Hi folks,
Your eclipse must have been July 11th, 1991. Also known as the "Big One", because totality was ununsually long with up to 6 min 53 s.[snapback]6997[/snapback]
If my memmory doesn't fail, a solar eclipse also happened in August 1998. I remember it quite well, because I had just arrived to Romania,
and everyone was crazy about it: reminding you not to watch the event without protection glasses and bla bla.
Pretty much enjoyed that, since I have always been interested in the sky, and...well, I used to ask myself different questions, and then watch
Discovery Kids for answers :unsure:
Now, I know a few (very few) stars by their name (bet you didn't know that, ViruS :D).
Even if I had a telescope or some optic device, I wouldn't be able to watch the sky properly ( :( ) because... Bucharest is... a city. Think I expressed myself clearly :w00t:[snapback]7011[/snapback]
So, I'm reading this topic with a lot of interest, but don't expect any real contribution from me :nanana:[snapback]7165[/snapback]
Lepaca more Elvish wine for everybody!
don't worry too much; Venus will stay there for a few more weeks. :)I know, I saw it last night :thumbup:
Oh, and right now I have even spotted Mercury in the dusk. :yeha:I didn't know that was possible at all. :blink:
Oh, and right now I have even spotted Mercury in the dusk. :yeha:I didn't know that was possible at all. :blink:
Hey folks,I came here to check if you'd posted this interesting piece of info yet. If not, I was ready to do it myself.
under all the rain clouds of the past few weeks I totally forgot to tell you: The Perseids (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/11jul_greatperseids.htm) peak tonight! How many shooting stars you'll see depends on your exact location, but most of you may expect a few dozens per hour. :) Here the weather turned from incredibly yet to nice and sunny within the last 24 hours, so I'll go and watch the show with some astro-buddies of mine. Thank Notessomes that I have a late shift tomorrow. : bow:
Cheers!
Markus
Early this monring we had (again) the wonderful view of a lunar eclipse (only visible in this side of the Atlantic though :biggrin: ). In spite of the fact that my eyes were half closed and that I was yawing every three seconds, I must say that the view was impressive, one of the most beautiful in a long time. The moon became black and then orange-red... and it 'set' that way (before the end of the eclipse)... and it gave the impression of being 'bigger' than it usually is. Great stuff! :thumbup:
Hi folks,Excelent news Man!
another unusual sight is to be seen these days: The comet 17/P Holmes returns approximately every 7 years, but it's usually a very faint object - far too faint to be seen with the naked eye, and even too faint to be of interest to most telescope skygazers. But a few days ago it went through a dramatic outburst and increased in brightness several 100.000 times! Now it's easily visible as a star-like object of medium brightness, visible to the naked eye even from light-polluted cities! Many observers even report that they see it as fuzzy object, disk-like, a small nebula.
The comet is larger than Jupiter they say :o
If there was big bang, what was before that?
That's a simple one: Because time itself began with the Big Bang, there was nothing before it. :nana:
Lucy, I use astronomy software like XEphem
"If everyday sky charting is all you want, then one of several more user-friendly and cheaper Windows packages will suffice. However, that's not what XEphem is all about. It's for those who need that little extra and are willing to put the effort in to achieve it. If, like me, you are in that category then I would certainly recommend XEphem."
You might want to check and/or post in another topic called "when you watch the sky" (http://ntsms.megatherion.com/index.php?topic=372.0), which is one my faves by the way.... when Markus was aroung to keep it alive :bawl:.
Unlike Mercury, Venus crosses the Sun very rarely, once in 100 years approximately. The last such event occurred on 8th June 2004, and before that back in 1882! :ninja: My friend and I projected the 2004 crossing through a telescope onto a sheet of paper and photographed it! :yeha: You are not supposed to look directly at the Sun... you'll get instant, painless and irreversable eye damage! :afaid:
(http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2694/hpim0547xp7.th.jpg) (http://img508.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hpim0547xp7.jpg)
Oh, and right now I have even spotted Mercury in the dusk. :yeha: It's rather bright, but always so close to the Sun that you only get a few chances per year to see it - at middle latitudes, that is. Closer to the poles it's even harder to find, closer to the equator much easier. And now I have spotted it, even through thin wisps of clouds, while on the moon the earthshine is becoming visible.
Ah, and the eclipse was in 1999. My first total solar eclipse. I was clouded out :bawling: but found it extremely impressive, anyway - the sudden darkness, the bright horizon, the strange colours. Even below the clouds I felt the strong impact.
The next great event is the solar eclipse on March 29th. I'll be in Turkey if all goes well and bask in the umbral shadow for the third time in my life. :w00t:
another unusual sight is to be seen these days: The comet 17/P Holmes returns approximately every 7 years, but it's usually a very faint object - far too faint to be seen with the naked eye, and even too faint to be of interest to most telescope skygazers. But a few days ago it went through a dramatic outburst and increased in brightness several 100.000 times! Now it's easily visible as a star-like object of medium brightness, visible to the naked eye even from light-polluted cities! Many observers even report that they see it as fuzzy object, disk-like, a small nebula.
Here is a fresh photo of me... and my best friend! :) Unfortunately, he is immobile... :'( :P :'(
(http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/2935/nemowhitenerdyws5.th.jpg) (http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nemowhitenerdyws5.jpg)
@Lucy: there, I hope you are happy now! :)
:fish:
Pretty impressive NeMo! :biggrin:
Uranus Aluqak...He-he-he... nice one :biggrin:
I repeat, Uranus Aluqak. :biggrin:
Anyway, I had the chance of spotting Mars a coupled of times
seeing Venus and its fases, and the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter (no belts though :-[).
My best experience was in 1996 or 97 when I had the chance to see the comet Hale-Bopp...
Right now, I live in Canada, I don't have a telescope and I most exciting things I can see are the lunar eclipses and northern lights that we have from time to time.
It's 22:35, the termometer says -18°C, the sky is clear, the moon is darkish red and I'm having some rum and listening some metal.Pretty similar to me and my family up on the balcony, having tea and joking around. :lol3:
Life is beautiful :ph34r:
It's 22:35, the termometer says -18°C, the sky is clear, the moon is darkish red and I'm having some rum and listening some metal.
Life is beautiful :ph34r:
but You will have soon a 2000th :nana:
Al: I'd be frozen and dead if I were where you are :wacko:What do you think is the rum for? ... to keep the Chief Anglerfish warm and alive... errrmmm.... :drunk:
It's 22:35, the termometer says -18°C
I skipped the eclipse yesterday... :blush: I told myself if I wake up in the middle of the night (as I sometimes do), I go to see that, but I was sleeping like this: :sleep: I know that I had a nice dream, but I cannot even recall. Anyway, it made my mood for today. :)
By the way, I spotted Mars several times in the past week, thank You, NeMo! :bow:
Don't worry Lucy (: I did not see the lunar eclipse also. Because the evening was sky clear like ice - but in the time of solar eclipse - clouds were already again on the stage... :lol3:
We have a cloudy day today...
Thanks NeMo for the info! I'll try to see it but here it looks like it's going to rain.. I hope it won't! :)
Too bad I wasn't able to take a pic of it, since my camera is really bad... :bye:
@Alu: huh.. envy envy envy.. give me some snow! This is no winter without the snow.. 35 cm!!!! :wOOt:If snow were as expenssive as gold or oil, Canada will be the richest country on earth... especially this winter. We are 30 cms away of breaking the all times record of more snow in a single winter... Wait a sec... all times?... :unsure: ... weeell, at least since 1850 when these kind of things began to be measured.
@Misti & saphira: was the Moon so thin like on the picture I posted? ^_^
Too bad I wasn't able to take a pic of it, since my camera is really bad... :bye:
Someone is under DD's influence again! :fish:
When You watch the sky - You could probably see Nordlys...
(http://www.pahof.de/mediac/400_0/media/DIR_7096/Hammerfest.jpg)
When You watch the sky - You could probably see Nordlys...
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Pleiades_large.jpg/300px-Pleiades_large.jpg)
When You watch the sky - You could probably see Nordlys...
Polar lights can be seen only from the very northern latitudes, like Norway or Canada. :P Did you see it Kris? :)
(http://oobleck.ifa.hawaii.edu:8080/where/images/orion.jpg)
People, tonight if the sky is clear you'll have a nice opportunity to spot Saturn easily. Because it will be just above the Moon. Actually, there will be two bright "stars" just above the Moon (also more and more to the right of it as the night goes on). The left one is Saturn and the right one is Regulus, the brightest star in the constelation of Leo. ;)
Hey NeMo, such a short post, no pics, no spam, nothing? :fish: Are You alright? :unsure:
If you extend that line for a height of Orion to the left, you'll findTrioctonSirius (:fish:), the brightest star of all heavens.
Have you seen the Moon, Saturn and Regulus Lucy?
Sigvi verz nice photos! They went directly into my file :thumbup:
Hi folks,
don't forget to look Southwest these days after sunset! You'll see bright Jupiter and blazing Venus. The two of them are converging day by day and will reach a beautiful conjunction on the first of December. On that day they will be joined by a young lunar crescent - in some regions you can even see an occultation of Venus by the moon.
Markus
...And if you're in a heavily populated area... Especially if it's as wild as Maracaibo, expect to see loads of fireworks... And hear so many explosions of these you'll think WW3 has begun. :ninja:
Oh, and by the way: Watch out for extra-colourful sunsets in North-America and Europe as a cloud of volcanic ash (http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Brian-Whittaker-www-BrianWhittaker-com-Redoubt-Ash_1238432595.jpg) from Alaska drits Westward!What? ... who made eruption without the mighty permission of our High Priest? :disgust:
What? ... who made eruption without the mighty permission of our High Priest? :disgust:
Anyway, the weather is rather sad and cold over here, so I don't think I'm gonna see something short of an extra-gray sunset :-\
Rise venus!
The Venus transit in 2012 might be a nice opportunity, though, for this will be the last transit of Venus in this century. But we can also do an NTSMS meeting just like that, without special occasion! :wOOt:That sounds pretty good. I will have graduated from high school by then. :yeha:
Hey Alu,
that must have been Mercury!
although you might have to provide your own leaf.:lol3:
In fact, language barrier isn't a big problem in visiting China. Since China is a multinational country and the wide land, even feel at home in Mandarin Chinese, there also exsist language problem in places like Xinjiang, where Uygurs formed the majority in local minority nationality and Uygurs speaks Uighurs……Dunno if you've watched "Firefly" - it's an excellent scifi western show that got tragically cancelled, in which chinese culture prevailed over american at one point, so everyone knows a bit of Chinese. Pretty much the same way everyone knows at least a few words of English nowadays.
Just take preparing like to learn some local customs, which are different in each part of China, or just find a good guide :wink2:I think I'll need a guide who'll have enough patience to wait while I sit atop every damn hilltop, read my Little Black Book of Chinese Poetry and get all introspective and mushy for the next few hours :D
So don't afraid of the language barrier :hop:It's like I'm already there ;D
And welcome to China :wOOt: :yeha:
And in summer, a few days before Typhon came, the sky will be so blue that……totally inconceivable :wub:Selective reading ftw.
Dunno if you've watched "Firefly" - it's an excellent scifi western show that got tragically cancelled……Oh, that's "Firefly", I didn't know about it ever before :idea: So it put on from 2002-2003 ? I found it was 9.5 score in IMDb, WOW!
We sit together, the mountain and I,
Until only the mountain remains.
Oh, that's "Firefly", I didn't know about it ever before :idea: So it put on from 2002-2003 ? I found it was 9.5 score in IMDb, WOW!That's the one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)) :)
That translation is so brilliant! By Sam Hamill, right? I like that!Yup :) The only thing I changed was the end of the first verse, where I wrote "I" instead of "me", but beside that purely cosmetic change, that's Hamill :)
However, there is fewer mush in original text :wink2:
I HAVE FOUND 12 ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THIS POEM JUST NOW!Yeah, and that confuses me to no extent - I find one version that I really love, then another that's okay, then yet another that's great... Make up your damned minds, already :D
So Markus you didn't stay for a long time in Shanghai! :innocent:
In China' s South - East coastal areas, when the winter came, dry weather always bring clear blue skies……without clouds! :yeha: but it's very rarely of course……
There's also a fantastic "Firefly" movie, "Serenity", but I wouldn't recommend watching it before seeing the 13 episodes of the series. You'll understand once you see the film ;D
Serenity (http://schoolgirlmilkycrisis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/serenity-image.jpg) :wub:
"You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til you understand who's in ruttin' command here!" (Jayne Cobb)(http://www.koalicija.net/hamsterz/Smileys/koulishn/rofl.gif)
It's the show where you'll learn such lovely phrases as "wo de ma he ta de fong kung de wai sheng dou" and how to wish your enemy "da xiang bao za shi de la du zi" (http://www.koalicija.net/hamsterz/Smileys/koulishn/rofl.gif)
Yup :) The only thing I changed was the end of the first verse, where I wrote "I" instead of "me", but beside that purely cosmetic change, that's Hamill :)That cosmetic change is excellent ;) I think in this position "I" or "me" is both fine in grammar, and “I” rhymes. And in original text, “I” is even more accurate :thumbup: :thumbup:
Indeed not, just for a couple of days in 2008 and 2009 when I went to China for two solar eclipses. But it was enough to get an impression of the Shanghai skies. I had read in the travel guide that Shanghai rarely has really blue skies: when it's not cloudy it's often hazy instead. :lol3: Everybody told me the same, and I made the same experience when I was there.Oh I must apologize for the weather that day :bawl:
The eclipse of 2009 I observed outside Shanghai, and we had a little luck with the weather there. But in the city itself the eclipse was clouded out, which was doubly cruel because there had been some unusually clear days before that. Such a pity because so many millions of people could have seen the full glory of a total solar eclipse, millions of people of which many won't ever get a second chance for that.
Watch out for the Geminids tonight and don't forget about the lunar eclipse at the next full moon. :)
Hey folks,
the lunar eclipse was on the astronomy picture of the day today (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap101223.html).
As a foretaste of the solar eclipse on the 4th of January I also want to show you a sunset eclipse on Mars (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-427).
Oh, this is really interesting pic :blink:
(http://i51.tinypic.com/24ewfaw.jpg)
Oh, :) Yesterday we saw many of these on the sky :) It's now very popular in here. I thought it came from China! :blink:
We call it here a "wish lantern" :) I pity we did not have one - I'd like to try to fly it!
Where is she from? :whistle:
Btw... I MUST look for my solar eclipse glasses... for 4th January :ninja: :ninja: :ninja:
But acutally, it sounds so telvizisch in the tv :D
Hmm, I saw the eclipse in the end where it was only a little bit of dark part :)
By then, we can make an NTSMS gathering, together with our children and their classmates... :lol3:
an alternate version of German history. :lol3:
(for some German astromist-lover, and a Diamond Lady, they may remember the main street that crosses my own street :ninja: )
I am playing around with Stellarium today. Too bad the sky is cloudy today and we have some drops of rain. I cannot even see the moon :-/
I would love to BUT only in case the skies are clear which I am afraid WON'T. :( If it's like last days... I won't see a thing.the weather will be cloudy and with a lot of thunderstorms here ..so i think i will not watch it.. maybe online or just pictures .. :( i was so looking forward for this event..especially since its not like i will ever get to watch it again.
I would love to BUT only in case the skies are clear which I am afraid WON'T. :( If it's like last days... I won't see a thing.the weather will be cloudy and with a lot of thunderstorms here ..so i think i will not watch it.. maybe online or just pictures .. :( i was so looking forward for this event..especially since its not like i will ever get to watch it again.
It seems like the weather has gone crazy the past weeks. how about there?
Our Astronomy Society recommended some days ago not to try to watch the transit with the naked eye, nor sunglasses, nor smoked glass, or welding masks.
They said the best and safest way to see it either through internet images (boring LOL) or making a room dark and using a mirror to reflect the sun.
:-(
Hope in humanity - restored. :biggrin:
[The moon] was so tiny that you could see the shadow of the not enlightened part, so you could really see all the circle, but only a little part enlightened.