Starship Asterisk*

XKCD 2012-06-20

TNT wrote:Heh, I never expected to see a troll face here on the Asterisk*!

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 88#p146050

Flase wrote:It's reassuring to know that so much more gets spent on spying on private people than on the pursuit of human understanding...

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db ... 2423#comic

Thank you, Art, for the afternoon's worth of reading about Feynman and Trinity and atomic bombs and materials opaque to UV and Klaus Fuchs.......... ah wikipedia :ssmile: [/size] Regarding filters and binocular projection techniques, I feel obliged to share my two pertinent experiences with the sun ...

I saw it first here at S.A.*!
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=28486

neufer wrote:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

1:49 & 5:52, but the best is at 9:13 and following:

The video linked to at "By design" is worth a watch and a listen;
I myself thought it to be a superb example of Gesamtkunstwerk.

(Composed by Nolan Gasser; performed by the American Brass Quintet)
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Sam

For me, clicking on the link for "evaporating" caused a loud "What are you doing Sam?" to be blared across an otherwise silent computer lab.

I have one question. I notice that the horizon on the left of the image is slanted at about 50 deg from the axes, but on the right side the horizon is almost vertical. What causes this change? As I understand it, there were a series of pictures taken of the sky throughout the night. The camera angl...

I love APODs like these that include a scale—in this case, degrees of elongation from the Sun—
but including both horizons (tricking one into thinking this a mere 180° panorama) also makes
my head hurt. I guess that's good too...

Sam

If I said "next Monday" on Monday or any subsequent weekday this week, most everyone around here would know I meant the next Monday that occurs. But if I said it on Saturday I would have to elaborate as to whether I meant in two days time or in nine days time. No one could be sure otherwi...

Saw a pretty bright aurora in La Crosse, Wisconsin! Pictures here.

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Sam

March 8/9 Aurora from La Crosse, WI https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/423857_311996028863300_100001587151877_848944_1964081010_n.jpg https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/425909_311996128863290_100001587151877_848945_1854816336_n.jpg https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaih...

Chris Peterson wrote: Watch for one that will occur during the day at your location, and you can see what mag -8 really looks like
...Sirius is easily seen with binoculars, although I've never managed to see it with just my eyes.

Oh, cool--I'm going to try this!

Thanks!

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Sam

I have an observation about the Belt of Venus I'd like to ask about. Since I first noticed this, I have observed it every time I've clearly observed the belt of Venus (and had the time to stick around). Namely, once the height of the belt directly opposite the sun rises to about 20° and begins to no...

A few of those stars would be daytime objects, as well. Maybe not strictly on topic, but I've been wondering for a while what a daytime star would look like--none of our daytime sky's visible objects (Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter) are point sources, so I have sometimes thought that that's the reason f...

Definitely a contrail.

It probably didn't hide the supernova. What's hiding is a supernova remnant, or a bubble of shocked gas and dust produced by an earlier supernova. That is many, many orders of magnitude dimmer than the supernova itself was during its brief flare. Thanks, Chris. Is there any observation record of th...

This discussion has raised a question in my mind: just how dusty is this nebula? If it can hide a supernova
it must be pretty dusty!

In general, how much dust is needed to completely block that much visible light?


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Sam

I saw the Palomar Observatory--except it wasn't in the sky, I was!


(Seriously, though, I was on a flight from Denver to San Diego, and I'm pretty sure I saw the big white dome on top of the mountain in the distance.)

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Sam

I miss Art, too! Where else does he post?

Have auroras bright enough to be seen in the daytime ever been reported or recorded?

Monday's picture 1 tripped me up-- I thought the cellular photo was too much like other sun pictures (perhaps at a different wavelength) to not be celestial. Basically, two years of reading APOD and Asterisk* daily taught me to recognize celestial; if I didn't recognize it, it must be cellular. Tues...

I scored 9 out of 10!

I appreciate that, for once, a huge exciting astronomical event is going to happen in a short time. 8-) No waiting 1000 years to see the Betelgeuse supernova, or 5 billion for the Sun to expand to a red giant. Even the next solar eclipse I'll have a chance to see won't occur until 2017! What kind of...