Conquer Club

Hmmm, webcam is stalled. There has been some clear nights recently.

https://cam01.sci.ucalgary.ca/AllSkyCam ... tImage.JPG

Bernie Sanders wrote:

2dimes wrote:Feb 22, sky clear.

I noticed when I came home the sky was clear. It was too cold out for me to hang around but I did pause in the yard to take a look.

Forgot to update this blog but just noticed JP4 was about so that reminded me.

You boys need to exchange phone numbers.

No, I'm good hanging out with him here.


https://in-the-sky.org/skymap.php

Probably should not bother to rescue this topic but..

Here's a link discussing April. https://cosmicpursuits.com/night-sky-this-month/

The sky is clearing up here but I froze my toe today wearing improper footwear to dig some snow.

https://stardate.org/
Here is also a good site I use

I think Jupiter is now very near the Moon; Saturn is in the sky, but very low in the horzon at his hour.

JP4F

jusplay4fun wrote:I think Jupiter is now very near the Moon; Saturn is in the sky, but very low in the horzon at his hour.

JP4F

Yeah, I've been watching Jupiter for a few nights now. Very bright.

http://www.thespaceacademy.org/2018/03/ ... ng100.html

Bet there's lots o pilgrims a-lookin back at you ;o) Cool article.....(exerpt)

.....Estimates by astronomers indicate that there could be more than 100 BILLION Earth-like worlds in the Milky Way that could be home to life. Think that’s a big number? According to astronomers, there are roughly 500 billion galaxies in the known universe, which means there are around 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (5×1022) habitable planets. That’s of course if there’s just ONE universe.

justplay4fun did you quit conquer club and/or the Internet?

I was looking at an article and noticed another about Saturn. Serendipity.

https://www.straight.com/news/1096631/p ... -your-mind

2dimes wrote:I love to visit the city. Get me some doner kebab.

I'd like to live in the country with a heated shop, near a small airstrip, with a 2 on the bortle scale, where I can eat me a lot of peaches, tend a veggie garden, gather some eggs for breakfast and walk to a river or pond with my canines to catch some tasty fish.

I don't ask much, that ranch is probably only a few million bucks Canadian plus an airplane.

Are you Gollum?

I am still on CC. I JUS have not posted here because:

1) nothing interesting in the night sky to comment on, really; and

2) too many trolls take the FUN out of posting.

If you say anything REMOTELY controversial, the TROLLS jump all over it. These trolls start calling you and your MOM names and the insults happen like a storm: a few at first, then the deluge. I will let the trolls have their "fun" at someone else's postings.

I did get some books on different astronomy topics, mostly history stuff, and I may share some of that soon. The one I am looking at now discusses the discovery of the 4 largest moons of Jupiter by Galileo, as published in the Starry Messenger.

JP4F

2dimes wrote:justplay4fun did you quit conquer club and/or the Internet?

I was looking at an article and noticed another about Saturn. Serendipity.

https://www.straight.com/news/1096631/p ... -your-mind

I probably spend too much time online. I don't pay much attention to the junk.

Pluto Aligns with the Rest of the Solar System for the First Time in Nearly a Century

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... ailsignout

Thursday was a special day for Pluto. On July 12, the dwarf planet crossed the plane of the solar system for only the second time since its discovery. It will be another 161 years before it does so again. The opportunity provides scientists a unique chance to look at Pluto using telescopes from Earth.

{......Read More at the link above.....}

JP

Pssst! Wanna see Saturn's rings? Get ready to blow your mind

https://www.straight.com/news/1096631/p ... -your-mind

Most people don't know that you can see virtually all the planets in our solar system just by glancing skyward at night.
Sometimes you can see one, sometimes a "companion" or two, and sometimes, spectacularly, three, four, or even five. It just depends on the time of year and where they are in relation to the Earth and the sun.

The "red" colour of Mars is discernible with the naked eye, if you know where and when to look, and Venus's ultrabright presence is a familiar one. Sometimes they are low on the horizon, other times arrayed around our moon during its various phases, but some of the distant planets, like Jupiter (the largest) or Saturn, are not as easy to pick out among the many stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way, and beyond, where even other galaxies vie for attention.

{......Read More at the link above.....}

JP

It might be cool to actually see Pluto, I'll alert you if I win enough money to buy you a good enough telescope to see it.

Unfortunately it will be too late, but at least we could look at Saturn again in much better detail.

I love to watch Jupiter. I don't know why. It's just a bright dot in the sky, but somehow it makes me feel like I'm greeting an old friend.

One night when I was younger and more ambitious, me and a friend of mine calculated the orbit of Jupiter using measurements taken on my front porch with crude home-made instruments. We were within 2% of the actual value, which I felt as something of a triumph. Perhaps I'm being nostalgic about that.

Or perhaps it's nostalgia for 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Or perhaps it's the enigma of Jupiter. The fact that we don't really know what's hidden beneath those swirling clouds. Despite several theories, we don't really know what's at the core of Jupiter. There's also the fact that Jupiter could have life. The clouds are dense enough and persistent enough that living cells could exist in them.

When Jupiter is close, it's just so bright, it feels like a palpable presence.

Nice. I've read a lot of theories about what life could theoretically propegate in the various layers / chemical makeups of Jupiter. Super fascinating. And its diversity of moons is amazing.....watched a special solely on them on the science channel the other day.

Pluto would be near impossible to spot... and when you do spot it, you would wonder why you spent so much time trying.

if you want a challenge, first locate Neptune, and Uranus. which is a difficult task on it's own.

also, there are so many other objects to locate... that are much more satisfying to see than Pluto.
for instance, my first thing to spot was the ring nebula in the constellation Lyra. i saw it with my first 5 inch scope, and it is what made me pull the trigger on my 10 inch.

you can see Andromeda galaxy with a good pair of binoculars.

lots of star clusters about also.

and on the subject of planets, Jupiter is nice to look at with binoculars, you can spot the moons. also can see Venus phases. i've had people with really good eyes look at Saturn with my binoculars and say the can make out the rings.. but i'm not sure if they are telling the whole truth.

We went to the place I've been wanting to get to with the darkest sky according to the website I looked it up on.

Now I'm looking at the new charts for 2018 and one of our favorite campgrounds which is much closer, has less luminance.

Also we went too early and had waxing gibbous moon while we were there. Oh well.

The new eyepiece is decent and there were no mosquitoes so bonus there.

What to look for in the night sky over the next few weeks:

JP4Fun

Top 8 Must-See Sky Events for 2018

Get ready to see amazing eclipses, a comet encounter, planetary pairings, and more celestial wonders.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... astronomy/

July 27: Mars at Its Best

On the same date as the total lunar eclipse, Mars will seem to glide close to the moon just as it reaches its peak visibility for the year. The red planet will be at opposition, when it sits opposite to the sun in the sky, from our perspective. During opposition, Mars will look like a super-bright orange star in the southern sky.
Mars does not have a perfectly circular orbit around the sun, so the red planet gets nearer and farther from Earth over time. This year, Mars will be especially close to Earth shortly after opposition, coming within 35.8 million miles of us on July 31. This combination means that Mars will be at its biggest and brightest since 2003, and it won’t get this close to us again until 2035.

August 11: Partial Solar Eclipse
At sunrise on August 11, a partial solar eclipse will greet sky-watchers across the high northern regions of North America and Europe, as well as Greenland, Iceland, and Asia. How big a solar bite you’ll see depends on your location. The most spectacular views from land will be from remote sites in Russia and large portions of northeastern China, such as around the city of Harbin, where the moon will cover 37 percent of the sun a few minutes before local sunset.

August 12-13: Perseid Meteor Shower

MORE:

https://www.space.com/16149-night-sky.html

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observi ... h/planets/

Between clouds, aging and family stuff making it tough for me to stay up late. I'm missing most chances to get out and look.

I'm thinking of an equipment upgrade too. The mirrors on mine are already limiting things. Also running two scopes at once could be bonus for taking my offspring out.

This one is ok for the moon and certain things like looking at the extra stuff in small constellations.

One problem is I like the portability of this little one.

Williams, what do you think of this Orion starmax 90? Seems like it could be a good upgrade from binoculars for Justplay but I might be wrong.

https://www.landseaskyco.com/orion-tele ... p-mak.html

I am very pleased with my Orion brand Plossi eyepiece even though I know there are much better things available. Of course it has helped show me the limitations of my cheap little toy scope.

That place is in Houston, I like their prices until you factor in exchange and the obscene shipping costs over the border. I hope to go browse their shop though. Checked luggage is not too expensive. Have to be cautious about duty though.

OK, with my binoculars, I was able to get a better look at Mars; I could discern a slight reddish hue of the planet. I may have seen Saturn, BUT NOT sure. The space.com link was helpful here. I will go outside and do another look. I also saw other stars (or planets) but do not know what they are.

JP

jusplay4fun wrote:What to look for in the night sky over the next few weeks:

JP4Fun

Top 8 Must-See Sky Events for 2018

Get ready to see amazing eclipses, a comet encounter, planetary pairings, and more celestial wonders.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... astronomy/

July 27: Mars at Its Best

On the same date as the total lunar eclipse, Mars will seem to glide close to the moon just as it reaches its peak visibility for the year. The red planet will be at opposition, when it sits opposite to the sun in the sky, from our perspective. During opposition, Mars will look like a super-bright orange star in the southern sky.
Mars does not have a perfectly circular orbit around the sun, so the red planet gets nearer and farther from Earth over time. This year, Mars will be especially close to Earth shortly after opposition, coming within 35.8 million miles of us on July 31. This combination means that Mars will be at its biggest and brightest since 2003, and it won’t get this close to us again until 2035.

August 11: Partial Solar Eclipse
At sunrise on August 11, a partial solar eclipse will greet sky-watchers across the high northern regions of North America and Europe, as well as Greenland, Iceland, and Asia. How big a solar bite you’ll see depends on your location. The most spectacular views from land will be from remote sites in Russia and large portions of northeastern China, such as around the city of Harbin, where the moon will cover 37 percent of the sun a few minutes before local sunset.

August 12-13: Perseid Meteor Shower

MORE:

https://www.space.com/16149-night-sky.html

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observi ... h/planets/

I think I saw Saturn, too, but without a telescope to see its rings, it is hard to be sure. It was bright, almost as bright as Mars, and lower in the sky, about midnight, EDT. There was a star to its left, but I have no idea what that is.

JP4Fun

On Saturday I looked without a scope and thought it was Saturn but found out it was Jupiter. Then on Monday when I drove to the dark area (during the bright moon due to poor planning) we looked at Saturn with the scope. I was using the new eyepiece and even though it's super clear it's not nearly powerful enough with the little scope for Saturn's rings.

I only know it was Saturn the second time because of it being east of the moon. While Jupiter was just about directly under it two nights earlier. My brother told me it was Jupiter after I talked with him.

I definately need to use the online planetarium to know what is where so far. I wanted to get an app, but my iPad is not good enough for the one I tried. I did buy a new book yesterday and a new compass today. I don't know if knowing where north is will help or just mess me up.

I need to learn to recognize more constellations. Orion and the Big Dipper may be the current limit of my capabilities.

I have still been using https://in-the-sky.org/skymap.php this week.

I also bought a paper copy of Sky&Telescope.

All COOL..! I am tempted to get a telescope, but I have spend money on other things in the past few months. I am not sure I can justify THAT expenditure.

JP

2dimes wrote:On Saturday I looked without a scope and thought it was Saturn but found out it was Jupiter. Then on Monday when I drove to the dark area (during the bright moon due to poor planning) we looked at Saturn with the scope. I was using the new eyepiece and even though it's super clear it's not nearly powerful enough with the little scope for Saturn's rings.

I only know it was Saturn the second time because of it being east of the moon. While Jupiter was just about directly under it two nights earlier. My brother told me it was Jupiter after I talked with him.

I definately need to use the online planetarium to know what is where so far. I wanted to get an app, but my iPad is not good enough for the one I tried. I did buy a new book yesterday and a new compass today. I don't know if knowing where north is will help or just mess me up.

I need to learn to recognize more constellations. Orion and the Big Dipper may be the current limit of my capabilities.

I have still been using https://in-the-sky.org/skymap.php this week.

I also bought a paper copy of Sky&Telescope.

2dimes wrote:Williams, what do you think of this Orion starmax 90? Seems like it could be a good upgrade from binoculars for Justplay but I might be wrong.

https://www.landseaskyco.com/orion-tele ... p-mak.html

I am very pleased with my Orion brand Plossi eyepiece even though I know there are much better things available. Of course it has helped show me the limitations of my cheap little toy scope.

That place is in Houston, I like their prices until you factor in exchange and the obscene shipping costs over the border. I hope to go browse their shop though. Checked luggage is not too expensive. Have to be cautious about duty though.

i think anything you use is a good buy,
with the price tho', i think you can find more aperrature. which is the name of the game
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... _BwE&smp=y

also, this is the best book to have in my opinion, once you figure out it's layout, it is very helpful. way more than any of the other 3 books i purchased.
https://www.backcountry.com/alfred-a.-k ... gLu3fD_BwE
i'm sure it can be found cheaper than this.