Starship Asterisk*

This thread just will not disappear into the long forgotten pages and it’s nothing except depressing for me every time I see that it has once again been resurrected.
April 20 2010, Thank you Owlice. I live in Los Angeles and once in a while here; if one is lucky, you can see a moon through the haze

I feel your pain THX1138. During a vacation some years back, I stayed at a motel up the hill behind Desert Hot Springs. Just before dark we stood out on a balcony looking through the notch towards LA. It almost appeared to be ablaze, as it glowed in eerily dark orange and red tones streaked with yellow, below a murky orangy-brown layer of dirt in the air. We appeared to be staring into Mordor. And we could smell it, a kind of burnt chemical smell, as the haze drifted inland with the sea-breeze. I've often wondered how the Griffith Observatory gets any work done. But perhaps the haze doesn't usually blow up that far into the hills.

Here in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, I live downwind of the prevailing breezes over Halifax and the harbour, so the sky is dustier and damper here than almost anywhere in the Atlantic provinces. So I too rarely see much of anything beyond the brighter stars in the sky. Only a few kilometers to the west, at a friend's house on the upwind side of the city, I often remark as I leave in the evening, "Hey, you have stars here!"

Rob

Went to the store @ 7:15 wednesday evening. Glanced up at the sky and there was the ISS going overhead traversing the sky between Orion and Sirius

How special BMAONE23, most especially because you couldn’t have, the earth is flat everyone knows that.
Ok fine then, hit a guy when he is down and hurl salt on to his wounds I see how it is.

Well, not what did I see in the sky "tonight", but at sunrise this morning. I was rewarded with my first ever Sun Pillar; a vertical column of brightness in the peachy coloured sky extending straight up above the orange orb of the sun as it rose through low-lying mist in the valley. It was breathtakingly, silently beautiful.

Ann wrote:It's been a terrible winter for star-watching; the sky has been overcast for what feels like months on end, and when the clouds on rare occasions have parted it has been absolutely brutally cold.

I have to agree Ann, here in Yorkshire too the winter has not been as good as the year before for stargazing, or as good as previous years in my memory for that matter, but on the few bitterly cold nights that have been good viewing, the viewing has been so good that it has almost made up for it . . . almost, but not quite! It just doesn't feel quite right walking the dogs up the fields on a dark evening without the majesty of a dome of stars overhead.

I didn't mention it online here at the time, but on one of those walks I was lucky enough to see an amazing green tinted metoer streak from east to west across the northern sky on January 30th at about 9pm, very bright, with quite an extended trail, it lasted several seconds. Best one I can ever remember seeing. But, of course, it paled into insignificance by comparison to the Russian meteor that made the headlines in February!

starstruck wrote:Well, not what did I see in the sky "tonight", but at sunrise this morning. I was rewarded with my first ever Sun Pillar; a vertical column of brightness in the peachy coloured sky extending straight up above the orange orb of the sun as it rose through low-lying mist in the valley. It was breathtakingly, silently beautiful.

Ann wrote:It's been a terrible winter for star-watching; the sky has been overcast for what feels like months on end, and when the clouds on rare occasions have parted it has been absolutely brutally cold.

I have to agree Ann, here in Yorkshire too the winter has not been as good as the year before for stargazing, or as good as previous years in my memory for that matter, but on the few bitterly cold nights that have been good viewing, the viewing has been so good that it has almost made up for it . . . almost, but not quite! It just doesn't feel quite right walking the dogs up the fields on a dark evening without the majesty of a dome of stars overhead.

I didn't mention it online here at the time, but on one of those walks I was lucky enough to see an amazing green tinted metoer streak from east to west across the northern sky on January 30th at about 9pm, very bright, with quite an extended trail, it lasted several seconds. Best one I can ever remember seeing. But, of course, it paled into insignificance by comparison to the Russian meteor that made the headlines in February!

I've not heard of a Sun Pillar before - it sounds wonderful.
I have many fond memories of times spent in Yorkshire, at a small place called Sleights, near Whitby. There was almost no light pollution, but I wasn't 'into' astronomy then, so didn't appreciate it properly. I loved the peace and quiet, tho.

Margarita

And you saw a green meteor too, starstruck! I'm envious.

Ann

The condominium house I live in is being repaired. Specifically, the roof is being repaired. Scaffolding has been raised all around the house, and when I came home today, the house had been wrapped in red and blue plastic! (I got more red than blue plastic! )

According to plan, we will be let out of our plastic pupa in late May. Until then, I'm not likely to see anything much at all in the sky on any night!

Ann

Last night I saw Betelgeuse and Rigel!

Yeah, I know, that's pretty easy to do. But I was looking at those two supergiants via the Ealing 41cm diameter Cassegrain reflecting telescope at the Burke-Gaffney Observatory, at Saint Mary's University here in Halifax. I was doing that as part of my Astrophysics observing project, attempting to get comparative magnitudes in both B and V filters for each of them, to derive their temperatures and other useful-to-geeks stuff. As often happens, more went wrong than right. But that's okay, as it was my first attempt at doing such things, and I learn more from my mistakes (thank goodness) than my successes. Not to worry about the health of the telescope -- all the real work was done by Stephen Burke, guardian of the keep. I just had to take notes and nod as if I understood what he was saying.

As a consequence I now have a busy weekend ahead, writing up my notes in human-readable format, figuring out and regurgitating what we learned. What fun!

Rob

Ann wrote:According to plan, we will be let out of our plastic pupa in late May. Until then, I'm not likely to see anything much at all in the sky on any night!

May I recommend going outside? Even without a plastic-wrapped house, I find it infinitely superior to observing through the windows!

rstevenson wrote:Last night I saw Betelgeuse and Rigel!

Yeah, I know, that's pretty easy to do. But I was looking at those two supergiants via the Ealing 41cm diameter Cassegrain reflecting telescope at the Burke-Gaffney Observatory, at Saint Mary's University here in Halifax. I was doing that as part of my Astrophysics observing project, attempting to get comparative magnitudes in both B and V filters for each of them, to derive their temperatures and other useful-to-geeks stuff. As often happens, more went wrong than right. But that's okay, as it was my first attempt at doing such things, and I learn more from my mistakes (thank goodness) than my successes. Not to worry about the health of the telescope -- all the real work was done by Stephen Burke, guardian of the keep. I just had to take notes and nod as if I understood what he was saying.

As a consequence I now have a busy weekend ahead, writing up my notes in human-readable format, figuring out and regurgitating what we learned. What fun!

Rob

As for doing the math, I don't know - but the project in itself, what fun!

Ann

Chris Peterson wrote:

Ann wrote:According to plan, we will be let out of our plastic pupa in late May. Until then, I'm not likely to see anything much at all in the sky on any night!

May I recommend going outside? Even without a plastic-wrapped house, I find it infinitely superior to observing through the windows!

Well, I get up at two or two thirty in the morning. At that time, I don't feel like going out. I leave my apartment at five. Then I'm in a hurry and have no time to look at the sky. Anyway, the sky will soon be so light at that time that you can't see the stars. Because I get up so early, I'm extremely tired in the evening and have no energy for star watching. I go to bed at seven, or eight at the latest. Soon the Sun won't even have set at eight p.m., and certainly not at seven!

So looking out of my window, or better yet, going out on my balcony and looking out with no glass pane in front of me, is my way of looking at the sky.

Ann

Took a bag out to the Trash Can last night at 10:15, looked up and saw the streak of a meteor, traversing the sky from east to west, finally disintegrating into the horns of the smiling Luna

Ah... a moonshot.

O-boy! Not a cloud in the sky and the sun setting.I grab my binoculars to finally see the comet.Hark! What this way cometh Why tis clouds, comeing from the setting sun, moveing to the north-west,with a little milkyness around them.DRAT!! I officially give up on trying to see the flying pan of stars So now there is a Astronomically Bad joke on me, in the Astronomical thread.

Well, you've done your best, Beyond, and you are certainly not the only one who have failed.

The house I live in has been wrapped in plastic. A few nights ago, however, when I looked out through the plastic, I thought that, wow, I can see the comet! It's got a bright head and a stubby little tail, that's it, for sure!

And then... I saw the comet move. Yes, to be sure, comets move. They do, really. And fast, too. But you don't see them move. I remember all those nights when I watched comet Hale-Bopp, and it always seemed to stand stock-still in the sky. So why was this PANSTARRS thing moving?

Then I understood. It wasn't the comet. It was an airplane, with a pair of stubby little contrails behind.

Ann

haha, being wrapped in plastic will do that to ya.

Beyond wrote:
O-boy! Not a cloud in the sky and the sun setting.I grab my binoculars to finally see the comet.Hark! What this way cometh Why tis clouds, comeing from the setting sun, moveing to the north-west,with a little milkyness around them.DRAT!! I officially give up on trying to see the flying pan of stars So now there is a Astronomically Bad joke on me, in the Astronomical thread.

Doesn't this properly belong in the "weather" thread

Only as pertaining to whether or not i got to see the dusty ice-ball. Seeing as how i didn't, there was no Whether involved.

Beyond wrote:Only as pertaining to whether or not i got to see the dusty ice-ball. Seeing as how i didn't, there was no Whether involved. :lol2:

I saw it with my telescope before sunset. The observatory walls don't let me get to the horizon, so I can't see it later. I was doing some work with the observatory software, and since things were set up decided to point at the comet. Didn't really expect to see anything, but the coma showed up, looking star-like. No sign of the tail at all in the daylit sky, which isn't surprising.

Had a nice view of Jupiter while I was at it (which is always easy in daylight).

Chris Peterson wrote:Had a nice view of Jupiter while I was at it (which is always easy in daylight).

Easy for you to say. You've got a Big eye -----I=====I

Beyond wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:Had a nice view of Jupiter while I was at it (which is always easy in daylight).

Easy for you to say. You've got a Big eye :?: -----I=====I :saturn: :mrgreen:

Jupiter is easy in binoculars, as long as you can figure out where to point them. That's the hard part, not actually seeing it.

haha, figure out where to point them Heck, i can't even put the right exclamation mark in I put in a instead of a , after "You've got a Big eye".

Wow, going above and Beyond and still falling short of seeing the Flying-Panstarrs

Well, you're not alone in your unfulfilled quest. I never saw it either.

Now for November

I woke up in the night and saw through the window a beautiful Crescent Moon.
What??
I had to wake up very good and to see my Calendar Moon.
This is a Waning Moon
In my area almost never see a Waning Moon
The Moon did me a April joke