Baby the stars shine bright...

It's a bit blurry and not completely huge but this was the Super Blue Blood Moon that took place on 31st of January of this year. Since I live in Arizona, I was fortunate enough to see the eclipse. I had to get up at 4 AM to get a shot of it on my iPhone.IMG_5538.webp
 
John K said:
I bought a copy of program called Redshift some years ago - its a planetarium app for my desktop pc.
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There's also a free planetarium app called Stellarium if people want to try something like that. Based on that screenshot of Redshift it seems quite similar. It's available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. My impression is that Redshift has more features, as can be expected from a commercial app, but it's also more difficult to use.

Screenshots:
http://stellarium.org/screenshots.html

Another free program that may be of interest is Celestia. It's a 3d model of space which allows you to go to different celestial objects and see details. The basic app is quite small but it has a ton of extensions that add high resolution images. Unfortunately, the extensions aren't easy to use because you have to edit or rename files so you can't just click and install. I guess this shows the other negative side of free programs; either they're simpler than the commercial ones, or then they have a lot of features, but using them requires extra effort because nobody bothers to write an easy installation program. I guess once you set up the program with new pictures it can be pretty cool. Personally I've tried both of these but haven't used them much; I'm more interested in theoretical astronomy than observation.

Celestia screenshots:
https://celestia.space/gallery.html
 
James said:
You're, mad, bad, and dangerous to know.. lol ;)
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Ya don't know what you're messin' with.
You got no idea.
Ya don't know what you're lookin' at
When you're lookin' here.
Ya don't know what you're up against,
No, no way, no how.
You don't know what you're messin' with,
But I'm gonna tell you now!
Get this straight!
I'm just a mean green mother from outer space
and I'm bad.
I'm just a mean green mother from outer space
and it looks like you been had.
I'm just a mean green mother from outer space,
So get off my back, 'n get out my face,
'Cause I'm mean and green
And I am bad.
maxresdefault.jpg

;)
 
Lady Jolanda said:
Ya don't know what you're messin' with.
You got no idea.
Ya don't know what you're lookin' at
When you're lookin' here.
Ya don't know what you're up against,
No, no way, no how.
You don't know what you're messin' with,
But I'm gonna tell you now!
Get this straight!
I'm just a mean green mother from outer space
and I'm bad.
I'm just a mean green mother from outer space
and it looks like you been had.
I'm just a mean green mother from outer space,
So get off my back, 'n get out my face,
'Cause I'm mean and green
And I am bad.
maxresdefault.jpg

;)
Click to expand...

 
Well all this talk of astronomy inspired me to get my telescope out of the loft and set it up. I took this picture of Jupiter a few nights ago - magnification is about 100-150, but it's hard to be precise because I used the camera zoom to close in on it then enlarged it about 2x in Photoshop. The major moons were spread out nicely as you can see.

It's pretty fuzzy, with lots of chromatic aberration, but at least things are visible. The blue dot just above Jupiter is a star. Exposure is a problem - Jupiter is burnt out so there is no detail, but if I reduced exposure, the moons would just disappear. Probably need to take several pictures at different exposures than combine them.

Anyway, it's a start ....


2018-05-26 Jupiter.webp
 
:tearsofjoy:
JennyDaniella said:
Looks awesome John!!
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Thanks Jenny. I enjoyed your lunar eclipse picture - I see there’s another blood moon later this month, but I don’t think it’s visible in the USA. It’ll probably be foul weather here in England - it was for the last one.
 
John K said:
:tearsofjoy:

Thanks Jenny. I enjoyed your lunar eclipse picture - I see there’s another blood moon later this month, but I don’t think it’s visible in the USA. It’ll probably be foul weather here in England - it was for the last one.
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Thank you! The lunar eclipse was amazing! I had to get up quite early (4 am) just to take a shot, and it was extremely cold since it was around January when the eclipse occurred.

And no, unfortunately it won't be visible in the U.S. which is a bummer! :( It was definitely a spectacular sight to see and wish I could relive the moment again.
 
Lady Jolanda said:
Came across this picture of Pluto today and it made me think of James. You're missed, dear friend. :<3green:

a2oeB6e_460s.jpg
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I'm glad you posted this Lady Jolanda, it would be good if we could keep this thread going - the Star is one of the great symbols of hope.

upload_2018-9-8_10-49-0.webp​

This is an amazing sequence taken beyond the dark side of the moon:

 

I feel so insignificant after watching this video, Earth is literally just a speck of dust in comparison. Completely mindblowing.
 
JennyDaniella said:

I feel so insignificant after watching this video, Earth is literally just a speck of dust in comparison. Completely mindblowing.
Click to expand...

Oh wow. I think I've must have seen this video before, it's a quite scary video! We humans (our planet in general) are just super tiny in this amazingly massive universe.
 
John K said:
View attachment 44836

Gamma ray image of two neutron stars in the process of colliding.
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Beautiful image!

Something I came to realize a while back is that the light energy from one of these bad boys could potentially aim at us and fry us all, even being a crapload far away. Crapload is a scientific term meaning "probably even further than you're thinking."

 
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