Gfamily

38 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

I doubt very much anyone born before 1900 would have been able to imagine the transistor.

Do you mean in terms of "what it is", or "what it does" ?

"What it is" is a semiconductor device with 3 terminals

"What it does" is act as an amplifying device or as a simple switch.

It is clearly possible that someone could imagine what a transistor does - after all, that's what thermionic valves can do, and the first valves date not much later than 1900.

I'm not sure what this means in terms of thinking about alternative life forms, but it's clear that we can think of how we might recognise intelligence in other beings even if the beings aren't based on carbon and DNA, but there may be forms of intelligence that we wouldn't be able to imagine until we came across them. 

1 hour ago, 900SL said:

Imagine a water world where evolution has resulted in dextrous communal octopus like lifeforms, capable of conscious thought, able to communicate, use tools and tell jokes about sharks. 

No fire. No industrialization. Superb nuanced conversation, but no radio. 

It's possible that octopuses are already there - certainly they're capable of using tools, they are impressive problem solvers, so I wouldn't rule out being capable of conscious thought - not sure if they tell jokes though, they are primarily solitary living, so finding an audience may be an issue. 

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

3. Two winter guests
I don’t know how these two lacewings got in my scope, because a Mak-Newt is supposed to be a closed tube design. For the time being, these two critters can stay where they are. Most likely they will die when it gets really cold, and the bodies will end up behind the primary mirror. If I ever get the Feathertouch focuser that I ordered, I will need to open the tube anyway, at which time I will try to remove them.

I don't specifically know about Mak Newts, but the Mirror cell on a Newt is often somewhat free floating from the tube walls, so although it's closed at the top, it's not necessarily hermetically sealed at the mirror end. 

I managed to leave one of my Mak Cass's stored without a cover to the visual back and got a spider inside.  I can only guess it starved to death.

An Oil Filter removal wrench* allowed me to remove the front correction plate and clear away my unwanted guest and the remains of its web

* get one with a strap rather a chain** (hopefully you'd realise that a chain wouldn't be appropriate) - also, before removing the correcting plate, use 2 pieces of tape on the OTA and the end collar to allow you to return it to the original alignment. 

** top tip - also useful for very stuck jamjar lids.  

2 hours ago, Paul M said:

It all makes me wonder; what progress has there been in manned spaceflight in the last 50 years?

Calling it 'crewed spaceflight' is a significant progress for one !!!

Not much less seriously was the following... 

• At our Astro Club meeting this evening, I mentioned that it was the 49th anniversary launch of the last Skylab mission. This lasted almost 3 months and gave rise to a significant reappraisal of the workloads expected from astronauts.
• Less significantly, at the nom nom level, there have been advances in astronaut nutrition options - feeding a very "tech  crew" for 10/20 days is very different to the expectations of a 'sci /maint crew' for multiple months 

Apologies if I've missed it, but I don't think I've seen any mention of the newest Luke Jerram art creation on here. 

I'm sure many of us have seen his previous pieces, Museum of the Moon and Gaia (for those not familiar, they are 7 metre diameter globes with high resolution surface images of the Moon and Earth respectively). 

We've been to see these in a number of locations - although  they are the same physical entities, I find that my response varies depending on their location - so it's worth travelling to see them in different locations if you can. 

Anyhow, I've just seen that his 2019 creation, Mars, is now touring  - using NASA MRO imaging, it'll provide the same experience of the Red Planet.

Until the 28th November, it'll be at the Morecambe Winter Gardens, and if you can't see it there, keep an eye on the https://my-mars.org/tour-dates/ website.    

On 12/11/2022 at 18:36, Gfamily said:

A trip to the USA included a trip to Las Vegas, where I met Bill Vorce ( a scope parts re-seller) who provided me with a couple of EPs and a Barlow lens for $100. 

A footnote to this. 

Prior to our visit, I had been looking out for somewhere that I might be able to divert to a decent astronomy equipment store.  At the time, Scope City was fairly well established as a Bricks & Mortar store, but the only one we'd be near was in LasVegas. 

So, on our first morning in LV, we dropped by the store and had a look inside.

When I said what I was looking for, one of the assistants gave me a sideways look and said "How about we go out on the terrace? "

- with me a little bit unsure about what he meant, he picked up a scope and said out loud "Let's see what you think of this one".  Once on the terrace, and out of earshot of any manager, he advised that we couldn't do better than getting in touch with Bill (who had the fairly well established online Telescope Warehouse store)  - and gave us Bill's LV address and a phone number

So we got in touch, and went to visit Bill (and his cats) while he gave us his suggestions for EPs and the Barlow.

I have to say that Scope City have at least one very good staff member (or at least they did 20+ years ago) - though I'm not sure that  Scope City would be happy to hear how they were helpful.

8 hours ago, mr saddo said:

Nope still won't let me down load, his it because ive downloaded it on the phone? I've read that google apps are not allowed on Windows?

I've no idea why it's not letting you download the Windows version - of course, you can't run an Android app on a Windows PC (unless you use an emulator of course), but the Windows version should be downloadable and runnable - unless you're using a limited access profile on a PC / laptop provided by your employer or something.  

First scope was a 4.5" Newtonian with GOTO - about 25 years ago. It originally came with 0.925" EPs, but I managed to get an adapter so that I could use 1.25" EPs.  A trip to the USA included a trip to Las Vegas, where I met Bill Vorce ( a scope parts re-seller) who provided me with a couple of EPs and a Barlow lens for $100. 

I wanted to step up and have a more portable set-up, so bought a 102mm Mak on a Synscan mount - I would have preferred the 127mm, but finances and young family meant I had to settle for the smaller scope - which was really a disappointment; good for Moon and Planets, but inadequate for fainter DSOs - and too narrow a field of view for open clusters. 

As finances improved, I bought a Meade LS 8" scope - optically this was great, but the software was a constant source of frustration as  GOTO was definitely flaky (by coincidence, FB has reminded me this evening that I bought it exactly 9 years ago). 

About 6 years ago, I found someone locally selling their 127mm Mak for a very good price - this very quickly became my favourite scope, especially when I paired it with the Az GTi mount I bought later. 

A couple of years ago I was offered the loan of a lovely 72mm ED refractor by Sue at Astrofarm France.  As it was during the shutdown,  Sue was happy for me to bring it home to UK on a long loan basis, returning it a year later. So if you go out to Astrofarm France, you too can enjoy it (alongside the larger scopes and mounts out there). I was happy to return it to Sue though, as I had found one on ebay, and was fortunate to buy it for a relatively low bid. 

This is now definitely my favourite scope - and has re-ignited my love for the hobby - crisp contrasty views, and (despite the short focal length) capable of taking decent amounts of magnification before getting too soft. 

43 minutes ago, mr saddo said:

Hi,  how do you get the skywatcher app on a windows 10 computer?  The down load button his grayed our, it says available for all devices but it's grayed out. Another thing his iam trying to connect to stellarium, says connected using a usb astro link cable from flo, but the scope won't move, it's  on  the correct com port. I can connect via wi fi to cares du ciel. I have read all the posts regarding this, yours Paul.

Are you downloading from https://skywatcher.com/download/software/synscan-app/ ? 

The download button is working for me - it looks grey, but mouseover turns it black 

You should be able to download version 2.0.13 direct from this link https://inter-static.skywatcher.com/downloads/synscanpro_windows_2013_repack.zip 

Although Microsoft have taken down the link from their products page, the original MSIs are still available via Archive.org.

64 Bit version

32 Bit version

Whether planets are easy to see in the morning or the evening often depends on the angle that the ecliptic makes to the horizon. If the ecliptic is at a shallow angle, the planets won't be high above the horizon and are more likely to be lost in the twilight of the rising/setting sun.

Here's the angle of the morning/evening ecliptic for my location in NW England in February and November - this from a couple of years ago - the planets visible in any specific year will vary of course. 

So, morning apparitions of Mercury are better in the Autumn and evening apparitions better in the Spring. 

(stellarium views)

'... before going to bed [...] at about [...] 9.30 pm ' 

Tell me you're an imaging astronomer without telling me you're an imaging astronomer 😄 

Always nice to see a good one.

34 minutes ago, Akula said:

Any update on this ? Did you take any photos or ??

It's on a site to which I don't have automatic access. My contact was going to see if they could get out some time to take photos - but they have work to do, so it depends on time being free. 

A highly recommended telescope that comes into your budget is the SkyWatcher Heritage 150P. 

The link is to the sponsoring company for this forum - they're good, though I think that most dedicated Astronomy Shops would be as good - if you have one local to you, then you might prefer to go there instead. I think most people here would say to avoid shops that aren't specialists though, assuming your husband wants to take the hobby further, he'll be grateful for the advice that specialists will be able to give - so buying from a specialist is the best way to start. 

If you're not sure, they'll be happy to take a call from you. 

46 minutes ago, Alex Mac said:

Six years ago, my copy cost me £7.50 new from Amazon. What happened since then? Bonkers.

I think the problem is that it's currently out of print, so only available through re-sellers. 

5 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

If it really is geostationary, it will not be directly above the UK as the UK is nowhere near the equator and the equator is the only place you can have a geostationary orbit. It would be stationary somewhere to the south pretty low in the sky where the most useful imaging and observing areas are not. It could be geosynchronous in a way with a little bit of inclination but an orbital period of 24h. That way it would go up and down in the sky, occasionally dipping below the horizon (not good) and occasionally appearing near the zenith (great). I think that is overall less efficient so the best bet would have it be fully stationary.

There are Molniya orbits which would have a high proportion of their orbital period over the UK at what would be reasonably high angles in the sky - and I suppose these could be configured so that they drop out of the high angles at night (assuming these are used as solar power collectors as per the OP). 

Molniya orbits are used for communications satellites for use at high latitudes - for example for Siberia and Northern Canada.  The downside for communication is that the ground stations need to have steerable antennae. 

But, as others have said, not apparently feasible at this time

Having been fortunate to win the Autumn Astrocamp Quiz, I had some vouchers from Tring Astronomy Centre that needed using. 

Although many items are showing as 'Out of Stock', a phonecall to Jane assured me that items are coming in from time to time, and they could put my name against a ZWO ADC that seemed to be something I'd like to try out. 

I'd repaired someone else's illuminated Crosshairs Eyepiece over the summer, so one of those looked attractive too - as it should make it easier to get pin-point centred Alignment stars next time, and hopefully improve my GOTOs.   

So these arrived this morning (not the vouchers, I had them already)

For a few years my 127mm Mak had been my scope of choice, but in the last couple of years I've fallen in love with observing again thanks to my second hand 72mm f/6 ED refractor.

Lovely crisp, wide field views. Far better for open clusters and better contrast on nebulae than the Mak. 

YMMV of course, but if you very get a second hand one for a good price it won't have cost you much if you decide it's not for you. 

If you can get them, Energizer do a few 2-button head torches that I've been very pleased with.  Right button for Red, and Left button for White. With white light use, there's a variety of settings, and holding the buttons alters the spread of light slightly from flood to focused beam. 

There's at least one place on ebay that's selling the AAA powered one for about £15, they also have a USB version for about £23. 

I previously bought from 7dayshop when they were around the £10 mark for the AAA version. 

My first red light head-torch was a Petzl one, which I've had for about 10 years - the main problem is that the rubber covering for the switch has started going rotten - so it's unpleasant and harder to use.   

On 30/10/2022 at 17:33, Les Ewan said:

In the early hours of 5th January 2003 Saturn crossed in front of the Crab Nebula and I  was lucky enough to have good seeing conditions at the time. Not that I saw anything however. Using a 8" Newtonian  the Crab was totally blotted out by Saturn's glare, but even so the negative result of seeing nothing of the nebula was still interesting.

You may already know this, but that event allowed the Chandra space telescope to take observations of the upper atmosphere of Titan in X Ray using the Crab as an X-Ray source. 

It's likely that this was the first transit of the Crab Nebula by Titan since its creation in 1054 -  it often gets close, but very rarely exactly transits it. 

Here's a great blog post by the fantastic Phil Plait ( the 'badastronomer' ) about what the most recent MIRI image of the Pillars of Creation is showing us.

https://badastronomy.substack.com/p/new-jwst-pillars-of-creation-image

He includes a link to this ESA image that allows you to slide between the MIRI and NIRCAM images. 

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/10/Webb_s_instruments_showcase_the_Pillars_of_Creation_slider

36 minutes ago, Merlin said:

I personally find domed observatories aesthetically pleasing.

I personally would be concerned that they also signal "interesting and expensive contents inside" to passing rogues and thieves.

18 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

I am totally confused by your entire statement. That first paragraph is a giant problem. It just doesn’t make any sense:

Yes, I had a spare 'that's what' in it.

In my first paragraph, I was trying to say that although Moore wrote "Slipher was making observations of external galaxies", it was not definite at the time that they were 'external galaxies'. We now know that's what they are - but that wasn't proven until later.

29 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

I understand what you are saying with regard to your explanation.

However, Patrick Moore clearly states that Slipher was making observations of external galaxies and gave first proof that they were racing away from us.

Yes, we now know that's what he was doing; but the current interpretation wasn't unambiguous at that time. 

Also, the presence of objects showing high red shifts isn't definitive proof of an expanding universe - it wasn't until Hubble could use Leavitt's discovery to determine the distance to the receding external galaxies, and thus come up with the Hubble-Lemaître Law.

Edit to Add - the fact that there exist rapidly receding objects is not (in itself) proof of an expanding universe. To show an expanding structure you have to be able to correlate the distance and the speed of recession.  

Until about 1920 one of the great debates in Astronomy was whether the 'spiral nebulae' were objects contained within the Milky Way galaxy, with the alternative view being that they were external objects - galaxies in their own right. 

So, although Slipher may have identified that the nebulae had significant radial velocities; it wasn't definitively clear to astronomers that they were at particularly high distances.

It was the  work of Henrietta Leavitt to determine the Period Luminosity law for Cepheid variables (and the bigger telescope) that allowed Hubble to determine their distances, and thus demonstrate that they were external galaxies rather than part of our own.