Astronomy

[jusplay4fun]

I JUS now read this in Sky and Telescope website:

Great time to see this in the Northern sky:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/mars-jupiter-conjunction/

I am about to dress up to go see it; with snow on street, I better NOT leave my house. Should be FUN and very COLD..about 5 degrees F now in VA, USA.

JP4Fun

[jusplay4fun]

OK, I bundled up (at 5 Degrees F) and I saw the planets Jupiter, Mars, AND the double star of Libra.....very cool and very cold. With sunrise at about 6:25 here, I may go out one more time to see the two planets even closer. Without binoculars, I could not see Mars, really. It is a faint dot, once I realized where it is in the sky. Once I picked it up in binoculars, I saw the faint dot with my naked eyes.

Two tips told to me by good star gazers:

1) stars twinkle and planets do not; this is an easy way to tell stars from planets;

2) your fist, held at arm's length from your body, is 5 degrees; so 10 degrees above the horizon is two fists above it. TRY IT..!

the Sky and Telescope site I cited earlier is a good aid to find the planet conjuncture. There is even mention further down the page about a comet, but its best was 1/4/18 and I likely need a telescope, and getting away from city lights.....I did not read into that topic enough, but that is for 2dimes to check out with his telescope.

VERY COOL to see ALL that this cold morning.

JP4FUN (in the COLD)

[jusplay4fun]

Yes, one hour before sunrise is good for viewing. About 25 minutes before it gets too bright and I could not see either Jupiter or Mars (Mars is fainter).

Have FUN viewing and get out there Sunday morning, 2 dimes since you are in Canada.

JP

2dimes,

check out this website:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observin ... uary-5-13/

I think the setting and sightings are for USA, but you can get an app (I think) to tailor the info for your location. Are you in Australia or NZ? (I cannot recall.) So obviously you are lookng an entirely different sky than I am in North Am.

Anyway, Sky and Telescope seems to be what you want for viewing the night sky with any telescope. I have scanned a few articles online from that source (magazine, now online).

JP4Fun

[2dimes]

I am about 2 and a half hours North of Glacier National Park. Looking at your second site it seems like it will be good for looking at planets in a few days unless it gets too chilly.

It just warmed up here but the snow has become kind of a mix of slush and ice. Not fun to walk on.

If you are looking through binoculars you might need a slightly better telescope to make it worth while as an upgrade. It's good to bring binoculars too, since they are much easier to re-position when looking for things.

I found the app I had a bit frustrating but that was years ago.

This is a bit dated but seems fairly accurate near here.
http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html

[tzor]

Galileo may have clung stubbornly to the "perfectly circular orbits" from Ptolemy, but he did deal it its death blows. And he got the big picture right.

No, I don't think he got the "big picture" right. in as much as all sides were wrong in terms of the "big picture." (It's not about "center" but "fixed" is the sun/earth "fixed" or does it move? Fact: everything "moves.")

The war was over Aristotle, when it probably should have been over Euclid. That's why the "perfectly circular orbits" is a big deal. The universe is defined as a static structure; the only question was the arrangement.

(In fact it could be argued that the earth travels in a straight path across a warped space time that folds itself around the sun, which in turn is folded around the warped space time caused by the galactic center but I've probably gotten way too deep for 90% of the people here. The Doctor is right, it's all timey whimey.)

Both models attempt to assert the fallacy that the heavens were "god's land" the realm of perfect things. This is an indirect result of the fallacy that imperfection was the result of the fall, which isn't implied in any manner in the Bible. In the end Galileo got almost everything WRONG, not right. Consider his discourse on the tides which is full of FAIL. By the way, this is his solid evidence for the sun centered universe.

[jusplay4fun]

I disagree, tzor. In the course of the History of science, it is Galieo's methods of experimentation that we teach in Physics TODAY. Study his experiments using a ramp and his favorite time piece (you will have to research THAT TIDBIT.) His work here completely upended the Aristolean world view (i.e., Physics) that dominated since its inception. (But few in the Middle/Dark Ages in the West contemplated such things. They were too concerned about mere SURVIVIAL.) His work, especially on inertia, provided the scientific foundation that lead to Newton's 3 laws of motion, as discussed in Principia.

His 2 books I cited before are the basis for much that we know about the heavens and Physics. He is the one who discovered (and likely realized the significance of) the 4 major moons of Jupiter. That really blew up the Ptolemian, geo-centric universe.

TIDES? They are barely mentioned in the books I have read and in courses I have taken.

Galileo was one of the "Giants" that Newton implied. You focus on minutia and do not see the big picture, IMO. It is a trait suffered by several who post in the Forum here.

OK, I concede: Galileo did NOT get EVERYTHING correct. BUT he turned the conversation (i.e., thinking process and ideas) to the correct path and was not be BOUND by a 1) fixed earth 2) at the center of the entire universe and 3) the objects in space did not move in perfect circles. If he hung on to one or another is NOT my main point. The main point I am making is that his experiments, methods, and research process is what we still use today.

Like much of life, science is NOT a straight line from A to B, but a series of motions that is not "clean" and not linear. We take 3 steps forward and sometime 1 or 2 steps back, all at the same time. It is a twisting, rather herky-jerky ride we are on, much like those the rode in wagons across the Great Plains of the USA after the Civil War. It is not all smooth and linear. There are barriers to cross, they need to rest, and the need to re-group and re-assess what all this means. That is Science, that is the quest for knowledge and understanding of this world.

I would further argue that Galileo was at a critical inflection point in the history of science. I would not argue that ALL his ideas are still held as scientific dogma today. THAT is the BIg Picture to which I reference.

I would further argue that Galileo was at a critical inflection point in the history of science. I would not argue that ALL his ideas are still held as scientific dogma today. THAT is the BIg Picture to which I reference.

JP

Galileo may have clung stubbornly to the "perfectly circular orbits" from Ptolemy, but he did deal it its death blows. And he got the big picture right.

No, I don't think he got the "big picture" right. in as much as all sides were wrong in terms of the "big picture." (It's not about "center" but "fixed" is the sun/earth "fixed" or does it move? Fact: everything "moves.")

The war was over Aristotle, when it probably should have been over Euclid. That's why the "perfectly circular orbits" is a big deal. The universe is defined as a static structure; the only question was the arrangement.

(In fact it could be argued that the earth travels in a straight path across a warped space time that folds itself around the sun, which in turn is folded around the warped space time caused by the galactic center but I've probably gotten way too deep for 90% of the people here. The Doctor is right, it's all timey whimey.)

Both models attempt to assert the fallacy that the heavens were "god's land" the realm of perfect things. This is an indirect result of the fallacy that imperfection was the result of the fall, which isn't implied in any manner in the Bible. In the end Galileo got almost everything WRONG, not right. Consider his discourse on the tides which is full of FAIL. By the way, this is his solid evidence for the sun centered universe.

[jusplay4fun]

Galileo Galilei (Italian; 15 February 1564[3] – 8 January 1642) was an Italian polymath. Galileo is a central figure in the transition from natural philosophy to modern science and in the transformation of the scientific Renaissance into a scientific revolution.

Galileo's championing of heliocentrism and Copernicanism was controversial during his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system.[4] He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism because of the absence of an observed stellar parallax.[4] The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture."[4][5][6] Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point.[4] He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", and forced to recant. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest.[7][8] While under house arrest, he wrote one of his best-known works, Two New Sciences, in which he summarized work he had done some forty years earlier on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials.[9][10]

Galileo studied speed and velocity, gravity and free fall, the principle of relativity, inertia, projectile motion and also worked in applied science and technology, describing the properties of pendulums and "hydrostatic balances", inventing the thermoscope and various military compasses, and using the telescope for scientific observations of celestial objects. His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter, the observation of Saturn's rings (though he could not see them well enough to discern their true nature) and the analysis of sunspots.

Known for his work as astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician, Galileo has been called the "father of observational astronomy",[11] the "father of modern physics",[12][13] the "father of the scientific method",[14] and even the "father of science".[15][16]

JP4F

[Metsfanmax]

Astronomy is bunk.

[2dimes]

You are jealous since you can't see as many stars because you are in the bottom bunk.

[jusplay4fun]

No, I see the Big Picture better.

And I saw the conjuction this morning, too. It was -2 F when I went outside to see it, Mars is below Jupiter. VERY Cool and VERY COLD.

JP4Fun

You are jealous since you can't see as many stars because you are in the bottom bunk.

[2dimes]

I was referring to what Max wrote you ween.

Can you make out jupiters stripy things with your binocs?

I hope to check that out sometime. Maybe I need better sponsorship.

[notyou2]

You do not understand science or religion.

JP

After 350 Years, Vatican Says Galileo Was Right: It Moves
By ALAN COWELL,
Published: October 31, 1992

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/31/world ... moves.html

ROME, Oct. 30— More than 350 years after the Roman Catholic Church condemned Galileo, Pope John Paul II is poised to rectify one of the Church's most infamous wrongs -- the persecution of the Italian astronomer and physicist for proving the Earth moves around the Sun.

With a formal statement at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Saturday, Vatican officials said the Pope will formally close a 13-year investigation into the Church's condemnation of Galileo in 1633. The condemnation, which forced the astronomer and physicist to recant his discoveries, led to Galileo's house arrest for eight years before his death in 1642 at the age of 77.

The dispute between the Church and Galileo has long stood as one of history's great emblems of conflict between reason and dogma, science and faith. The Vatican's formal acknowledgement of an error, moreover, is a rarity in an institution built over centuries on the belief that the Church is the final arbiter in matters of faith.

You will both burn at the stake compliments of religion, heretics.

No, I understand religion very well, thank you.


It's all about keeping others under your control including their wallets and snuffing out their individuality. Also about using the masses to exert the religious will upon others.

If you think otherwise, it is you that does not understand religion.

[2dimes]

Of course talking about church is good times...

Or we could talk about how we can look at star and planets in this thread.

[notyou2]

Pretty hard to talk about astronomy without talking about the founding fathers of it that were persecuted in the name of religion, when all they did was science. Oh, I guess we didn't learn anything from the past, as the same thing is happening today.

[Bernie Sanders]

Religion needs to be wiped out!
Religion is the people's opiate! We need a new drug war and intervention or we will fall back into the Dark Ages.

[2dimes]

Ok, fine. Sorry you guys are going through bad things with your priests/imams.

[notyou2]

Thanks 2dimes. My priest/cleric/imam/rabbi does not exist, however, if you see the Great Spaghetti monster, or the Invisible Pink Unicorn in your sky watching, say a prayer for earth.

[2dimes]

Unicorns? Anger rising... Reported!

[jusplay4fun]

If you cannot dispute the facts, try to confuse everyone with dazzle.

My facts stand up to ridiculous comments and poor refutation (if we can even call it that).

Galileo was (mostly) right; you are wrong. Debate over.

JP

[2dimes]

Never mind that.

I saw the conjuction this morning, too. It was -2 F when I went outside to see it, Mars is below Jupiter. VERY Cool and VERY COLD.

JP4Fun

How was it? I'm scared to go outside in the cold.

[jusplay4fun]

It was GREAT..! and COLD. If you want to see the sky, you have to go out at night and often in the winter. (I saw Halley's Comet in January; it was not quite as cold as today.) I got up at 6:00 a.m., dressed for the cold, and went out. I think it was about -2 F. The cold supposedly is good for viewing; colder usually means NO clouds.

If you look at the Sky and Telescope website, you see Mars JUS below Jupiter; I think that look is on the site. THAT is what I saw. Intially, I could not see Mars without my binoculars. Once I saw it below Jupiter, I knew where to look and then saw Mars without the binoculars. Once I saw them, I looked at a few stars and saw the moon, up close. I then went inside to warm up.

BUT my binoculars are only 10x, so I could not see the Galilean moons with them, sadly. Also, since they are only 10x, no details of Jupiter (its giant Red Spot) are visible. I think one of the articles talked about using a telescope of 30x to see those features.

Enjoy the viewing. Summers can be fun, but a long way away, and for Canada, that is even longer and cooler. And look at the Sky and Telescope site. It has good information.

JP4Fun

Never mind that.

I saw the conjuction this morning, too. It was -2 F when I went outside to see it, Mars is below Jupiter. VERY Cool and VERY COLD.

JP4Fun

How was it? I'm scared to go outside in the cold.

[2dimes]

Yeah this link was particularly interesting.

2dimes,


http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observin ... uary-5-13/
JP4Fun

I know cold kills clouds and makes generally dense still air, good for flying, celestial observation and fishing but I just can't handle it well.

My current eyepieces go pretty high in magnification but are not super clear. I hope the one I ordered is great but I may need to upgrade the unit. If the new eyepiece is good enough, I will get an expensive eyepiece from the guy near here, before the eventual telescope upgrade.

Maybe I'm a jerk or a Moran, fine I'm both, but I'd rather learn about eyepieces and discuss where things are at what times than, who was the fist to posit which object centric universe we may not have enough information to understand we do or don't live in. I won't knock anyone's extensive research in the field but I have no dog in that race either.

[jusplay4fun]

The discussion on Galileo is mostly in response to tzor. He fails to see the Big Picture. At least you are looking and trying to see, 2dimes.

JP

[2dimes]

I don't know. Maybe his wanting to learn about Galileo is a better thing to do.

I just want to look at planets and other pretty stuff.