Anyone into Amateur Astronomy?

[Guest bkelm18]

I dabbled in stargazing and backyard astronomy some several years ago but gave it up because I never found the time (and it can be quite an expensive hobby). I'm getting back into it and am getting my stuff back together hoping to get out soon and find some dark skies. Just thought I'd see if there were any fellow stargazers here.

[monkeylizard]

I dabble a little. I know a lot less than I'd like to.

I have a pair of Nikon 10x 50's that I use along with a cheap Celestron scope. I'm too close to the city to pick out many details of stars, but the Celestron gives really good views of the lunar landscape. Very clear crater edges. I was able to find all of Jupiter's Galilean moons with the Nikons on a tripod a couple of years ago when they were lined up nice and neat.

Star Walk is a great iPhone app. It uses the accelerometer, compass, and GPS to display a view of the stars. Imagine it's a clear window. Whatever is behind it apperars on screen with labels and info. You can also drop out the canned black sky background and it will use the iPhone camera instead for a real-time image of what you are seeing. Lots of other cool features too like various light waves, lookups of planets, stars, constellations, satellites, and the ISS, then an arrow to direct you to their location.

http://vitotechnolog.../star-walk.html

Edited March 12, 2012 by monkeylizard

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I dabble in it as well. An amateur astronomer worth his salt will know zillions of details about the sky and be able to point out the important stars without using a cheat sheet. I'll never be thataway.

Haven't been active the last couple of years. My biggest enjoyment came from messing with the gear and getting stuff that works right. Unless somebody lives rural, or gets into astrophotography, or buys a real-time photo-multiplier electronic eyepiece and observes on a computer monitor-- City and burb skies are too bright to see many sights of interest except very rarely.

Lots of the serious guys do frequent weekend and vacation trips to dark skies. It is kinda like camping with a twist. Use campers or RV's and go to lots of scenic remote places to camp and observe. If I ever retire and have gas money might try some of that.

Lots of them are real sociable and enjoy toting heavy gear to club meetings in remote places and such. I'm not a traveler and am not especially sociable, so therefore miss out on some of the aspects.

I like computerized mounts. I don't care about knowing where a particular nebula might be up there. Just tell the computer to find the dern thing and point the telescope at it. Also enjoy messing with hardware. Various brackets and custom focuser attachments and such. If ever get a mill might enjoy making some focusers just for the fun. Have built or modified a few small scopes, not big-dollar stuff, just make something useful to me for the heck of it. Given lots of time, it would be fun to build some bigger scopes. I get real interested in the oddball optical designs and it makes me want to build one if I read too much about it. Am not so interested in the "standard practical" designs as far as trying to build one.

[Guest bkelm18]

I dabble a little. I know a lot less than I'd like to.

I have a pair of Nikon 10x 50's that I use along with a cheap Celestron scope. I'm too close to the city to pick out many details of stars, but the Celestron gives really good views of the lunar landscape. Very clear crater edges. I was able to find all of Jupiter's Galilean moons with the Nikons on a tripod a couple of years ago when they were lined up nice and neat.

Star Walk is a great iPhone app. It uses the accelerometer, compass, and GPS to display a view of the stars. Imagine it's a clear window. Whatever is behind it apperars on screen with labels and info. You can also drop out the canned black sky background and it will use the iPhone camera instead for a real-time image of what you are seeing. Lots of other cool features too like various light waves, lookups of planets, stars, constellations, satellites, and the ISS, then an arrow to direct you to their location.

http://vitotechnolog.../star-walk.html

Star Walk is awesome. It's fun to just sit outside and look around with it.

I dabble in it as well. An amateur astronomer worth his salt will know zillions of details about the sky and be able to point out the important stars without using a cheat sheet. I'll never be thataway.

Haven't been active the last couple of years. My biggest enjoyment came from messing with the gear and getting stuff that works right. Unless somebody lives rural, or gets into astrophotography, or buys a real-time photo-multiplier electronic eyepiece and observes on a computer monitor-- City and burb skies are too bright to see many sights of interest except very rarely.

Lots of the serious guys do frequent weekend and vacation trips to dark skies. It is kinda like camping with a twist. Use campers or RV's and go to lots of scenic remote places to camp and observe. If I ever retire and have gas money might try some of that.

Lots of them are real sociable and enjoy toting heavy gear to club meetings in remote places and such. I'm not a traveler and am not especially sociable, so therefore miss out on some of the aspects.

I like computerized mounts. I don't care about knowing where a particular nebula might be up there. Just tell the computer to find the dern thing and point the telescope at it. Also enjoy messing with hardware. Various brackets and custom focuser attachments and such. If ever get a mill might enjoy making some focusers just for the fun. Have built or modified a few small scopes, not big-dollar stuff, just make something useful to me for the heck of it. Given lots of time, it would be fun to build some bigger scopes. I get real interested in the oddball optical designs and it makes me want to build one if I read too much about it. Am not so interested in the "standard practical" designs as far as trying to build one.

I dunno, a good wide aperture above 6" and you can see quite a bit even in fairly light polluted areas. I actually don't like the motorized "go-to" mounts. I like the challenge of "star hopping". I guess it's part of the reward for me to plan it out on a star chart then actually do it with the scope.

[peejman]

While I find it interesting, I'm not much of an astronomer. You may or may not be aware of this... http://orionastronomy.wordpress.com/

[monkeylizard]

While I find it interesting, I'm not much of an astronomer. You may or may not be aware of this... http://orionastronomy.wordpress.com/

Translation: This website has been brought to you by the Tennessee Color Blind Astronomy Club and is powered by MS FrontPage '97

Edited March 12, 2012 by monkeylizard

[Slasher]

I was really in to it 10 years ago or so. I used to go to the local astronomy club meetings over at CBC and enjoyed the presentations they gave there. The Mrs got me, for my birthday one year, an Orion 8" dob and man was that thing nice. We were in Cordova at the time but I would still get a lot of good views. Loved looking at Jupiter and Saturn. Could make out the rings of Saturn most of the time although the image was small it was very high quality. I can remember one night on a particularly calm night and watching Jupiter trying to catch the bands around the planet and the big red spot. For a couple of minutes everything calmed down and I could count at least four or five of the bands around the planed with the red spot and I could see the swirling of the clouds in the bands around the planet. It really blew me away. I never went out to a dark sky spot but would have loved to at the time. I don't really have much time to mess with it any more but I do still have the telescope for those occasional nights when I feel like pulling it out.

[Guest bkelm18]

I was really in to it 10 years ago or so. I used to go to the local astronomy club meetings over at CBC and enjoyed the presentations they gave there. The Mrs got me, for my birthday one year, an Orion 8" dob and man was that thing nice. We were in Cordova at the time but I would still get a lot of good views. Loved looking at Jupiter and Saturn. Could make out the rings of Saturn most of the time although the image was small it was very high quality. I can remember one night on a particularly calm night and watching Jupiter trying to catch the bands around the planet and the big red spot. For a couple of minutes everything calmed down and I could count at least four or five of the bands around the planed with the red spot and I could see the swirling of the clouds in the bands around the planet. It really blew me away. I never went out to a dark sky spot but would have loved to at the time. I don't really have much time to mess with it any more but I do still have the telescope for those occasional nights when I feel like pulling it out.

I love a good Dob but I sold mine. It was difficult to store in a small apartment and a pain to take out somewhere. It's hard to beat their ability to view the sky though.

[Oh Shoot]

I'm not into the actual stargazing, but have been fascinated with all the info about the cosmos in general. The simple scale of the known universe being among the most constantly amazing aspect of all -- regardless of all the analogies used, it's simply astounding to try to wrap yer pea sized brain around it.

The fact that we can actually look out at what we assume to be the very beginning of the known present universe, some 13 billion years ago, yet still have mostly unanswered questions sure puts ego in its place. Mostly.

- OS

[Guest bkelm18]

I'm not into the actual stargazing, but have been fascinated with all the info about the cosmos in general. The simple scale of the known universe being among the most constantly amazing aspect of all -- regardless of all the analogies used, it's simply astounding to try to wrap yer pea sized brain around it.

The fact that we can actually look out at what we assume to be the very beginning of the known present universe, some 13 billion years ago, yet still have mostly unanswered questions sure puts ego in its place. Mostly.

- OS

The sheer enormity of the universe is one of the things that got me interested in it in the first place. To think that the fastest man-made object, which is Voyager 1, is traveling at over 600 mi./s and would take about 74,000 years to reach the next closest star. Truly mind boggling.

[Oh Shoot]

The sheer enormity of the universe is one of the things that got me interested in it in the first place. To think that the fastest man-made object, which is Voyager 1, is traveling at over 600 mi./s and would take about 74,000 years to reach the next closest star. Truly mind boggling.

One that always gets me, and about as far as I can grok, is that even if we could travel at the speed of light (roughly 6 trillion miles per year) it's 4 years to the nearest star and 100,000 years across just our own local galaxy!

- OS

[Mechanic_X]

The local club,(Cumberland Astronomical Society)once a month, sets all there stuff up for the public to come to. We go a couple a times a year.

Heaven Above website list all the satellites that you can see go over. Pretty cool to see the Space Station go over. Especially when it is really bright.

Edited March 14, 2012 by Mechanic_X

[monkeylizard]

The Sudekum Planetarium (at the Adventure Science Center) in conjunction with the Barnard-Seyfert Astronomical Society hosts star parties at various sites around the Nashville area. I plan to go to the one in April at Edwin Warner Park.

http://www.sudekumplanetarium.com/starparties/index.shtml

Sudekum also has late shows every 2nd Saturday of a month. Normally you have to buy admission to the ACC and then add-on a ticket to the planetarium. For the late shows, you can pay for just the planetarium. And yes, they do a Pink Floyd show <<That ain't no Marlboro>>

CAS that Mechanic_X mentioned can be found here:

http://www.cumberlandastronomicalsociety.org/

Vandy's Dyer Observatory has free Fridays every 2nd Friday (except June). It's located off of Granny White Pike near Radnor Lake state park.

http://www.dyer.vanderbilt.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=55

[Guest Lester Weevils]

For completeness, there is also the Chattanooga Barnard Astronomical Society, though I've never gone to the meetings and most likely do not know any members--

http://barnardstar.org/

One that always gets me, and about as far as I can grok, is that even if we could travel at the speed of light (roughly 6 trillion miles per year) it's 4 years to the nearest star and 100,000 years across just our own local galaxy!

Physicists often contend that it is impossible to realistically discuss the concepts in a non-mathematical context. I have no reason to doubt it and do not understand the math. Further, perhaps a "complete" falsifiable theory is not even possible.

According to special relativity, matter can't travel at the speed of light though it can get very close. Dunno if it even makes a lick of sense to discuss a photon's relativistic frame of reference but things which travel at the speed of light would have an unusual frame of reference. Information can travel at the speed of light, at least the portion of the universe's information which is in the form of photons.

Consider a photon boiled off a star in some remote galaxy a billion years ago-- Time does not exist in that photon's frame of reference. Or any photon's frame of reference. Time stops at the speed of light. Though this lonely photon may have traveled a billion years, its path perturbed as it "passes by" gravitational fields of stars, galaxies, black holes or dark matter-- If you gaze into the night sky and that lonely photon happens to strike your retina-- From the perspective of the photon, no time has passed in its journey. From the perspective of the photon, it came into existence a billion years ago and then instantly was assimilated into an atom in your retina. From the perspective of the photon, your eye was "instantly connected" to a remote atom in a remote star.

If there was "instant information transfer" from an atom in the remote star, into an atom of your eye-- Neither time nor space existed from the photon's frame of reference? Without time then is space a meaningless concept? If something must have duration in order to exist, then in the photon's frame of reference, perhaps the photon never even existed? Is it just a long tortured information probability wave which collapsed upon reaching yer eye?

The photon can be presumed to have been "cause and effect" perturbed by gravity on its long journey, but from the perspective of that photon-- Mister photon didn't notice anything on his "instant" journey. Anything which may have affected the photon on its billion year "trip"-- It all happened at the exact same instant?

Dunno what to make of it and perhaps it is a completely wrong or meaningless interpretation. It just seems that from a speed-of-light frame of reference, there is no cause-and-effect? Everything is "instantly connected" to everything else? The universe, all of the time and all of the space, is just one big frozen unified pattern of information?

Edited March 14, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Guest bkelm18]

For completeness, there is also the Chattanooga Barnard Astronomical Society, though I've never gone to the meetings and most likely do not know any members--

http://barnardstar.org/

Physicists often contend that it is impossible to realistically discuss the concepts in a non-mathematical context. I have no reason to doubt it and do not understand the math. Further, perhaps a "complete" falsifiable theory is not even possible.

According to special relativity, matter can't travel at the speed of light though it can get very close. Dunno if it even makes a lick of sense to discuss a photon's relativistic frame of reference but things which travel at the speed of light would have an unusual frame of reference. Information can travel at the speed of light, at least the portion of the universe's information which is in the form of photons.

Consider a photon boiled off a star in some remote galaxy a billion years ago-- Time does not exist in that photon's frame of reference. Or any photon's frame of reference. Time stops at the speed of light. Though this lonely photon may have traveled a billion years, its path perturbed as it "passes by" gravitational fields of stars, galaxies, black holes or dark matter-- If you gaze into the night sky and that lonely photon happens to strike your retina-- From the perspective of the photon, no time has passed in its journey. From the perspective of the photon, it came into existence a billion years ago and then instantly was assimilated into an atom in your retina. From the perspective of the photon, your eye was "instantly connected" to a remote atom in a remote star.

If there was "instant information transfer" from an atom in the remote star, into an atom of your eye-- Neither time nor space existed from the photon's frame of reference? Without time then is space a meaningless concept? If something must have duration in order to exist, then in the photon's frame of reference, perhaps the photon never even existed? Is it just a long tortured information probability wave which collapsed upon reaching yer eye?

The photon can be presumed to have been "cause and effect" perturbed by gravity on its long journey, but from the perspective of that photon-- Mister photon didn't notice anything on his "instant" journey. Anything which may have affected the photon on its billion year "trip"-- It all happened at the exact same instant?

Dunno what to make of it and perhaps it is a completely wrong or meaningless interpretation. It just seems that from a speed-of-light frame of reference, there is no cause-and-effect? Everything is "instantly connected" to everything else? The universe, all of the time and all of the space, is just one big frozen unified pattern of information?

Yay quantum physics! Though admittadly my goal is to simply view and admire the universe, not necessarily understand it. Damn it Jim, I'm a chemist, not a physicist.

Edited March 15, 2012 by bkelm18

[Oh Shoot]

....Dunno what to make of it and perhaps it is a completely wrong or meaningless interpretation. It just seems that from a speed-of-light frame of reference, there is no cause-and-effect? Everything is "instantly connected" to everything else? The universe, all of the time and all of the space, is just one big frozen unified pattern of information?

Well, we know very little about how observed objects with mass behave at near light speed, and certainly nothing about their perception of that.

The Large Hadron Collider is bombarding particles at almost light speed, and as little as I understand it, seems that the mathematics that even try to describe the results aren't widely agreed upon yet.

Likely we'll find that the most essential particles we can observe, or even control to a certain extent, will behave differently than more aggregate material with higher masses, should we ever be able to propel them at those speeds. Ultimately, of course, a biological entity would have to be propelled to near light speed to measure actual physiological behavior (does it really almost cease to age, etc), and beyond that, a human brain would have to travel that way to describe how it felt about the time duration!

Space travel is one of the few scientific areas in which homo sapiens has simply not made quantum technological leaps, and I'm not really sure we ever will, in the context of exploring space in the relatively real time sense we have the earth. We've got about 4 billion years left to figure it out (or no time at all depending on the vagaries of space or geology or nukes or disease or....) -- could be our only chance to propagate our seed elsewhere will be to send out generational colonies on giant interstellar craft, whose destinies would never be known.

Maybe start with convicted lifer convicts, an educated crap shoot hoping some will find their own Australia. Or volunteers, probably find enough fringe loons who believe the whole shebang here is hopeless anyway. Hey, maybe I should volunteer!

Then again, might be kinder over all to not infect the cosmos any further with this human virus thing.

- OS

Edited March 15, 2012 by OhShoot

[Guest bkelm18]

Well, we know very little about how observed objects with mass behave at near light speed, and certainly nothing about their perception of that.

The Large Hadron Collider is bombarding particles at almost light speed, and as little as I understand it, seems that the mathematics that even try to describe the results aren't widely agreed upon yet.

Likely we'll find that the most essential particles we can observe, or even control to a certain extent, will behave differently than more aggregate material with higher masses, should we ever be able to propel them at those speeds. Ultimately, of course, a biological entity would have to be propelled to near light speed to measure actual physiological behavior (does it really almost cease to age, etc), and beyond that, a human brain would have to travel that way to describe how it felt about the time duration!

Space travel is one of the few scientific areas in which homo sapiens has simply not made quantum technological leaps, and I'm not really sure we ever will, in the context of exploring space in the relatively real time sense we have the earth. We've got about 4 billion years left to figure it out (or no time at all depending on the vagaries of space or geology or nukes or disease or....) -- could be our only chance to propagate our seed elsewhere will be to send out generational colonies on giant interstellar craft, whose destinies would never be known.

Maybe start with convicted lifer convicts, an educated crap shoot hoping some will find their own Australia. Or volunteers, probably find enough fringe loons who believe the whole shebang here is hopeless anyway. Hey, maybe I should volunteer!

Then again, might be kinder over all to not infect the cosmos any further with this human virus thing.

- OS

Many prominent people/scientists/people smarter than I feel that humans will never travel outside the solar system. Carl Sagan often warned of the very real threat that we may someday just simply destroy ourselves if we don't focus our resources towards more important pursuits; a theory also supported by the "Fermi Paradox", which essentially boils down to saying that any civilization advanced enough to potentially explore the cosmos will likely destroy itself before getting to that point. At our current rate, I doubt we'd ever even make it to Mars. Oh well. We reap what we sow.

Edited March 15, 2012 by bkelm18

[monkeylizard]

Yeah, and SETI may not like what they find if they ever find something....

[Oh Shoot]

Yeah, and SETI may not like what they find if they ever find something....

Unless they show up here, it's going to be a very slow conversation.

Even if they should be as close as Alpha Centauri system, we talking 8 years between us saying "hello" and getting "we are fine, how are you" in return.

- OS

[Timestepper]

Physicists often contend that it is impossible to realistically discuss the concepts in a non-mathematical context. I have no reason to doubt it and do not understand the math. Further, perhaps a "complete" falsifiable theory is not even possible.

According to special relativity, matter can't travel at the speed of light though it can get very close. Dunno if it even makes a lick of sense to discuss a photon's relativistic frame of reference but things which travel at the speed of light would have an unusual frame of reference. Information can travel at the speed of light, at least the portion of the universe's information which is in the form of photons.

Consider a photon boiled off a star in some remote galaxy a billion years ago-- Time does not exist in that photon's frame of reference. Or any photon's frame of reference. Time stops at the speed of light. Though this lonely photon may have traveled a billion years, its path perturbed as it "passes by" gravitational fields of stars, galaxies, black holes or dark matter-- If you gaze into the night sky and that lonely photon happens to strike your retina-- From the perspective of the photon, no time has passed in its journey. From the perspective of the photon, it came into existence a billion years ago and then instantly was assimilated into an atom in your retina. From the perspective of the photon, your eye was "instantly connected" to a remote atom in a remote star.

If there was "instant information transfer" from an atom in the remote star, into an atom of your eye-- Neither time nor space existed from the photon's frame of reference? Without time then is space a meaningless concept? If something must have duration in order to exist, then in the photon's frame of reference, perhaps the photon never even existed? Is it just a long tortured information probability wave which collapsed upon reaching yer eye?

The photon can be presumed to have been "cause and effect" perturbed by gravity on its long journey, but from the perspective of that photon-- Mister photon didn't notice anything on his "instant" journey. Anything which may have affected the photon on its billion year "trip"-- It all happened at the exact same instant?

Dunno what to make of it and perhaps it is a completely wrong or meaningless interpretation. It just seems that from a speed-of-light frame of reference, there is no cause-and-effect? Everything is "instantly connected" to everything else? The universe, all of the time and all of the space, is just one big frozen unified pattern of information?

I was once walking alone through the forest and a tree fell right in front of me... and I didn't hear it.

Our universe is an amazing place. Huge beyond mere mortal comprehension. Because of that, I don't stargaze anymore - I just look up and say "Wow..." and go back to making my man-sized plans. It makes my own world more bearable. But I do sometimes rely upon the North Star to navigate and I'm glad that it's there even if I can't quite grok the why of it. It's enough for me that it is.

Perhaps everything in it's own way is relative. We are less than atoms compared to the vastness of our galaxy which itself is less than a dust speck in the universe. But we're larger than life to our children and absolute gods to our pets. (Can't even begin to wonder what ants think of us.)

I like the universe. It's a neat place. And I like the fact that while we occupy only the tiniest, most miniscule portion of it, we can't help but wonder about all of it. But I sold my telescope 20 years ago and bought some binoculars... and I'm still humbled by what I can see through them.

Any time you get to feelin' like you're a pretty important feller and you need a dose of humility, try ordering someone else's dog around.

[Timestepper]

Damn, killed another one!