The Astronomy Thread

[Rallye Sport]

I thought I'd start a thread to see if theres any other stargazers on the site or maybe to inspire some new ones. Its a great, generally free hobby for young and old.

I start work in the early hours, the golf course is a great viewing point and I've made a point of taking five minutes to turn the lights off on our darkest 8th green every morning to see whats up there.

I'll start with satellites as they're easy to spot with the naked eye.
Australia is a big place so we're all going to be seeing different things but this site is a great starter to see the Space station, Hubble telescope, Starlink/ Spacex and many others. It even has a street view that shows the location in the sky from your position.

https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/
https://james.darpinian.com/satellit...ial=starlink-2

There are a couple of other sites out there but this one super reliable and they come over like clockwork.

Fell free to tell every one what you've seen, discuss telescopes, up coming events and anything else astrology related.

[roKWiz]

I often sit for hours staring into space.

[Cav]

I'm more of an astronomy man myself, but that's just me.

To each his own.

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by Cav

I'm more of an Anatomy man myself, but that's just me.

To each his own.

I fixed that for you Cav.

Sorry R.S

[Rallye Sport]

Originally Posted by Cav

I'm more of an astronomy man myself, but that's just me.

To each his own.

Haha rookie error right there, mods feel free to adjust whilst I have a second cup of coffee for the morning before posting anything else on the interweb

[BlueBear]

Thanx for that, nearly didn't look at the topic, But astronomy is an amazing study. Astrology on the other hand is not...
Cool links too.

Cheers,

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Cav

I'm more of an astronomy man myself, but that's just me.

To each his own.

I'm the mighty Pokies - 777!

Pokies this month will have a big win at the end of the month when the 7's align and you will have positive energy radiating from your chakra of boganism.

[Sprintey]

Ah, Winnie Blues
lol Franco!

surprised black jeans and Adidas Rome aren't a star sign, maybe that was one in the Ancient sky....


On topic, I've been watching more and more, getting to know planets and stars. If you look east after about 10 and it's clear, you can see Jupiter rising with Saturn behind it currently, both are pretty bright. In actuality I think that's just our perspective, Jupiter is behind Saturn in it's orbit relative to the sun, and going to overtake it this year - in fact there have been some really important alignments recently (maybe why people are going crazy right now) - if you dig the Astrology part of it all.

This web site has helped me heaps:

https://stellarium-web.org/

You can get a browser based star map, or download a version of the software. You can put on constellations, track satellites, etc.

[DJR-351]

And if your really keen and would like to get intimate with our "Celestial sphere" you can buy one of these and learn to navigate with it, believe me it's very satisfying to be able to find your position in the middle of nowhere just by using the stars & planets....

[Sprintey]

That's epic DJR-351.

Did a tiny bit of celestial nav for shipboard safety course, was very interesting & over my young head!

[guzzis3]

Originally Posted by Cav

I'm more of an astronomy man myself, but that's just me.

To each his own.

Beat me to it. Having said that if I'm lying on my back staring at something I'd rather she was a bit closer.

Seems I just scrape in as a meth pipe. At least I didn't get Shane Warn...

[DJR-351]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

That's epic DJR-351.

Did a tiny bit of celestial nav for shipboard safety course, was very interesting & over my young head!

I started playing with it about nearly 40 years ago when i was first getting into sailing, then when i went to sea professionally in 94' the learning was compulsory from Master Class 4 through to Master Mariner, it's still a requirement today although with the advent of Satnav then GPS/GNSS it gets very little use.

That particular Sextant (and another cheaper Davis plastic one) live on my own boat where i still like to keep my hand in, all the ships i work on are still required to carry them but most see very little use and are still like new at 10 to 15 years old, i still enjoy it a lot though...



......sorry RS, not trying to hijack

[Sprintey]

That's a very cool skill to have. I sailed dinghys on the Swan, then keel boats growing up, but no more involved than taking the tiller on the run out to Rotto. Shipboard safety was for jobs where my services were required on ship maintenance, but they make you do the course... Have always loved ships and sea/ferry travel but the career was on land...

You have a pretty unique skill, especially if GPS gets taken out in a big solar storm!

A GPS story - I was out on the west side of the Nullarbor working when Iraq war kicked off in March 2003. All of a sudden the GPS were re-routed for non-civilian use, and so the GPS wouldn't work. So, I simply went back to my map skills to find all the places I had to go to. That bit was fun.

[Falcon SXR8]

Ive been dabbling in a bit of astronomy lately. Where do you even start its just mind blowing and really puts into perspective how small and insignificant our problems are in the vastness of space. Last couple of weeks I've been viewing saturn and jupiter. Bought a cheap secondhand telescope and its the best $50 ive ever spent, been using it for 6 months or so. Problem is i want bigger and better now

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by DJR-351

I started playing with it about nearly 40 years ago when i was first getting into sailing, then when i went to sea professionally in 94' the learning was compulsory from Master Class 4 through to Master Mariner, it's still a requirement today although with the advent of Satnav then GPS/GNSS it gets very little use.

That particular Sextant (and another cheaper Davis plastic one) live on my own boat where i still like to keep my hand in, all the ships i work on are still required to carry them but most see very little use and are still like new at 10 to 15 years old, i still enjoy it a lot though...

image

......sorry RS, not trying to hijack

Using good charts and the sextant is the way to go, not relying on electronics on a yacht.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Went camping in the outback while I was at Uni. My goodness, more stars than black.

You could sit back and watch the satellites crossing over - those with binoculars could even make out their shape and see amazing detail.

I can't wait to go back one day and do it with my kids - they would hopefully find it as amazing as I did.

I have also seen 2 meteors up close - and roughly in the same locations.

The one I saw several years ago was referenced on some sort of online register - I looked it up a few days later and read several accounts of the same thing that I saw.

A month ago I was driving towards Sydney on the M5 and to my right and shooting off into the distance Sydney bound was another meteor bright blue / green in colour with a long trail behind it.

[Sprintey]

Fell for a farmers' daughter, their farm was the last one (before the crown land) so the stars out there were incredible...

OK - planetary alignments, here's a vid. Don't worry if first bit is over your head (planetary alignments begin at 3:15) - this fellow does a daily 'solar system weather report'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOga4uyAccY

You can see the alignments about to happen visually. He also notes peer reviewed papers showing the coincidence of planetary alignments and solar flares etc erupting! So spun out...

[roKWiz]

I was lucky enough to see Halley's Comet in 86.

Back in 73 our house was the first house in Carlingford to have a second story addition which gave us a great views of the night time sky (even in Sydney there wasn't much light pollution then) My brothers were into watching aeroplanes coming into Mascot so much so my father bought us a telescope, we used to death.
So many occasions we watched the stars, the moon and space junk.
There were also occasions we observed strange sightings no one could explain.

Happy Winter Solstice.

[Rallye Sport]

Originally Posted by DJR-351

......sorry RS, not trying to hijack

Not at all mate thats quite interesting

[Honest Gaza]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

If you look east after about 10 and it's clear, you can see Jupiter rising with Saturn behind it currently, both are pretty bright.

...and when you head off for work in the mornings and look up...you'll still see them shining brightly before the sunlight takes affect.

[Rallye Sport]

Originally Posted by Falcon SXR8

Ive been dabbling in a bit of astronomy lately. Where do you even start its just mind blowing and really puts into perspective how small and insignificant our problems are in the vastness of space. Last couple of weeks I've been viewing saturn and jupiter. Bought a cheap secondhand telescope and its the best $50 ive ever spent, been using it for 6 months or so. Problem is i want bigger and better now

We picked one up a while back aswell, I was surprised how cheap they are relatively speaking for the entertainment value they give. Going to pick up a mount to attach my SLR camera to it, $20 isn't too bad I thought.
...and yes I've been looking at better ones too

[blueoval]

Awesome thread. Ive been a bit of an Astrophotography shooter for a little while now. Enjoy the Long exposure techniques involved.

Here's a few of my shots of the Milk Way

[IMG]DSC_5938 by S B, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]FR NIGHT by S B, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]DSC_0748 by S B, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]DSC_0794 by S B, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Sprintey]

Originally Posted by roKWiz

I was lucky enough to see Halley's Comet in 86.

Back in 73 our house was the first house in Carlingford to have a second story addition which gave us a great views of the night time sky (even in Sydney there wasn't much light pollution then) My brothers were into watching aeroplanes coming into Mascot so much so my father bought us a telescope, we used to death.
So many occasions we watched the stars, the moon and space junk.
There were also occasions we observed strange sightings no one could explain.

Happy Winter Solstice.

Happy solstice! It's also a partial eclipse on today's solstice, I think best seen in Asia. Cloudy here today though...

Halley's comet, my parents took us out into the Perth hills to see it when we were kids. We got to see it as it left, so the tail appeared as a kind of whispery, wide mess. If you go back to ancient and historical accounts of comets (apart from them being associated with bad luck, famine, plague etc!) they are anthropomorphised (ie given human traits) - described as 'the hair of a maiden' or as 'giving birth to children' if a comet broke up in view or 'a great serpent' etc etc. Halleys certainly looked like the maiden's hair when I saw its tail.

Halleys is the parent comet to the Orionid meteor shower, which we see in late October.

Every now and then a great comet comes into the solar system. Maybe it gets disturbed out in the Oort cloud, maybe it is just traveling by and gets captured. If you go waaaay back into prehistory something big must have come into the solar system in the last 20,000 years and terrified our ancestors: the descriptions of the great comet Typhon and the carnage it wrought are hidden in ancient legends. If you follow Randall Carlson, he proposes that cometary or meteor impact upon the Laurentide ice sheet/Greenland may have been the energy input that triggered the Younger Dryas (massive extinctions, wiping of North American continent within an afternoon of 100m thick water moving at 160km/h that you can still see the results of today) - and all the climatic chaos, 400ft ocean rises and falls, etc. Randall notes that civilisations tend to get wiped on a regular, repeated basis on the 24,000 Precession cycle. Younger Dryas was dawn of age of Leo, exactly about 12,000 years ago from... now.

The link I posted before, Ben, he thinks our star goes micro-Nova every 12000 years and this explains all the destruction. I don't really have an opinion, but it's all fascinating.

Hope I get to see Halley's again!

blueoval awesome pics!

[guzzis3]

Originally Posted by DJR-351

believe me it's very satisfying to be able to find your position in the middle of nowhere just by using the stars & planets....

Any serious boat owner should be able to use a sextant but as said most just use gps these days. NSW requires you to carry paper charts. Personally I find a sextant really handy for coastal work. Taking noon shots is tedious but if you are out to sea it's better than nothing I suppose. I keep mine in a box with a hand bearing compass. Too old now for blue water, but you never know when a high energy solar flare and a tidal wave will hit at the same time...

And I'm aries, virgo rising.

[Rallye Sport]

Has anyone had any luck spotting the Neowise comet?
Our optimum time in the west is about 6:30pm tonight, we've got a site on the coast staked out but so far its a grey, cloudy day
Might just be fish and chips in the carpark...

[Franco Cozzo]

Anyone here old enough to been part of Perth becoming the 'city of lights' February 20, 1962?

First American to orbit Earth, the people of Perth put all their lights on as he went over the top of them