SchalkeUK 402 Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 Very clear over here on Tuesday night this week and I keep an eye on the Nasa web page which shows the track and if the clouds go away it is often as you describe it. The web page is also very accurate so you don't have to sit for ages waiting for it to appear - have a look folks and you will see how accurate Stan's comments are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 2, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 2, 2020 Hubble views a supernova in a spiral galaxy An exploding star has been spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in a galaxy 70 million lightyears away. The Hubble Space Telescope has observed a supernova in a spiral galaxy 70 million lightyears away. The galaxy, known as NGC 2525, is in the Southern Hemisphere constellation Puppis, and the bright supernova can be seen as a blue flash on the left side of this image. Supernovae are stellar explosions caused when stars over 1.4 times the mass of our Sun begin to use up their fuel towards the end of their life. The star collapses in a matter of seconds and explodes as a supernova (for more info, read our guide What is a supernova?) The supernova pictured here is known as SN2018gv and was first spotted in January 2018. Supernovae like these can be used to measure distances in space, enabling astronomers to calculate the expansion rate of the Universe. More Hubble images: Hubble spies a spiral within a spiral galaxy Hubble spies a ghostly galactic collision Hubble images the death of a Sun-like star Image stats Release date 1 October 2020 Observatory Hubble Space Telescope Image credit ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess and the SH0ES team / Acknowledgment: Mahdi Zamani https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/hubble-views-supernova-in-spiral-galaxy/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 5, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 5, 2020 Hubble Space Telescope captures stunning image of a galaxy 60 million light-years away By: Bulbul Dhawan |October 5, 2020, 6:45 PM The Hubble was deployed and launched into space a whopping three decades ago in 1990, in the space shuttle Discovery. The image was observed by Adam Riess, who is a Nobel Prize winner in Physics. (Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess et al.; acknowledgement: Mahdi Zamani) Hubble Telescope: Hubble captures stunning image of the spiral galaxy! The Hubble Telescope, operated by US’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA), has captured a beautiful image of the spiral galaxy NGC 5643, NASA and ESA said in a joint statement. The galaxy is in the Lupus constellation or The Wolf. However, capturing the image was no cakewalk, the space agencies have clarified, adding that looking that good, even for a galaxy, is not as easy as it may seem. How did the Hubble capture the image? According to the joint statement, it required a total of nine hours of exposure, along with 30 different exposures, and the clarity and high resolution provided by Hubble. Only then was the detailed image of the beautiful galaxy captured. NGC 5643 explained The spiral galaxy called NGC 5643 is located at a distance of 60 million light-years away from our planet. It has also been the host of a recent event of supernova, which is not visible in the image that Hubble has captured. The supernova that the galaxy experienced, labelled 2017cbv, was a specific type of event during which a lot of mass is stolen by a white dwarf from a companion star. The high amount of mass causes the white dwarf to become unstable and ultimately explode. A significant amount of energy is expelled during this explosion, as a result of which a part of the galaxy is lit up. The image was observed by Adam Riess, who is a Nobel Prize winner in Physics. Hubble: Its journey The Hubble was deployed and launched into space a whopping three decades ago in 1990, in the space shuttle Discovery. The Hubble, as against telescopes situated on the planet, is not hindered by the Earth’s atmospheric conditions like rain, clouds and pollution, and has a clear view of other celestial objects. Named after revolutionary astronomer Edwin Hubble, the space telescope has been used by scientists for the observation of various distant stars and galaxies that were yet to be seen. It also helped in observation of planets in our own solar system as well. Over the years, the capabilities of Hubble have been improving as the space agencies have placed cutting-edge components on the telescope in five astronaut servicing missions ever since it was deployed. Hubble can capture images from ultraviolet to visible, as can be seen by our eyes, and to near-infrared, making its range of observations and capturing vast and diverse. This has made the telescope especially useful in capturing stunning images of various astronomical objects, ultimately changing the way the universe has been viewed by people. https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/science/hubble-space-telescope-captures-stunning-image-of-galaxy-60-million-light-years-away-check-here/2098607/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 9, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 9, 2020 (edited) Quote Astronomers reveal the first direct image of Beta Pictoris c using the new astronomy instrument These schematic images show the geometry of the Beta Pictoris system: the image on the left shows both the star and the two planets embedded in the dusty disk in the orientation as visible from the vantage point of the Solar System. This view was constructed using the information from actual observations. The middle panel contains an artist impression of the disk/planet system. The image on the right shows the dimensions of the system when viewed from above and previous observations of Beta Pictoris b (orange diamonds and red circles) and the new direct observations of Beta Pictoris c (green circles). The exact orbit of planet c is still somewhat uncertain (fuzzy white area). Credit: Axel Quetz / MPIA Graphics Department The vast majority of planets near foreign stars are discovered by astronomers with the help of sophisticated methods. The exoplanet does not appear in the image but reveals itself indirectly in the spectrum. A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Astronomy and Extraterrestrial Physics has now succeeded in obtaining the first direct confirmation of a previously discovered exoplanet using the method of radial velocity measurement. Using the GRAVITY instrument at the VLT telescopes in Chile, the astronomers observed the faint glint of the planet Beta Pictoris c, some 63 light-years away from Earth, next to the bright rays of its mother star. The researchers can now derive both the brightness and the dynamic mass of an exoplanet from these observations and thus better narrow down the formation models of these objects. Combining the light of the four large VLT telescopes, astronomers in the GRAVITY collaboration have managed to directly observe the glint of light coming from an exoplanet close to its parent star. The planet called "b Pictoris c" is the second planet found to orbit its parent star. It was originally detected by the so-called "radial velocity," which measures the drag and pull on the parent star due to the planet's orbit. b Pictoris c is so close to its parent star that even the best telescopes were not able to directly image the planet so far. "This is the first direct confirmation of a planet detected by the radial velocity method," says Sylvestre Lacour, leader of the ExoGRAVITY observing program. Radial velocity measurements have been used for many decades by astronomers, and have allowed for the detection of hundreds of exoplanets. But never before were the astronomers able to obtain a direct observation of one of those planets. This was only possible because the GRAVITY instrument, situated in a laboratory underneath the four telescopes it uses, is a very precise instrument. It observes the light from the parent star with all four VLT telescopes at the same time and combines them into a virtual telescope with the detail required to reveal b Pictoris c. "It is amazing, what level of detail and sensitivity we can achieve with GRAVITY," marvels Frank Eisenhauer, the lead scientist of the GRAVITY project at MPE. "We are just starting to explore stunning new worlds, from the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy to planets outside the solar system." The direct detection with GRAVITY, however, was only possible due to new radial velocity data precisely establishing the orbital motion of b Pictoris c, presented in a second paper published also today. This enabled the team to precisely pinpoint and predict the expected position of the planet so that GRAVITY was able to find it. b Pictoris c is thus the first planet that has been detected and confirmed with both methods, radial velocity measurements and direct imaging. In addition to the independent confirmation of the exoplanet, the astronomers can now combine the knowledge from these two previously separate techniques. "This means, we can now obtain both the brightness and the mass of this exoplanet," explains Mathias Nowak, the lead author on the GRAVITY discovery paper. "As a general rule, the more massive the planet, the more luminous it is." In this case, however, the data on the two planets is somewhat puzzling: The light coming from b Pictoris c is six times fainter than its larger sibling, b Pictoris b. b Pictoris c has 8 times the mass of Jupiter. So how massive is b Pictoris b? Radial velocity data will ultimately answer this question, but it will take a long time to get enough data: one full orbit for planet b around its star takes 28 of our years! "We used GRAVITY before to obtain spectra of other directly imaged exoplanets, which themselves already contained hints on their formation process," adds Paul Molliere, who as a postdoc at MPIA is modelling exoplanet spectra. "This brightness measurement of b Pictoris c, combined with its mass, is a particularly important step to constraining our planet formation models." Additional data might also be provided by GRAVITY+, the next generation instrument, which is already under development. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-astronomers-reveal-image-beta-pictoris.html Edited October 9, 2020 by CaaC (John) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 11, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 11, 2020 (edited) Quote The Parker Solo Probe NASA/JPL EYES The Parker Solar Probe (abbreviated PSP; previously Solar Probe, Solar Probe Plus or Solar Probe+) is a NASA robotic spacecraft launched in 2018 with the mission of making observations of the outer corona of the Sun. It will approach to within 9.86 solar radii (6.9 million km or 4.3 million miles) from the centre of the Sun, and by 2025 will travel, at closest approach, as fast as 690,000 km/h (430,000 mph), or 0.064% the speed of light. The project was announced in the fiscal 2009 budget year. The cost of the project is US$1.5 billion. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory designed and built the spacecraft, which was launched on 12 August 2018. It became the first NASA spacecraft named after a living person, honouring physicist Eugene Newman Parker, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. A memory card containing the names of over 1.1 million people was mounted on a plaque and installed below the spacecraft's high-gain antenna on 18 May 2018. The card also contains photos of Parker and a copy of his 1958 scientific paper predicting important aspects of solar physics. On 29 October 2018, at about 18:04 UTC, the spacecraft became the closest-ever artificial object to the Sun. The previous record, 42.73 million kilometres (26.55×106 mi) from the Sun's surface, was set by the Helios 2 spacecraft in April 1976. As of its perihelion on 27 September 2020, the Parker Solar Probe's closest approach is 13.5 million kilometres (8.4×106 mi). This will be surpassed after each successive flyby of Venus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe Edited October 11, 2020 by CaaC (John) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 12, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 12, 2020 (edited) Quote Tour of Asteroid Bennu When NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at asteroid Bennu in December 2018, its close-up images confirmed what mission planners had predicted nearly two decades before: Bennu is made of loose material weakly clumped together by gravity and shaped like a spinning top. This major validation, however, was accompanied by a major surprise. Scientists had expected Bennu’s surface to consist of fine-grained material like a sandy beach but were instead greeted by a rugged world littered with boulders – the size of cars, the size of houses, the size of football fields. Now, thanks to laser altimetry data and high-resolution imagery from OSIRIS-REx, we can take a tour of Bennu’s remarkable terrain. Edited October 12, 2020 by CaaC (John) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 12, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 12, 2020 (edited) Quote 101955 Bennu Astroid NASA/JPL EYES 101955 Bennu (provisional designation 1999 RQ36) is a carbonaceous asteroid in the Apollo group discovered by the LINEAR Project on 11 September 1999. It is a potentially hazardous object that is listed on the Sentry Risk Table with the second-highest cumulative rating on the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale. It has a cumulative 1-in-2,700 chance of impacting Earth between 2175 and 2199. It is named after the Bennu, the ancient Egyptian mythological bird associated with the Sun, creation, and rebirth. 101955 Bennu has a mean diameter of 490 m (1,610 ft; 0.30 mi) and has been observed extensively with the Arecibo Observatory planetary radar and the Goldstone Deep Space Network. Bennu is the target of the OSIRIS-REx mission which is intended to return samples to Earth in 2023 for further study. On 3 December 2018, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at Bennu after a two-year journey. Before attempting to obtain a sample from the asteroid, it will map out Bennu's surface in detail and orbit the asteroid to calculate its mass. On 18 June 2019, NASA announced that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft managed to get even closer and capture an image at a distance of 600 metres (2,000 ft) from Bennu's surface. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101955_Bennu Edited October 12, 2020 by CaaC (John) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Stan 18,365 Posted October 12, 2020 Administrator Share Posted October 12, 2020 Gorgeous. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluewolf 7,161 Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 18 minutes ago, Stan said: Gorgeous. Stunning.... Just need to keep an eye open for a large area without lights and I will pack up my tent and head out there... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Stan 18,365 Posted October 12, 2020 Administrator Share Posted October 12, 2020 1 minute ago, Bluewolf said: Stunning.... Just need to keep an eye open for a large area without lights and I will pack up my tent and head out there... Good luck pitching a tent up in the middle of the Atlantic mate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluewolf 7,161 Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 3 minutes ago, Stan said: Good luck pitching a tent up in the middle of the Atlantic mate I think you underestimate my DIY skills mate.. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 13, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 13, 2020 (edited) Quote NASA/JPL EYES 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (abbreviated as 67P or 67P/C-G) is a Jupiter-family comet, originally from the Kuiper belt, with a current orbital period of 6.45 years, a rotation period of approximately 12.4 hours and a maximum velocity of 135,000 km/h (38 km/s; 84,000 mph). Churyumov–Gerasimenko is approximately 4.3 by 4.1 km (2.7 by 2.5 mi) at its longest and widest dimensions. It was first observed on photographic plates in 1969 by Soviet astronomers Klim Ivanovych Churyumov and Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko, after whom it is named. It will come to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on 2 November 2021. Churyumov–Gerasimenko was the destination of the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, launched on 2 March 2004 Rosetta rendezvoused with Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 6 August 2014 and entered orbit on 10 September 2014. Rosetta's lander, Philae, landed on the comet's surface on 12 November 2014, becoming the first spacecraft to land on a comet nucleus. On 30 September 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft ended its mission by landing on the comet in its Ma'at region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko Edited October 18, 2020 by CaaC (John) Spelling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 14, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 14, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 15, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 15, 2020 Quote NASA/JPL EYES Pioneer 10 Artist's conception of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft Pioneer 10 (originally designated Pioneer F) is an American space probe, launched in 1972 and weighing 258 kilograms (569 pounds), that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. Thereafter, Pioneer 10 became the first of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. This space exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in California, and the space probe was manufactured by TRW Inc. Pioneer 10 was assembled around a hexagonal bus with a 2.74-meter (9 ft 0 in) diameter parabolic dish high-gain antenna, and the spacecraft was spin-stabilized around the axis of the antenna. Its electric power was supplied by four radioisotope thermoelectric generators that provided a combined 155 watts at launch. It was launched on March 2, 1972, by an Atlas-Centaur expendable vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Between July 15, 1972, and February 15, 1973, it became the first spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt. Photography of Jupiter began November 6, 1973, at a range of 25,000,000 kilometres (16,000,000 mi), and about 500 images were transmitted. The closest approach to the planet was on December 4, 1973, at a range of 132,252 kilometres (82,178 mi). During the mission, the on-board instruments were used to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter, the solar wind, cosmic rays, and eventually the far reaches of the Solar System and heliosphere. Radio communications were lost with Pioneer 10 on January 23, 2003, because of the loss of electric power for its radio transmitter, with the probe at a distance of 12 billion kilometres (80 AU) from Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 15, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 15, 2020 Quote A Russian rocket just carried a NASA astronaut to the ISS… but why? Image source: NASA NASA’s Commercial Crew program finally produced real, tangible results when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon carried a pair of astronauts to the International Space Station earlier this year. It was a very big deal for NASA, and the first time the space agency had launched a crewed mission from U.S. soil in almost a decade. NASA wants to be able to launch crewed missions whenever it wants, and it simply couldn’t do that by leasing seats aboard Russian Soyuz rockets. So, the fact that NASA astronaut Kate Rubins just rode a Russian spacecraft to the orbiting laboratory certainly seems odd, but it’s actually been planned for quite some time. NASA had hoped to have its commercial crew partners and their spacecraft ready for use much earlier than 2020, and when it became clear that both SpaceX and Boeing were running behind schedule they scrambled to secure seats aboard Russian space vehicles to ensure a continued U.S. presence on the space station. The trip that Rubins just took to the ISS is actually the last of those pre-arranged rides. NASA pays Russia’s Roscosmos space agency handsome fees for ferrying astronauts to space, which is one of the big reasons that NASA dumped so much cash on SpaceX and Boeing to produce spacecraft that it could use whenever it needed to. SpaceX was the first to deliver on its promise, and despite the significant delays and setbacks, the Crew Dragon performed as expected and will soon be launched on its first official mission with a full complement of astronauts on board. Boeing has struggled quite a bit more, with a glitch derailing the company’s attempt to send an uncrewed mission to the ISS with its Starliner spacecraft. Now, the company has to complete a retry of that uncrewed mission and then eventually launch a crewed test flight to the ISS before NASA will certify the spacecraft and begin using it on a regular basis. So, for now, Crew Dragon is what NASA will be leaning on to get its astronauts to space and back, especially after this final Soyuz mission is over. The next U.S. launch to the space station was scheduled for October 31st but had to be pushed back after SpaceX detected some odd data in a recent Falcon 9 launch. The company and NASA now expect the launch to take place in early-to-mid November, though a firm date has not yet been announced. https://bgr.com/2020/10/14/nasa-launch-soyuz-rocket-iss/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber nudge+ 15,325 Posted October 15, 2020 Subscriber Share Posted October 15, 2020 Ordered this beauty yesterday... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 16, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 16, 2020 9 hours ago, nudge said: Ordered this beauty yesterday... How much? I wouldn't mind one in this 2nd floor flat but knowing my luck if I did I might get local neighbours thinking I was a peeping tom with binoculars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 16, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 16, 2020 Quote NASA/JPL EYES Temple 1 - Comet Tempel 1 (official designation: 9P/Tempel) is a periodic Jupiter-family comet discovered by Wilhelm Tempel in 1867. It completes an orbit of the Sun every 5.5 years. Tempel 1 was the target of the Deep Impact space mission, which photographed a deliberate high-speed impact upon the comet in 2005. It was re-visited by the Stardust spacecraft on February 14, 2011, and came back to perihelion in August 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempel_1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber nudge+ 15,325 Posted October 16, 2020 Subscriber Share Posted October 16, 2020 4 hours ago, CaaC (John) said: How much? I wouldn't mind one in this 2nd floor flat but knowing my luck if I did I might get local neighbours thinking I was a peeping tom with binoculars. A bit over 300€. It's too massive to confuse it with binoculars, I think Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 16, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 16, 2020 56 minutes ago, nudge said: A bit over 300€. It's too massive to confuse it with binoculars, I think Not a bad price that, as to the other bit there are quite a few around here who smoke the funny stuff and would see that as binoculars. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 17, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 17, 2020 (edited) Quote Why we don't know exactly what happened during a near-collision in space New York (CNN Business)Space traffic experts tracked two pieces of orbital garbage that appeared to be careening toward each other on Thursday night: a defunct Soviet satellite and a discarded Chinese rocket booster. Ultimately, the two objects narrowly missed each other, according to private space-tracking company LeoLabs. LeoLabs, which uses its own ground-based radars to track spaceborne objects, put the odds of collision at 10% or greater. That's high, but not uncommon, LeoLabs CEO Daniel Ceperley told CNN Business on Thursday. But the US military, which uses data from the world's largest network of radars and telescopes, said that its space traffic control team detected a "nearly zero per cent probability of collision." In response, LeoLabs's Ceperley said in a statement Friday morning: "We obviously have a great deal of respect for the [US military's] 18th Space Control Squadron and their estimates. Nobody is disputing that these objects came close to one another." FULL REPORT Edited October 17, 2020 by CaaC (John) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 18, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 18, 2020 (edited) Quote NASA/JPL EYES New Horizons Probe New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by S. Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth. It is the fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. On January 19, 2006, New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station by an Atlas V rocket directly into an Earth-and-solar escape trajectory with a speed of about 16.26 km/s (10.10 mi/s; 58,500 km/h; 36,400 mph). It was the fastest man-made object ever launched from Earth. After a brief encounter with asteroid 132524 APL, New Horizons proceeded to Jupiter, making its closest approach on February 28, 2007, at a distance of 2.3 million kilometres (1.4 million miles). The Jupiter flyby provided a gravity assist that increased New Horizons' speed; the flyby also enabled a general test of New Horizons' scientific capabilities, returning data about the planet's atmosphere, moons, and magnetosphere. Most of the post-Jupiter voyage was spent in hibernation mode to preserve on-board systems, except for brief annual checkouts. On December 6, 2014, New Horizons was brought back online for the Pluto encounter, and instrument check-out began. On January 15, 2015, the spacecraft began its approach phase to Pluto. On July 14, 2015, at 11:49 UTC, it flew 12,500 km (7,800 mi) above the surface of Pluto, making it the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet. In August 2016, New Horizons was reported to have travelled at speeds of more than 84,000 km/h (52,000 mph). On October 25, 2016, at 21:48 UTC, the last of the recorded data from the Pluto flyby was received from New Horizons. Having completed its flyby of Pluto,[17] New Horizons then manoeuvred for a flyby of Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth (then nicknamed Ultima Thule), which occurred on January 1, 2019, when it was 43.4 AU from the Sun. In August 2018, NASA cited results by Alice on New Horizons to confirm the existence of a "hydrogen wall" at the outer edges of the Solar System. This "wall" was first detected in 1992 by the two Voyager spacecraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons Edited October 18, 2020 by CaaC (John) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber nudge+ 15,325 Posted October 18, 2020 Subscriber Share Posted October 18, 2020 The telescope arrived today... took a while to set it up and allign the finder etc, but I think I'm done now. Will try to do first observations tonight, wanted to properly check the Moon first due to how close it is, but sadly it's not the best phase for it now as just a small part of it is illuminated... Venus, Mars and Saturn should apparently have good to perfect visibility tonight, so I'll just try to check them out first. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted October 18, 2020 Author Subscriber Share Posted October 18, 2020 1 hour ago, nudge said: The telescope arrived today... took a while to set it up and allign the finder etc, but I think I'm done now. Will try to do first observations tonight, wanted to properly check the Moon first due to how close it is, but sadly it's not the best phase for it now as just a small part of it is illuminated... Venus, Mars and Saturn should apparently have good to perfect visibility tonight, so I'll just try to check them out first. Next up-date please, photos if you can, you might spot @Bluewolf flying around up there with a spade & shovel. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber nudge+ 15,325 Posted October 18, 2020 Subscriber Share Posted October 18, 2020 49 minutes ago, CaaC (John) said: Next up-date please, photos if you can, you might spot @Bluewolf flying around up there with a spade & shovel. Will do, but don't expect any high quality photos as this scope is not really suitable for astrophotography... Will see what I can do though! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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