Starship Asterisk*

At a pond down in Leawood there are largemouth bass that can be fifteen inches long. I was close to reeling one in but my line snapped and I lost the lure! Well, then again, it was only two-pound test line, which would not have done good anyway. But with all this heat, my fishing trips are starting ...

Orin, you're getting off a little better than me! The lowest temperature on our ten-day forecast is 96° and the highest temperature is 108°. Last night there were a few tenths of an inch of rain with several thunderstorms which just added to the humidity.

I'm pretty sure I saw this new moon the other night with my Edmund 3" reflector. I'm surprised you even saw Pluto at all. Hey, I just saw it with my binocular 10x25 clearly! And I wouldnt need that, if I am not near-sighted 8-) Moonlady, Pluto is too faint too see with binoculars that size. An...

WallyBalls wrote:I'm pretty sure I saw this new moon the other night with my Edmund 3" reflector.

I'm surprised you even saw Pluto at all.

But let's toy with the idea that we were going. Clearly, if we were going to land on one of the moons, we would choose Europa, since Europa probably has an ocean not too far below its ice cover. "ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS—EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE." Darn, I ran out of wate...

Very interesting Discovery article, and I think it makes sense that Pluto and Charon could be binary. But it also seems that Charon, despite its mass, should be a satellite of Pluto. I guess for now we'll just take Charon as a moon.

Miketrevis, I think you may have imaged Jupiter, not Aldebaran. But I might be wrong.

This is a very beautiful video! I could not help but smile through the whole thing and laugh at some of the costumes (especially the monkey costume in the lower left corner of Bratislavia, Slovakia) and the dancing seal as well! :D :D For all of you who are complaining that this is not an astronomy ...

Finally! We had a little rain yesterday and temperatures are starting to go down. Unfortunately they will go back up by next weekend.

neufer wrote:

geckzilla wrote:
Sweet, I love the new higher rez image. Welcome to 2012, volcano aurora.

But it gives away what the planet in the upper right corner is

Okay, neufer, I'm stumped. How exactly does it give away what that planet is

So what you guys are saying is that it could be something small and close, or it could be something less small but farther away. It's been given a designation but is too insignificant for anyone to have bothered classifying it. Poor blob. You know what that means, right? It's probably where the elu...

Swing...and a miss. It hasn't rained at all since a couple weeks ago, but there may still be a chance on Monday. Until then the heat continues.

Yes!!! Finally there is rain on the way.

No kidding, bystander. The temperatures here are forecasted to stay around 100 degrees for the next several days. There was an isolated shower near Maryville and Kirksville this morning, out of sight from KC and that was our only chance of rain until who knows when. The nights have been fairly cool,...

neufer wrote:

• The heat was in tents?

Well, it was at least 5-10 degrees hotter inside the tents than the outside air. But it was still incredibly hot. (I'm a little surprised that there was only one heat-related illness.)

HOT HOT HOT! For the past 10 days I was camping with Troop 199 in the Boy Scouts of America and others in the Heart of America Council at H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation. The only time it rained was on the morning of June 22, and only that morning. For the rest of the time the heat index was at leas...

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

Wow! Happy anniversary APOD! For 17 years the team has been giving us amazing astronomical images. Thank you so much! I wish that cake was edible, though....

The Sun looks more like a hot-air balloon instead of an Etruscan vase. Cool image though!

I took an image of the transit by projecting an image of the sun through my telescope onto a piece of paper. I think Venus is the dot on the right side. Nope. You made this image a few hours before Venus began its transit. Oh great. I thought it ended at 11 UTC. Or did it begin at that time? :facep...

I took an image of the transit by projecting an image of the sun through my telescope onto a piece of paper. I think Venus is the dot on the right side.

Tuna That fish is huge!

A couple hours ago I went fishing at Shawnee Mission Park where there is a fairly large lake. I caught a bass and a sunfish despite the occasional rain, although the sunfish didn't get hooked too well. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I can't post any pictures of my catch, but hopefully next wee...

A couple questions...(note that I do not have a degree symbol on my phone) I looked up in Wiki... I don't know were to look up elsewhere to learn how to measure RA...RA for my local position. Isn't RA always at a set position? For example, isn't 0 degrees RA a longitudinal line that goes from the NC...

Gas prices :!: But unfortunately they grow soon after. For one, a store in the boonies up north where my cousin lives sells ice cream (forgot the name of the store though), and one scoop used to be at least four inches in diameter. Nowadays it is only three inches in diameter for the same price (!) ...