Re: The Astronomy Thread : Fri Apr 08, 2016 9:48 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote: Congrats to Toynbee School in Chandler’s Ford whose magnificent and intrepid teddy bear, Derek, has soared to 95,000 feet and in so doing, proved the shape of the globe! Sadly, at the moment poor Derek is missing, probably abducted by aliens, but his achievement will forever make him a giant among bears. The amazing and heart-wrenching video of his epic and fearless journey here: https://youtu.be/ZokqwxBzDbI Ferocious Aardvark, did you watch the footage? You would of seen Convex, concave, convex back to concave. Check out the fisheye lens..

Ferocious Aardvark wrote: Congrats to Toynbee School in Chandler’s Ford whose magnificent and intrepid teddy bear, Derek, has soared to 95,000 feet and in so doing, proved the shape of the globe! Sadly, at the moment poor Derek is missing, probably abducted by aliens, but his achievement will forever make him a giant among bears. The amazing and heart-wrenching video of his epic and fearless journey here: https://youtu.be/ZokqwxBzDbI Ferocious Aardvark, did you watch the footage? You would of seen Convex, concave, convex back to concave. Check out the fisheye lens..

Re: The Astronomy Thread : Fri Apr 08, 2016 12:49 pm  

FLAT STANLEY wrote:

Ferocious Aardvark, did you watch the footage? You would of seen Convex, concave, convex back to concave. Check out the fisheye lens..

I posted a link to a lovely little story about a school sending a bear into near-Space, as its an astronomy gem.

I did allow myself a gentle joke, even though what I said is clearly true, but your comment is indeed ironic from a person with a severely distorted perspective image permanently in his sig!

Re: The Astronomy Thread : Fri Apr 08, 2016 3:04 pm  

How come no one else is allowed to post in the Mugwump/Flat Stanley thread, which employs North Korean levels of moderation for anyone other than the true un-believer - but Flat Stanley is perfectly at liberty to post his lunatic ramblings about a flat earth in this one?

Re: The Astronomy Thread : Fri Apr 08, 2016 3:18 pm  

He's not, to be fair, he made a valid point, he just spoiled it by having in his sig the exact effect he was pointing out. But yes, we have enough threads about, shall we say, competing theories, and this won't become another.

Re: The Astronomy Thread : Fri Apr 08, 2016 3:33 pm  

Astronomers have found a very young "super Jupiter" planet, found wandering around without a parent. That is to say, a free-floating planet, not orbiting any star. Not the first, but close (approx. 95 light years) and very young (10 million years. 2MASS J1119–1137 is between four and eight times the mass of Jupiter, in the mass range between a large planet and a small brown dwarf star. The loner planet belongs in the youngest group of stars in our part of the galaxy, known collectively as the TW Hydrae association. This contains about two dozen 10 million-year-old stars, all moving together through space. This astonishing (if you like this sort of thing) video illustrates the planet, and the TW Hydrae association, moving as a group through space. Mind boggling science. https://youtu.be/1QbPaQAQ-N8 Produced and directed by David Rodriguez, using visualization software Uniview by SCISS and the American Museum of Natural History’s Digital Universe data

Astronomers have found a very young "super Jupiter" planet, found wandering around without a parent. That is to say, a free-floating planet, not orbiting any star. Not the first, but close (approx. 95 light years) and very young (10 million years. 2MASS J1119–1137 is between four and eight times the mass of Jupiter, in the mass range between a large planet and a small brown dwarf star. The loner planet belongs in the youngest group of stars in our part of the galaxy, known collectively as the TW Hydrae association. This contains about two dozen 10 million-year-old stars, all moving together through space. This astonishing (if you like this sort of thing) video illustrates the planet, and the TW Hydrae association, moving as a group through space. Mind boggling science. https://youtu.be/1QbPaQAQ-N8 Produced and directed by David Rodriguez, using visualization software Uniview by SCISS and the American Museum of Natural History’s Digital Universe data

Re: The Astronomy Thread : Sun May 01, 2016 4:59 pm  

Anyone else been enjoying Tim Peake's regular images from around the globe on his facebook page recently?

Mount Etna smoking away last week:




Merseyside, Wirral & Cheshire:



Some real crackers recently.

Re: The Astronomy Thread : Mon May 02, 2016 11:55 am  

He's taken some crackers. Always great to see the astronauts pics taken from the ISS.

Re: The Astronomy Thread : Mon May 02, 2016 2:32 pm  

Some of the photos are truly awe-inspiring, and what it must be like to be up there seeing them with your own eyes .. there are squillions of astronaut images of the earth, and if you fancy a browse then a fantastic resource is Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth If you click on the right-side icon ("view the results with cooliris) then you can use the blue slider to scroll along a virtual wall of hundreds of images. Firts, make the wall full-screen (icon at bottom right) then wander along at whatever speed you like, and select any image that takes your fancy There are several ways to view, thumbnails, galleries, collections etc and a clickable icon displays a map identifying the spot on Earth pictured. You can also download images in various res, and they are click-zoomable, for example here's a detail of one showing a night scene, with the aurora and the glow of dawn beautifully imaged. And whaddya know, as it is a night exposure, you can even see the stars See full size here: http://prnt.sc/azem45

Some of the photos are truly awe-inspiring, and what it must be like to be up there seeing them with your own eyes .. there are squillions of astronaut images of the earth, and if you fancy a browse then a fantastic resource is Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth If you click on the right-side icon ("view the results with cooliris) then you can use the blue slider to scroll along a virtual wall of hundreds of images. Firts, make the wall full-screen (icon at bottom right) then wander along at whatever speed you like, and select any image that takes your fancy There are several ways to view, thumbnails, galleries, collections etc and a clickable icon displays a map identifying the spot on Earth pictured. You can also download images in various res, and they are click-zoomable, for example here's a detail of one showing a night scene, with the aurora and the glow of dawn beautifully imaged. And whaddya know, as it is a night exposure, you can even see the stars See full size here: http://prnt.sc/azem45

Re: The Astronomy Thread : Tue May 03, 2016 1:18 pm  

Thanks for that, FA. That's a brilliant site.

Re: The Astronomy Thread : Wed May 04, 2016 4:00 pm  

On Monday May 9th we are treated to a transit of Mercury crossing the face of the Sun. In the UK it will start at around noon and will take over 7 hours, so as long as you get a clear view of the Sun anytime in that timeslot, and have suitable viewing equipment to keep your eyes safe, everyone can watch it. This video tells you what you need to know. Most local amateur astronomy clubs will be out observing it so maybe get to your local one and peek through some decent telescopes. http://www.space.com/32780-mercury-tran ... video.html

On Monday May 9th we are treated to a transit of Mercury crossing the face of the Sun. In the UK it will start at around noon and will take over 7 hours, so as long as you get a clear view of the Sun anytime in that timeslot, and have suitable viewing equipment to keep your eyes safe, everyone can watch it. This video tells you what you need to know. Most local amateur astronomy clubs will be out observing it so maybe get to your local one and peek through some decent telescopes. http://www.space.com/32780-mercury-tran ... video.html