Baby the stars shine bright...

[JennyDaniella]

Oh, ok, that sounds promising. What telescopes look the best given the price and purpose...?

And thank you for the video, that's a really good shot, that came out of that. It's seriously extraordinary to see planets from your balcony!

From what I’ve researched and gathered, the Celestron and Skywatcher are pretty good brands if you want to find decent telescopes for their prices.

Depending on the size of the telescope, lenses and eyepieces, the focus, mount of the telescope, etc—they can range from the hundreds to thousands of US dollars. The good ones aren’t cheap, but well worth the investment.

You can find somewhat decent ones for cheaper (anything less than 300 US dollars), though I recommend binoculars, which is what I am going to do first before buying a good telescope.

 

[John K]

I’ve been recently getting back into astronomy again now that I have the time. And been researching more about telescopes and wanting to take advantage of the clear skies that Arizona has. Was telling my boyfriend @JamieUK92 that once we move in together, I want to invest in a good telescope that he and I can use.

Though clearer skies is a bit harder in the U.K., but not impossible!

I may have posted this on this thread, but I’m posting it again because it is so fascinating!

That's a fascinating video Jenny - I'd like to be able to set up something like that. I think the key to a successfull telescope setup is as much about the computerised technology as the actual scope itself these days. I've got a 5" refractor and I regret buying it. It's a pain in the bum setting it up without automated aids, I haven't got a way of attaching a decent camera to it either, so I can't take images. I think having a scope that automatically aligns itself, tracks for earth and lunar movement, finds objects from a catalogue and picks them out for you would be great - there is so much light pollution here that most of the stars are dimmed out, so it's hard to find anything other than the Moon, planets and brightest stars. One that comes with links for good imaging tools as well - for example it's hopeless trying to focus accurately on camera by hand. The output of the focus stacking process in the video is very impressive - I assume that with multiple shots, atmospheric disturbances are averaged out leaving a great picture of the planet itself.

 

[John K]

@dragulagu @Fluffball isn't Feynman great - the best teachers are the brilliant men who just shine with joy and enthusiasm for their speciality. I found the same with maths as well - we had some very clever lecturers who weren't interested in teaching so were pretty useless. The best ones seem to enjoy what they were doing with a really infectious enthusiasm. I don't think it's possible to really grasp the beauty of the universe without a good understanding of what you are seeing - it's the same with the weather, which comes to life far more if you understand meteorology. I mean at enthusiastic layman level, not like the professionals of course.

But just indulging in some space aesthetic magic I found this video which gives a really good panorama on Mars. It's the most detailed one I've seen yet from the landers.

 

[dragulagu]

@dragulagu @Fluffball isn't Feynman great - the best teachers are the brilliant men who just shine with joy and enthusiasm for their speciality. I found the same with maths as well - we had some very clever lecturers who weren't interested in teaching so were pretty useless. The best ones seem to enjoy what they were doing with a really infectious enthusiasm. I don't think it's possible to really grasp the beauty of the universe without a good understanding of what you are seeing - it's the same with the weather, which comes to life far more if you understand meteorology. I mean at enthusiastic layman level, not like the professionals of course.

But just indulging in some space aesthetic magic I found this video which gives a really good panorama on Mars. It's the most detailed one I've seen yet from the landers.

That makes the best scientists, those that can tell the science. And Feynman is just one of these scientists that are comfortable to listen/read.

Good to see the red planet with its actual colours.
Full size Source: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA23623 2.41GB though.

 

[dragulagu]

 

[dragulagu]

Forgot all about it, this is really fun to freestyle spaceflight in

http://spaceengine.org/

 

[John K]

It's amazing the size of these new telescopes - but I find the technology to compensate for air turbulence is incredible, that you can detect what you need to do then deform the optics in exact precision amount real time to eliminate the blurring, all at thousands of times per second .

 

[dragulagu]

It's amazing the size of these new telescopes - but I find the technology to compensate for air turbulence is incredible, that you can detect what you need to do then deform the optics in exact precision amount real time to eliminate the blurring, all at thousands of times per second .

Yup, yup, these are extremely high tech

Time to get comfy

 

[John K]

Forgot all about it, this is really fun to freestyle spaceflight in

http://spaceengine.org/

Have you downloaded this yourself? It looks very impressive.

 

[dragulagu]

Have you downloaded this yourself? It looks very impressive.

Yup, an older version though but it was already fascinating, it uses real star-map data as well. So you can enter a specific star/coordinate and just travel to the position. Or try to find a (supermassive) black hole within a galaxy for the fun of it.
It's good. Plus it has VR now. Haven't tried it yet, but sure will.

 

[dragulagu]

 

[flower]

Forgot all about it, this is really fun to freestyle spaceflight in

http://spaceengine.org/

Wow, this is cool.

 

[dragulagu]

Wow, this is cool.

Yup, and it's free (the older version is)

 

[flower]

Yup, and it's free (the older version is)

Lol, that's great!

 

[Sandie33]

Any thing Lunar seems to affect me. The upcoming Full moon in Sagittarius, (my NC astrology placement), and tonight's eclipse especially so. I tried to get the picture, however it's in the link. Its colors remind me of the sacral chakra ...
https://m-timesofindia-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/m.timesofindia.com/life-style/health-fitness/health-news/lunar-eclipse-2020-chandra-grahan-effects-on-health-can-lunar-eclipse-actually-impact-our-health/amp_etphotostory/76218052.cms?amp_js_v=a3&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA=#referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s

Does the moon affect our heath in general, yet doubly so at particular times and phases?
Curious as to what others think/feel regarding the Moon.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.space.com/amp/33786-lunar-eclipse-guide.html

 

[dragulagu]

Let's ramp up the thread a bit with some music.

Any thing Lunar seems to affect me. The upcoming Full moon in Sagittarius, (my NC astrology placement), and tonight's eclipse especially so. I tried to get the picture, however it's in the link. Its colors remind me of the sacral chakra ...
https://m-timesofindia-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/m.timesofindia.com/life-style/health-fitness/health-news/lunar-eclipse-2020-chandra-grahan-effects-on-health-can-lunar-eclipse-actually-impact-our-health/amp_etphotostory/76218052.cms?amp_js_v=a3&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA=#referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s

Does the moon affect our heath in general, yet doubly so at particular times and phases?
Curious as to what others think/feel regarding the Moon.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.space.com/amp/33786-lunar-eclipse-guide.html

The moon is much longer in existence than us, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of our health/behaviour would be impacted through the moon.
There is lot of research on this topic as well for and against it. Haven't looked into it that much myself.

Couple examples:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190731-is-the-moon-impacting-your-mood-and-wellbeing
https://www.livescience.com/7899-moon-myths-truth-lunar-effects.html
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326012#The-moon-and-sleep

 

[John K]

Does the moon affect our heath in general, yet doubly so at particular times and phases?
Curious as to what others think/feel regarding the Moon.

The moon is much longer in existence than us, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of our health/behaviour would be impacted through the moon.

The moon was a lot closer to the earth billions of years ago, and the tides were much bigger then. One theory I've come across in the past is that this created the enviromments in which life first started. There are other theories of course, such as that it formed about the black smoker vents under the oceans, but the tides will have been an important route for life to follow from the sea to dry land. One thing is certain and that is thst the moon stabilises the earth's rotational spin - without a large moon, the earth would wobble much more than it does, and sometimes it's axis would be much closer to it's plane of orbit around the sun than it ever gets now. That would be very bad news because there would be intolerable summers and winters that complex life couldn't survive. This is one of the reasons I think we might be the only intelligent life in the Galaxy - because it will be a pure very low-probability fluke that a planet like earth has such a moon to keep its environment so stable for billions of years.

Does the moon have other effects on us - I don't know. One of my difficulties with astrological influences on people is when you think of the not impossible idea of relocating to, say, Europa. Would that break the influences - it would certainly impact on the relationship between myself, the planets, the sun and the fixed stars, so there would have to be a generalisation of the astrological model that allows translation according to where in the sloar system you were located. Would Io, Callisto and Ganymede replace the moon as the points of influence? And then what happens if you go further ahead in time to when we can travel to other solar systems? How would the astrological concept cope with such a relocation, and would there have to be a new one constructed around the planetary components of that system and where you were located within it? But I do think that the moon affects our moods sometimes - there is something enchanted and soul-expanding about a full moon rising over the snow on a cold snowy landscape.

 

[Sandie33]

The moon was a lot closer to the earth billions of years ago, and the tides were much bigger then. One theory I've come across in the past is that this created the enviromments in which life first started. There are other theories of course, such as that it formed about the black smoker vents under the oceans, but the tides will have been an important route for life to follow from the sea to dry land. One thing is certain and that is thst the moon stabilises the earth's rotational spin - without a large moon, the earth would wobble much more than it does, and sometimes it's axis would be much closer to it's plane of orbit around the sun than it ever gets now. That would be very bad news because there would be intolerable summers and winters that complex life couldn't survive. This is one of the reasons I think we might be the only intelligent life in the Galaxy - because it will be a pure very low-probability fluke that a planet like earth has such a moon to keep its environment so stable for billions of years.

Does the moon have other effects on us - I don't know. One of my difficulties with astrological influences on people is when you think of the not impossible idea of relocating to, say, Europa. Would that break the influences - it would certainly impact on the relationship between myself, the planets, the sun and the fixed stars, so there would have to be a generalisation of the astrological model that allows translation according to where in the sloar system you were located. Would Io, Callisto and Ganymede replace the moon as the points of influence? And then what happens if you go further ahead in time to when we can travel to other solar systems? How would the astrological concept cope with such a relocation, and would there have to be a new one constructed around the planetary components of that system and where you were located within it? But I do think that the moon affects our moods sometimes - there is something enchanted and soul-expanding about a full moon rising over the snow on a cold snowy landscape.

Hmmm, thanx John, something more for me to think about

 

[dragulagu]

This is one of the reasons I think we might be the only intelligent life in the Galaxy - because it will be a pure very low-probability fluke that a planet like earth has such a moon to keep its environment so stable for billions of years.

Still, the Universe is so vast and we already have found so many possible habitable exoplanets, each with their own specific parameters (yet they are, theoretically, habitable).

http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog

Wouldn't the overall chance of having another habitable planet with intelligent life not be larger than the chance of having none at all?

I wonder as well if there is any specific given "period" that a species has to go through to evolve to an intelligent species like ourselves. We after all are the lucky survivors of multiple
catastrophic events (each with their own timelines).

 

[Sandie33]

Wouldn't the overall chance of having another habitable planet with intelligent life not be larger than the chance of having none at all?

Perhaps, but I'm thinking non-humanoid if at all. And, if human, perhaps escapees from pyramid era? I'm thinking we try and analyze aliens based on what history & experience dictate ... sort of like ascribing human feelings to a cat. I'm sure the cat emotes, but do they feel under the same conditions as a human?