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Space: The Final Frontier

N

noah111

Still Alive
McNei1y said:
I understand that 'We are very tiny' but I am trying to think what it would look like if we had VY Canis Majoris as our sun. If I looked out my window into the blue horizon, would it cover up the whole horizon? Would what we see as the sky now, be just big and red?
Click to expand...
Assuming you mean if it was the same distance away from us as the sun is (i.e. not enveloped within the star, which we still wouldn't survive), it would basically look a giant bright wall in space.
 
L

LeMaximilian

Alligator F*ck House
McNei1y said:
I understand that 'We are very tiny' but I am trying to think what it would look like if we had VY Canis Majoris as our sun. If I looked out my window into the blue horizon, would it cover up the whole horizon? Would what we see as the sky now, be just big and red?
Click to expand...

You wouldn't be able to see anything actually. Let's say Majoris was the same distance away as our smaller sun. We'll pretend you wont be immediately incinerated by being that close. You'd literally see nothing as the intensity of the light would pierce everything and anything.
 
A

astroturfing

Member
fallout said:
Actually, it looks like a tiny fuzzy patch in the sky. Still, I agree that it's really neat!
Click to expand...

ahh, thanks for correcting that. don't some star clusters look like single stars to us though.. i think? maybe when they are a bit closer so they are bright enough? i dunno. though for many people anything that's even slightly lit up, is a star :p

and arent quite a lot of the stars we see actually binary stars? that's pretty interesting too.
 
B

besada

Banned
Three minutes to launch...

Launch is successful!

The Falcon 9 launched, had a nominal firing of the stage one engines, achieved stage separation, and successfully fired the second-stage engine.

Currently it's still moving up with nominal avionics.

They've achieved LEO, which was the ultimate test. Complete and total success for Falcon 9's first test flight.
 
C

Crazymoogle

Member
Space Shuttle about to retire, we badly need commercial space planes or basically anything manned has to go through Russia for the forseeable future.

There's also the promise of cheaper and more reliable cargo transport for space/moon/asteroid ops by moving away from strictly NASA funded machines.
 
F

fallout

Member
I thought this was kind of neat. I didn't want to post the whole thing, but there's more here.



June 3, 2010: A Soviet robot lost on the dusty plains of the Moon for the past 40 years has been found again, and it is returning surprisingly strong laser pulses to Earth.

"We shined a laser on Lunokhod 1's position, and we were stunned by the power of the reflection," says Tom Murphy of UC San Diego, who leads the research team that's putting the old robot back to work. "Lunokhod 1 is talking to us loudly and clearly."

Almost forgotten in the lore of the Apollo-era space race, Lunokhod 1 was one of the greatest successes of the old Soviet lunar exploration program. In 1970, Time magazine described the robot's historic landing:

"Three hours after reaching the Moon aboard the latest unmanned Russian Moon probe, Luna 17, Lunokhod I (literally "moonwalker") lumbered down one of two ramps extended by the mother ship and moved forward … thus taking the first giant step for robotkind on another celestial body."​

The remote-controlled rover traveled almost 7 miles during its 11 month lunar tour, relaying thousands of TV images and hundreds of high-resolution panoramas of the Moon back to Earth. It also sampled and analyzed lunar soil at 500 locations.
Click to expand...
 
E

Escape Goat

Member
Its amazing how primitive and advanced our space technology is. Humans "shined a laser" and send relatively crude robots out to explore planets. The future will be an interesting place.
 
E

Escape Goat

Member
Pinko Marx said:
Silly question here, but is there an explanation for why planets and stars are always spherical?
Click to expand...

Sure someone will outnerd me but I believe its because gravity is pulling matter in every direction to a central point as it spins. Like being on a merry go round
 
F

fallout

Member
Teh Hamburglar said:
Sure someone will outnerd me but I believe its because gravity is pulling matter in every direction to a central point as it spins. Like being on a merry go round
Click to expand...
Yep, that's a good way of putting it. I might add that it's the shape that most evenly distributes the mass of the object.
 
M

Mechanical Snowman

Member
What telescopes do you guys have?

My brother and I are thinking of getting a telescope this summer, a lot of spare time means that we can dedicate ourselves to astronomy a bit. Can anyone recommend some good models? (Price range of about £100 - £300).
 
D

derFeef

Member
K

Kodiak

Not an asshole.
it's easy to feel mind-fucked and insignificant in front of all this stuff, but thanks to a little perspective I gleaned from Carl Sagan and the like, I feel so humbled and happy and excited to be alive in such a wondrous and massive universe.

I love this thread, I love GAF, and I love being alive.
 
D

derFeef

Member
Kodiak said:
it's easy to feel mind-fucked and insignificant in front of all this stuff, but thanks to a little perspective I gleaned from Carl Sagan and the like, I feel so humbled and happy and excited to be alive in such a wondrous and massive universe.

I love this thread, I love GAF, and I love being alive.
Click to expand...
Heh. We are just random dust particles in this universe. One bad-targeted gamma ray burst and we are gone ^^
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
Kodiak said:
it's easy to feel mind-fucked and insignificant in front of all this stuff, but thanks to a little perspective I gleaned from Carl Sagan and the like, I feel so humbled and happy and excited to be alive in such a wondrous and massive universe.

I love this thread, I love GAF, and I love being alive.
Click to expand...
At the same time, the thought of being stardust, that deveoped the consciousness of itself.. it's amazing.
 
I

innervision961

Member
This is a terribly stupid question but, are there really places on earth to stargaze where you can actually see the milky way, the nebulae and such. I live in a place with poor visibility, high humidity and
bad light pollution. I would be so floored to actually see the gas and dust but I don't know if the pictures and
television shows have doctored the images or if they really view it like that.
 
D

derFeef

Member
innervision961 said:
This is a terribly stupid question but, are there really places on earth to stargaze where you can actually see the milky way, the nebulae and such. I live in a place with poor visibility, high humidity and
bad light pollution. I would be so floored to actually see the gas and dust but I don't know if the pictures and
television shows have doctored the images or if they really view it like that.
Click to expand...
If you refer to the "band of light" as milky way, yes you can see it. I used to live on the country some years ago and I could watch it every day. Where do you live? Northern or southern hemisphere?
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
innervision961 said:
This is a terribly stupid question but, are there really places on earth to stargaze where you can actually see the milky way, the nebulae and such. I live in a place with poor visibility, high humidity and
bad light pollution. I would be so floored to actually see the gas and dust but I don't know if the pictures and
television shows have doctored the images or if they really view it like that.
Click to expand...
I would like to know this aswell.
I've read that you can actually see Andromeda with naked eye, and that it's pretty big, but i've never tried it myself, yet.

Anyway, i think Nebulae are not visible with the colors you use to see them on the Nasa website.
And it doesn't have to do with just distance, even if you could go near them with a spaceship, you wouldn't see those colors, IIRC.
If someone who actually understand this stuff, could clarify this up.. :)
 
D

derFeef

Member
UrbanRats said:
I would like to know this aswell.
I've read that you can actually see Andromeda with naked eye, and that it's pretty big, but i've never tried it myself, yet.

Anyway, i think Nebulae are not visible with the colors you use to see them on the Nasa website.
And it doesn't have to do with just distance, even if you could go near them with a spaceship, you wouldn't see those colors, IIRC.
If someone who actually understand this stuff, could clarify this up.. :)
Click to expand...
You can see Andromeda with naked eye on a very clear and dark night with good "seeing". A bino does help though and it would appear like a diffuse and weak star. You can also see some star clusters without telescopes and "dark clouds" in the milky way. The Plejades ar the best example of an (open) star cluster you can see with naked eye and perfectly with binos.

If you live in the southern hemisphere you can see the magellanic clouds, very beautiful.
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
derFeef said:
You can see Andromeda with naked eye on a very clear and dark night with good "seeing". A bino does help though and it would appear like a diffuse and weak star. You can also see some star clusters without telescopes and "dark clouds" in the milky way. The Plejades ar the best example of an (open) star cluster you can see with naked eye and perfectly with binos.

If you live in the southern hemisphere you can see the magellanic clouds, very beautiful.
Click to expand...
I guess i will get that binocular you suggested a few pages back(or in another thread?).
Too bad i'm in Italy, so no Magellanic clouds :(.

EDIT: This was it..
www.amazon.co.uk/Celestron-71009-Sk...TF8&coliid=I1UG3JHCOIED44&colid=3I6SEXN96X3BG
 
O

Orgun

Member
innervision961 said:
This is a terribly stupid question but, are there really places on earth to stargaze where you can actually see the milky way, the nebulae and such. I live in a place with poor visibility, high humidity and
bad light pollution. I would be so floored to actually see the gas and dust but I don't know if the pictures and
television shows have doctored the images or if they really view it like that.
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z3cVQcfb-w&playnext_from=TL&videos=KCh0u6kxCP0
 
H

hirokazu

Member
innervision961 said:
This is a terribly stupid question but, are there really places on earth to stargaze where you can actually see the milky way, the nebulae and such. I live in a place with poor visibility, high humidity and
bad light pollution. I would be so floored to actually see the gas and dust but I don't know if the pictures and
television shows have doctored the images or if they really view it like that.
Click to expand...
In Australia if you get out of the city it's pretty much remote everywhere with nothing around and you look at the sky and it's all OMFG THERE'S SO MANY STARS. You can definitely see the Milky Way, but it's not as amazing as that time lapse video, obviously.
 
G

GONz

Member
My guess is that this video is actually a collection of long exposition pictures to collect more light on each shot and therefore make the Milky Way more visible. At a time (I don't have the time-tag) you can see a shooting star like a bright segment, that should confirm this method.
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
GONz said:
My guess is that this video is actually a collection of long exposition pictures to collect more light on each shot and therefore make the Milky Way more visible. At a time (I don't have the time-tag) you can see a shooting star like a bright segment, that should confirm this method.
Click to expand...
But there are comets in the video, :(
big_z said:
thats awesome but to see the milky way like that with all the gas clouds can only be done with a camera right?
i've been out in the middle of no where plenty of times and you can see an amazing number of stars including the milky way but it looks like nothing more than dense cluster of stars.
Click to expand...

IIRC, it's because our eyes can't accumulate light, like a camera can, or something like that.
So like, when you're in a dark room, you don't keep getting light in until it's all bright, like camera would do.
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Yeah guys is it true that the only stars we can physically see with our own eyes are the ones in our own Milkly Way Galaxy only?
 
N

noah111

Still Alive
mckmas8808 said:
Yeah guys is it true that the only stars we can physically see with our own eyes are the ones in our own Milkly Way Galaxy only?
Click to expand...
And a very small number of them at that.
 
B

besada

Banned
The Japanese are officially king mofos today. IKAROS, their solar sail craft, is in the process of unfolding its solar sail in space. As far as I know, this makes the Japanese Space Agency the first one on the planet to deploy a solar sail craft.

The Planetary Society plans to do a solar sail launch later this year, but JAXA beat them to it. The IKAROS, once it finishes setting itself up, will head to Venus and is supposed to be there six months later. Afterwards it's headed to the far side of the sun.

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/ikaros/

The site is pretty short on photos, but IKAROS is supposed to deploy two cameras in the next few days.
 
The Elite

The Elite

BOSS
besada said:
The Japanese are officially king mofos today. IKAROS, their solar sail craft, is in the process of unfolding its solar sail in space. As far as I know, this makes the Japanese Space Agency the first one on the planet to deploy a solar sail craft.

The Planetary Society plans to do a solar sail launch later this year, but JAXA beat them to it. The IKAROS, once it finishes setting itself up, will head to Venus and is supposed to be there six months later. Afterwards it's headed to the far side of the sun.

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/ikaros/

The site is pretty short on photos, but IKAROS is supposed to deploy two cameras in the next few days.
Click to expand...

This could be very exciting.
 
M

Mechanical Snowman

Member
derFeef said:
I wrote about that some pages back:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=20778791&postcount=2569
and
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=20793402&postcount=2583
Click to expand...
Thanks, I did some more research and I'm looking into this one. Typical that I get back into astronomy and it rains for a week, followed by heavy fog today. It's meant to be Summer!


besada said:
The Japanese are officially king mofos today. IKAROS, their solar sail craft, is in the process of unfolding its solar sail in space. As far as I know, this makes the Japanese Space Agency the first one on the planet to deploy a solar sail craft.

The Planetary Society plans to do a solar sail launch later this year, but JAXA beat them to it. The IKAROS, once it finishes setting itself up, will head to Venus and is supposed to be there six months later. Afterwards it's headed to the far side of the sun.

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/ikaros/

The site is pretty short on photos, but IKAROS is supposed to deploy two cameras in the next few days.
Click to expand...
Why are we still sending things to Venus? Isn't Titan all the rage now with it's liquid water and whatnot?
 
B

besada

Banned
Mechanical Snowman said:
Why are we still sending things to Venus? Isn't Titan all the rage now with it's liquid water and whatnot?
Click to expand...

It's a lot closer. I suspect they didn't want to send their unique test craft far away until they had a local test. They're basically testing several new technologies. The solar sail is also using thin film photovoltaics to generate power.

They have another mission planned for a solar sail craft twice as big later this year. It's heading to Jupiter and the Trojan asteroids.

Also, I just found out what IKAROS stands for:Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun.

Japanese space kite, bitches!
 
D

derFeef

Member
Mechanical Snowman said:
Thanks, I did some more research and I'm looking into this one. Typical that I get back into astronomy and it rains for a week, followed by heavy fog today. It's meant to be Summer!
Click to expand...

Link does not work, but the url mentions dobsky200, which must be an 8 inch dobson. This is always the right choice for beginners, as I already wrote :)
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
derFeef said:
Yep.
Click to expand...


WOW! It's just crazy to think that 600 years ago people had no idea about anything that existed beyond our own galaxy.

I can imagine 500 years from now, we humans finding out that multiple universes exist. While today that would sound crazy.
 
M

Mechanical Snowman

Member
derFeef said:
Link does not work, but the url mentions dobsky200, which must be an 8 inch dobson. This is always the right choice for beginners, as I already wrote :)
Click to expand...
Ah, there's a quotation mark at the end of the URL that shouldn't be there. That's my internet skillz for you.

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=dobsky200

Doing more research on mounts and stuff before I invest, and next time the skies are clear I'm going out with some binoculars.

besada said:
It's a lot closer. I suspect they didn't want to send their unique test craft far away until they had a local test. They're basically testing several new technologies. The solar sail is also using thin film photovoltaics to generate power.
Click to expand...
That makes sense, I hope the tech works as planned. I'm just really impatient when it comes to this stuff, make a badass discovery already!
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
Sentry said:
And a very small number of them at that.
Click to expand...
indeed.

In addition, there's a large portion of the galaxy (and area beyond) that is obscured from our field of vision, due to dust and other stuff in the way.

500px-Milky_Way_Spiral_Arm.svg.png
 
B

besada

Banned
Mechanical Snowman said:
That makes sense, I hope the tech works as planned. I'm just really impatient when it comes to this stuff, make a badass discovery already!
Click to expand...

Hah! I've been waiting thirty years to see someone put a solar sail in space. I feel your impatience.
 
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