white ball in space.

I've seen the planet Mars on occasion, too. Just a little red dot in the sky, but what wonders it promises....

I like to gaze at the big bluish black thing.

It promises wonders?

my god it's full of stars.

Dark.

That would be awesome. I have to drive outside the city to see anything.

Oooh nice, Everton! The telescope too.

Yeah, I've always wanted to see the sky without any light pollution at all. I had a chance in Australia a few years ago in the middle of the Outback, but it was too cold . Even outside the city in central Texas you can see the light pollution from big cities on the horizon. We used to climb up to the top of Enchanted Rock at night and you could see exactly where Austin, San Marcos, and San Antonio are.

I have been in the middle of the Pacific, on many a cloudless night, and looked up. I have no words for how beautiful the night sky is at that time.

I suddenly noticed a sea of stars had popped into existence somewhere between Junction and El Paso. Pulled over and looked up and felt disoriented. It's like you're in the sky with them. My friend wouldn't even get out of the car. "I saw this **** all the time in the Navy."

Massive Blue Supergiant Star discovered

265 times the mass of our own Sun!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10663330

Not that there's much chance of seeing it this far north, but this part of the country is under a massive fog cloud anyway.

Sam, what's the weather like in Christchurch? My kids are down there at the moment, I'm hoping they may see it tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrCWd8yT2OA

My brother and I have been doing a lot of astronomy since my parents bought a house up in the mountains (great skies up there). My brother bought this telescope used, and we were unable to find anything with it besides the great nebula in orion. However, with months of practice we were able to see Saturn's rings and moons, though still unable to locate anything else, even with the aid of Stellarium.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago my brother bought a red dot reflex sight for the telescope, and with the aid of Stellarium, a compass, a Motorola Droid taped to the telescope to tell us its inclination, the red dot sight, and the fact that more objects are up during these summer months we've been finding all sorts of stuff.

Have you managed to take any photos through it?

Also, the Aurora Borealis is possible/likely to make an appearance tonight for those of you towards the north of the Northern Hemisphere.

No chance. It's been dull and overcast all day. Funny, I've seen the borealis before, but never the australis.

We got some blurry pics of Andromeda, its hard to get it to focus with the camera attachment.