Starship Asterisk*

Beyond wrote:Couldn't connect to Pic Du Midi. My IE9 tells me that obs-mip.fr is not responding.

islader2 wrote:
When I first bought my modest telescope, the first celestial item that I looked for was Jupiter==so that I could see its Galilean moons. What an experience. I was hooked, albeit I had to hike to a dark spot. Thanks for the memories, editors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_%28mythology%29 wrote:

Ganymede Near Opposition: _Rape of Ganymede_ by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1635; Oil on canvas; Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

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<<In Greek mythology, Ganymede, or Ganymedes (Greek: Γανυμήδης, Ganymēdēs), is a divine hero whose homeland was Troy. He was a prince, son of the eponymous Tros of Dardania and of Callirrhoe, and brother of Ilus and Assaracus. Homer describes Ganymede as the most beautiful of mortals, which led the gods, or according to some, Zeus in the form of an eagle, to abduct him for service as cup-bearer in Olympus.

Ganymede was abducted by Zeus from Mount Ida in Phrygia, the setting for more than one myth element bearing on the early mythic history of Troy. Ganymede was there, passing the time of exile many heroes undergo in their youth, by tending a flock of sheep or, alternatively, during the chthonic or rustic aspect of his education, while gathering among his friends and tutors. Zeus, either sending an eagle or turning himself to an eagle transported Ganymede to Mount Olympus. Later, Zeus compensated Ganymede's father by the gift of fine horses, "the same that carry the immortals": in the Iliad, the Achaean Diomedes is keen to capture the horses of Aeneas:
"They are of the stock that great Jove gave to Tros in payment for his son Ganymede, and are the finest that live and move under the sun."

• "Here the Phrygian hunter is borne aloft on tawny wings, Gargara’s range sinks downwards as he rises, and Troy grows dim beneath him; sadly stand his comrades; vainly the hounds weary their throats with barking, pursue his shadow or bay at the clouds."

In Olympus, Zeus granted him eternal youth and immortality and the office of cupbearer to the gods, supplanting Hebe. J.A.Edm. Veckenstedt (Ganymedes, Libau, 1881) endeavoured to prove that Ganymede is the genesis of the intoxicating drink mead, whose original home was Phrygia.

Zeus later put Ganymede in the sky as the constellation Aquarius, which is still associated with that of the Eagle (Aquila). However, his name would also be given by modern astronomy to one of the moons of Jupiter, the planet that was named after Zeus's Roman counterpart. Ganymede was afterwards also regarded as the genius of the fountains of the Nile, the life-giving and fertilizing river. Thus the divinity that distributed drink to the gods in heaven became the genius who presided over the due supply of water on earth.

In Shakespeare's As You Like It (1599), a comedy of mistaken identity in the magical setting of the Forest of Arden, Celia, dressed as a shepherdess, becomes "Aliena" (Latin "stranger", Ganymede's sister) and Rosalind, because she is "more than common tall", dresses up as a boy, Ganymede. She plays on her ambiguous charm to seduce Orlando, but also (involuntarily) the shepherdess Phebe. Thus behind the conventions of Elizabethan theater in its original setting, the young boy playing the girl Rosalind dresses up as a boy and is then courted by another boy playing Phebe.>>

Ann wrote:I'm surprised at Ganymede's position in relation to Io, and also in relation to the banding of Jupiter. We apparently see Jupiter so that its equator is "in the middle" - that is, the horizontal bands on Jupter or not seen to form any kinds of "arcs". But Ganymede appears to be far away from this "midplane" of Jupiter. Don't Ganymede and Io orbit in the same general plane? And does Genymede orbit in a plane which is quite different from Jupiter's own rotation around its axis?

orin stepanek wrote:
They must have done some pretty nifty construction to set this observatory in the mountain top like they have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_Ramond wrote:

Members of the Société Ramond lay the first stone
of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre observatory in 1878.

<<The Société Ramond (Ramond Society) is a French learned society devoted to the study of the Pyrenees. It is named after the French politician, geologist, botanist and explorer Louis Ramond de Carbonnières (January 4, 1755 Strasbourg – May 14, 1827) and is based in Bagnères-de-Bigorre. The society was formed in 1865 in Bagnères-de-Bigorre by Henry Russell (1834–1909), a French-Irish eccentric who made many first ascents in the Pyrenees; Émilien Frossard (1829–1898); and Charles Packe (1826–1896). They first came up with the idea for a society to be modelled on the recently formed Alpine Club in London (1857) and argued that all candidates for membership should have climbed at least one Pyrenean peak of three thousand metres or more.

The society was responsible for the construction of an observatory on the Pic du Midi de Bigorre. The Société Ramond put all of its funds towards the project, as well as organising a subscription from its members. The first stones of the observatory were laid in 1878, but by 1882, as a result of spiralling costs that were beyond its relatively modest means, the society yielded the observatory to the French state, which took it into its possession by a law of 7 August 1882.

The First World War slowed down the activities of the society, although it still continued to publish Explorations pyrénéennes. The bulletin ceased publication around the Second World War and it was only in 1968 that it was again published.>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pic_du_Midi_de_Bigorre wrote:

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<<The Pic du Midi de Bigorre or simply Pic du Midi (altitude 2,877 m) is a mountain in the French Pyrenees famous for its astronomical observatory, the Observatoire du Pic du Midi de Bigorre (Pic du Midi Observatory), part of the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (Midi-Pyrénées Observatory). The observatory is located at 42°56′N 0°8′E, placing it very close to the Greenwich meridian.

The 8 meter dome was completed in 1908, and housed a mechanical equatorial reflector. In 1946 Mr. Gentilli funded a dome and 60 cm, and in 1958 a spectrograph was installed.

A 106-centimetre telescope was installed in 1963 funded by NASA, and was used to take detailed photographs of the surface of the Moon in preparation for the Apollo missions. In 1965 the astronomers Pierre and Janine Connes were able to formulate a detailed analysis of the composition of the atmospheres on Mars and Venus, based on the infrared spectra gathered from these planets. The results showed atmospheres in chemical equilibrium. This served as a basis for James Lovelock, a scientist working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, to predict that those planets had no life - a fact that would be proven and scientifically accepted years after.

A 2 meter telescope, known as the Bernard Lyot Telescope was placed at the observatory in 1980 on top of a 28 meter column built off to the side to avoid wind turbulence affecting the seeing of the other telescopes. It is the largest telescope in France. The observatory also has a coronograph, which is used to study the solar corona. A 60-centimetre telescope (the Gentilly's T60 telescope) is also located at the top of Pic du Midi. Since 1982 this T60 is dedicated to amateur astronomy and managed by a group of amateurs, called association T60.

Saturn's moon Helene (Saturn VII or Dione B), was discovered by Pierre Laques and Jean Lecacheux in 1980 from ground-based observations at Pic du Midi Observatory, and named Helene in 1988. It is also a trojan moon of Dione.>>

alphachap wrote:why is my image so small? was much bigger when uploaded!

neufer wrote:

islader2 wrote:
When I first bought my modest telescope, the first celestial item that I looked for was Jupiter==so that I could see its Galilean moons. What an experience. I was hooked, albeit I had to hike to a dark spot. Thanks for the memories, editors.

You had to hike to a dark spot to observe Jupiter & its moons

I would have thought that you could do that even in the middle of New York City.

herbraab wrote:Unbelievable image! Hard to imagine that this was done with a ground based telescope, and not from space!

Cheers,
Herbert

NoelC wrote:I wonder if the pros are doing what the amateur planetary imagers have been doing - take LOTS of short photos, use software to choose the best, then average the best to reduce noise.

I imagine that a well-funded highly sensitive professional grade camera would beat the pants off of the webcams amateurs use for sensitivity and resolution, and thus we see images this good from the ground.