The Space/Cosmos Thread

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 8:11 pm

Finally taking the plunge and signing up to my local astronomical society. Have been fretting that I'll be out of my depth, with my relative 'n00b' naivety and entry-level gear. However, all fears have been overcome by interest and excitement at learning that the first meeting I'm attending will include a lecture on the Antikythera Mechanism. No, me neither, so I looked it up.

Holy.....

Techboy · Post by **Techboy** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 10:47 pm

Mexicola wrote:Finally taking the plunge and signing up to my local astronomical society. Have been fretting that I'll be out of my depth, with my relative 'n00b' naivety and entry-level gear. However, all fears have been overcome by interest and excitement at learning that the first meeting I'm attending will include a lecture on the Antikythera Mechanism. No, me neither, so I looked it up.

Holy.....

that thing is cool as fuck

Perch · Post by **Perch** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 10:53 pm

Mexicola wrote:Finally taking the plunge and signing up to my local astronomical society. Have been fretting that I'll be out of my depth, with my relative 'n00b' naivety and entry-level gear. However, all fears have been overcome by interest and excitement at learning that the first meeting I'm attending will include a lecture on the Antikythera Mechanism. No, me neither, so I looked it up.

Holy.....

whoa, nice find! I wish there was something like that around here.. I'll have to look into it haha

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 11:01 pm

I've found an old BBC4 documentary about it if anyone is interested?
Watching it right now and - wow - it's an incredible tale of eclipses, prime numbers, bronze gear wheels, hidden inscriptions....

Anyone want an upload? Long since removed from iPlayer.

chronical · Post by **chronical** » Thu Apr 17, 2014 12:16 am

Mexicola wrote:I've found an old BBC4 documentary about it if anyone is interested?
Watching it right now and - wow - it's an incredible tale of eclipses, prime numbers, bronze gear wheels, hidden inscriptions....

Anyone want an upload? Long since removed from iPlayer.

I'd love that actually. Thanks man!

fujee · Post by **fujee** » Thu Apr 17, 2014 5:59 am

I read about this a while back, safe to say I was in need of a beer to help comprehend it all.

Also, I recently found out my girlfriends grandfather writes articles for a French astronomy periodical, pretty neat !

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Thu Apr 17, 2014 7:47 pm

chronical wrote:
Mexicola wrote:I've found an old BBC4 documentary about it if anyone is interested?
Watching it right now and - wow - it's an incredible tale of eclipses, prime numbers, bronze gear wheels, hidden inscriptions....

Anyone want an upload? Long since removed from iPlayer.
I'd love that actually. Thanks man!

I'll sort out a dropbox. Watch this space

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Fri Apr 18, 2014 11:03 am

Apologies - my internet is running like a dog. Taking forever and a day to upload.
Might be easier to grab a torrent the most commonly known torrent site. Yaarrrr (etc).
Search for 'Two Thousand Year Old Computer' and you'll find at least four torrents at different resolutions.

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Sun Aug 10, 2014 1:26 pm

So the Rosetta probe has been in orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for a few days now. Here's it's view. Seems to support the theory that the comet is actually two that have joined together. If this doesn't drop your jaw, check your pulse....

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:11 pm

A rather successful hour or so with the telescope tonight.

First viewings of M57 (The Ring Nebula)...

...a STUNNING view of M13 (The Great Globular Cluster)...

...plus I managed to split 'the Double-Double' stars of Epsilon Lyrae - one point of light to the naked eyes, splits into two stars in the scope, but which then split yet again, into yet another 2x pairs of stars if you ramp the power up and have a dark enough sky. Nice! (images aren't mine)

fujee · Post by **fujee** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:37 am

August is a good month for the skies in Britain.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p024gb8s

mechanismj · Post by **mechanismj** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 3:10 pm

Those are awesome pictures, Mex!

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 7:51 pm

mechanismj wrote:Those are awesome pictures, Mex!

Thanks. To be clear though - not mine! Just wanted to give people an idea of what I'd seen

fujee · Post by **fujee** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 6:41 am

Mexicola wrote:
mechanismj wrote:Those are awesome pictures, Mex!
Thanks. To be clear though - not mine! Just wanted to give people an idea of what I'd seen

Well ya fooled me too so you should've just played along

Lens Larque · Post by **Lens Larque** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 1:04 am

untitled · Post by **untitled** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 6:28 am

Jagged cliffs and prominent boulders are visible in this image taken by OSIRIS, Rosetta’s scientific imaging system, on 5 September 2014 from a distance of 62 kilometres from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The left part of the image shows a side view of the comet’s 'body', while the right is the back of its 'head'. One pixel corresponds to 1.1 metres.

Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Touch the Source (with HiRes).

Also, selfie (with HiRes). <-- this looks SCI-FI as fuck... well, it's reality, so I guess it looks just "SCI as fuck".

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 2:49 pm

Just incredible - thanks for sharing, I'd missed these

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 2:49 pm

Lens Larque wrote:

I see what you did there

untitled · Post by **untitled** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 12:00 am

Mexicola wrote:Just incredible - thanks for sharing, I'd missed these

Your pictures are only fantastic.

Should I mention that I have a pair of Nikon 8x40 EX bino's (yeah they are so cheap today makes me wanna cut myself for paying almost 300$ some years ago). They really really cool when you're in the middle of nowhere (although even in the city they show LOTS of more stars than the naked eye can see). No color though (and no nebulae either...), but being able to just stare through the bino's is a special kind of feeling.

PS: If anybody thinks about getting binoculars for stargazing be sure to read all the reviews or at least select one with a WIDE viewfield - although preferably with a better magnification than 7x, no matter if it's a 7x50.

Lens Larque · Post by **Lens Larque** » Sat Sep 13, 2014 2:38 pm

Mexicola wrote:
Lens Larque wrote:

I see what you did there

I was hoping to see some aurora here in the midwest but none last night.