Starship Asterisk*

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080510.html

Thanks to attending a public viewing night at a local community observatory yesterday, I could recognize today's APOD before reading the caption. Yesterday, Mars was a bit further away from Pollux and the waxing crescent Moon was close by.
While daily astro photos online are great, it doesn't beat stargazing from a rural location. Even if the air is a bit turbulent, blurring a telescopic image from time to time. Various amateurs brought their scopes with them, so attendants could see beyond their own binoculars, while waiting for a view through the bigger, fixed scope of the observatory.
I got to see phased Mercury before it went below the tree line, small and far away Mars, glorious Saturn, the M13 globular cluster, galaxy pair M65-M66 in the same view, the Ring Nebula, the double-double Epsilon Lyrae, magnified craters on the Moon near the shadow line, and a few more.
The local high pressure weather made last week cloudless, which doesn't happen here that often. I'm glad I did go, as I had a great time.

Sorry for being slightly off-topic, but an image like today's APOD fuels my enthusiasm for looking with my own eyes through a telescope, even if I don't own one myself.

Sounds great. It's good to get to experience events in person; but it is great that they have web sites for when we cant. It brings the world so much closer.
Orin

Case wrote:I got to see phased Mercury before it went below the tree line

Dag Kees,
This weeks whether was super for star gazing, even within a large and light poluted city. Last Tuesday i shot a photograph of the Moon next to Mercury, similar to
yesterdays APOD, however less detailed, just with an ordinary digital camera. Exposed it for 10 seconds.

I do share your enthousiasm for star gazing, with or without a telescope.

How far apart are Castor and Pollux, both in absolute dimension and as viewed on the image ?

ta152h0 wrote:How far apart are Castor and Pollux, both in absolute dimension and as viewed on the image ?

4.5 ° as seen in the sky.

The explication of the APOD mentions that Castor and Pollux are at 34 and 50 ly from earth. Since there are seen in the same direction, a good approximation is 16 ly. Taking into account the angle between both stars, it is 16.3 ly, 2% more, hardly relevant in astronomy.

so, if I was living 34 light years away, having a beer and looking up, from the sun, in a straight line normal to an imaginary line drawn between Proxima Centaury and the Sun, I would also witness a twin ? I am totally fascinated by the enormity of the Universe and how we can fool ourselves into thinking it is small.

For TA152HO, Get yourself a decent telescope, dont need to spend an enormious amount if it's your first. Get a reflector like a dob at least or a newtonian on a equatorial mount in case you like it enough and it seems like you do, so you can track and maybe get a CCD and save/share images, actually begin to log the sky, and it will grow on you. No more fooling yourself into thinking its not so big. Its mind blowing to know when your looking at a peticular nebula thats 75 or more lightyears across! Or just our own galaxy the Milkyway at 100,000 lightyears diameter. with billions of stars, and there are billions of galaxies, and all the different things out there with seemingly infinite dimensions. Or a star cluster 100 lightyears across knowing it takes 100 years for the light from one side to reach the other. And knowing most of the objects if thier even still around they are far from where they were when they emitted the light your looking at. But remember, its aperture you want not power. The more diameter ther more light. And reflectors get more aperture for the buck.
I could really go on. The question are as infinite as the Universe too! Just really enjoy it. Its fun and educational. I know I love it[/list]

Case, I have to ask, it seem by the way you described you viewing experience that you were at Goldendale. It sounded that way by the description of rural, and wind, and the list of favorate objects popular for public sharing. Just curious. Hope you enjoyed it. I spent 4-5 months there. Dark Clear Skies to you.

lightspeedsquared wrote:It seems that you were at Goldendale.

I was about 5,000 miles (8,022 km) more east; in Europe.