FWIS3

At the request of a friend, I've resurrected The Moon thread:

Thumper wrote:I used to have a thread here where I talked about the beautiful moon. This morning, a wonderful "Halloweeny" moon hung low in the West in front of me dancing in and out of the clouds. I thought about my Moon thread and one time I asked, "Will I ever get tired of looking at the Moon?"

And Michael responded, "I hope not."

Indeed.

Anyone catch the eclipse a few days back? Alas it wasn't visible in Europe.

Took a pair of 7x50's along to school just in case the eclipse was visible (can you say oxy, moron?).
Sure enough, down on the river road, pulled over and caught the last few minutes of the
disappearing blood moon...seen it before, but never fails to amaze...

Being the resident astronomical spokesperson, I got interviewed about it for two news services the day before. Then I woke up the next morning and thought after a while, "Oh yeah, there is an eclipse going on!" Despite giving the details for the interviews, I got the timing mixed up and didn't make it out during totality. But I did carry Buster out to see it--briefly. It was chilly and he had just gotten up. What was cool was the direction of the shadow. Usually it goes from left to right, but because the Moon was low in the west it went from up to down.

Rommie wrote:Indeed.

Anyone catch the eclipse a few days back? Alas it wasn't visible in Europe.

I watched it from start to totality. After that, the moon starting dipping into the horizon haze.

now everyone go reread michael's essay about using a telescope. (no, i'm not always this bossy. sometimes i'm bossier.)

code monkey wrote:now everyone go reread michael's essay about using a telescope. (no, i'm not always this bossy. sometimes i'm bossier.)

Linky-link? I might propound on the theorem of binoculars vs telescopes...

...and yes...yes, she can be...most indubitably...(ducks the flying monkeys and runs like h3ll while cackling maaaaaaaadly)...

cid wrote:

code monkey wrote:now everyone go reread michael's essay about using a telescope. (no, i'm not always this bossy. sometimes i'm bossier.)

Linky-link? I might propound on the theorem of binoculars vs telescopes...

...and yes...yes, she can be...most indubitably...(ducks the flying monkeys and runs like h3ll while cackling maaaaaaaadly)...

i posted the essay in the ichael thread in xof news. pay attention.

it was for your own good. some day you'll thank me.

Mike, in his timeless perspective, wrote:On a moonless night at the right time of the year, the core of the great galaxy in Andromeda can barely be seen with the naked eye as a small, faint, fuzzy patch, an illumination in the window of heaven two million years old. The telescope is a time machine, everywhere we look we look into the past, constrained by the finite velocity of light. (But not the light itself: Traveling at the speed limit of the universe, a photon experiences no duration of time at all. In its own frame of reference the moment of its creation is also the moment of its destruction. It is not obvious that, to itself, a particle of light even exists. That is a wonder, too.) Andromeda is actually several times the width of the full moon, but distance dims it so that only the supernal core is visible to the unglassed eye, looking as it was before men wore clothes. Before men.

I've done numerous show'n'tells with the local astro club, and the Andromeda galaxy is always a point I bring up, in that it's the furthest naked-eye object and it6's 2.7-or-so squillion light years away and what we're seeing is that old, and the light left before Man as we know him walked planet Earth etc etc etc...

I thought I had the schtick down pretty good.

I stand humbled in Mike's eloquence.

cid wrote:

Mike, in his timeless perspective, wrote:On a moonless night at the right time of the year, the core of the great galaxy in Andromeda can barely be seen with the naked eye as a small, faint, fuzzy patch, an illumination in the window of heaven two million years old. The telescope is a time machine, everywhere we look we look into the past, constrained by the finite velocity of light. (But not the light itself: Traveling at the speed limit of the universe, a photon experiences no duration of time at all. In its own frame of reference the moment of its creation is also the moment of its destruction. It is not obvious that, to itself, a particle of light even exists. That is a wonder, too.) Andromeda is actually several times the width of the full moon, but distance dims it so that only the supernal core is visible to the unglassed eye, looking as it was before men wore clothes. Before men.

I've done numerous show'n'tells with the local astro club, and the Andromeda galaxy is always a point I bring up, in that it's the furthest naked-eye object and it6's 2.7-or-so squillion light years away and what we're seeing is that old, and the light left before Man as we know him walked planet Earth etc etc etc...

I thought I had the schtick down pretty good.

I stand humbled in Mike's eloquence.

damn, he could write.

ok, everyone. go hug someone you're on hugging terms with. tell someone important to you how you feel. call home. someone wants to hear from you. and if you think that there's nobody, call me.

Rommie wrote:Indeed.

Anyone catch the eclipse a few days back? Alas it wasn't visible in Europe.

Had an awesome view of the blood moon last week walking to my Piano lesson

Rommie wrote:Indeed.

Anyone catch the eclipse a few days back? Alas it wasn't visible in Europe.

There is a partial solar eclipse coming up on the 23rd, visible in the US, and as near as I can tell, no one cares in the least. None of the local astronomy groups, parks, or the natural history museum is doing anything, and I started a thread about on CQ to which not a soul has responded.

Swift wrote:

Rommie wrote:Indeed.

Anyone catch the eclipse a few days back? Alas it wasn't visible in Europe.

There is a partial solar eclipse coming up on the 23rd, visible in the US, and as near as I can tell, no one cares in the least. None of the local astronomy groups, parks, or the natural history museum is doing anything, and I started a thread about on CQ to which not a soul has responded.

I saw your thread and looked up the particulars for the Atlanta area. 10% occlusion late in the day. Without a sun telescope, I probably won't notice it.

geonuc wrote:

Swift wrote:

Rommie wrote:Indeed.

Anyone catch the eclipse a few days back? Alas it wasn't visible in Europe.

There is a partial solar eclipse coming up on the 23rd, visible in the US, and as near as I can tell, no one cares in the least. None of the local astronomy groups, parks, or the natural history museum is doing anything, and I started a thread about on CQ to which not a soul has responded.

I saw your thread and looked up the particulars for the Atlanta area. 10% occlusion late in the day. Without a sun telescope, I probably won't notice it.

Supposed to be about 50% around here, right at sunset. I think it would look pretty cool, which means the chance of rain is over 100%.

Swift wrote:

Rommie wrote:Indeed.

Anyone catch the eclipse a few days back? Alas it wasn't visible in Europe.

There is a partial solar eclipse coming up on the 23rd, visible in the US, and as near as I can tell, no one cares in the least. None of the local astronomy groups, parks, or the natural history museum is doing anything, and I started a thread about on CQ to which not a soul has responded.

It's on our radar here! So much that I had a dream about it last night, that I missed it. Our local school-based planetarium is having an observing session for it.

How much is eclipsed where you are? We get 52%.

The peak eclipse time here is 5:36 p.m. I plan on being selfish with this one. I will take home some eclipse glasses, picking up my kids early, and sharing the experience with them. It will be Buster's 2nd partial eclipse. We showed him a 1% eclipse a couple years ago.

Swift, unfortunately you're probably right in your weather prediction.
Watched the total lunar all the way in that morning on my commute. I was surprised how many people here at work knew about it and took the time to stand out in front of the building and watch for a while. I went out several different times. I was also surprised at how few of those people actually knew what they were looking at or why it was happening. My favorite was the second time I went out, well into totality. There was a woman consulting her smart phone explaining that I had missed the eclipse. Totality had happened 20 minutes ago and was over, this was the Blood Moon.

Yeah, I miss this one too. Europe really misses out this month on all the fun stuff.

Can we post non-moon topics here as well?

Had a really nice time this weekend realizing with a start that the Pleiades are up again. It's interesting how I always wax nostalgic far more about the autumn constellations showing up than any other ones, mainly because those are the ones I first learned many years ago.

It was over a decade, and due to coincidence for two years Jupiter and Saturn were both in the autumn sky. And the crazy thing is as a teenager I was still going trick or treating at that age, and spending many a beautiful evening outside with the first chill in the air with my telescope.

Nothing like the first hint of cold in the air, and the Pleiades shining high up, to take me back to those times and what it was like to run around the city of Pittsburgh with my best friend. I knew it was magic even then, but didn't know it would stick with me with such nostalgia now.

It occurs to me also that one reason people must have kids eventually is realizing you can capture that magic for others.

I remember CiD and Russ used to talk about the first cool late summer evening that you could spy Orion appearing low in the east as the sunset. I remember them talking about how, for them, it marked the beginning of the end of summer, or the coming of fall.
Each year, the first time I see Orion, I stop and think of Russ.

Rommie wrote:Can we post non-moon topics here as well?

NO!

My one sort-of astronomy class (I took a course "The History of Visual Astronomy" in college) was in the Fall and we learned the fall sky as part of that, so I too have a soft place in my heart of the Fall and Winter sky; Mr. Orion and the Seven Sisters.

Rommie wrote:It occurs to me also that one reason people must have kids eventually is realizing you can capture that magic for others.

To paraphrase Swift from another thread... the reason people have kids is because they have sex.

Rommie wrote:...and due to coincidence for two years Jupiter and Saturn were both in the autumn sky....

Coincidence? I think not. More likely a pentagon black op.

Thanks Obama!

geonuc wrote:

Rommie wrote:...and due to coincidence for two years Jupiter and Saturn were both in the autumn sky....

Coincidence? I think not. More likely a pentagon black op.

Thanks Obama!

Well it happens every 20-something years (them being together, probably not the both in the autumn sky part). The fact that I was a teenager just learning constellations at the time was a definite bonus.

With wispy high ice clouds passing in front of the Moon this morning, I was treated to all manners of rainbow colored halos and rings on my drive in. A little later, the skies cleared and a bright Jupiter hovered close to the Moon and could have been mistaken for a moon of the Moon. I contemplated how many hundreds of times bigger Jupiter was and tried to wrap my head around the much greater the distance was to that "tiny" Jupiter. I made a right turn and the bright full Moon was shining in my driver's window. Suddenly, it was gone. I turned and looked to see the silhouette of a Great Horned Owl who had just come out of the field, blocking out the light from the Moon. It's all about timing.

Cool

I did have nice views of la bella Luna and Mr. Jove this morning, but no halos, rings, nor owls.