Just Another Hobby Of Mine

[GeoffandWendy]

The night sky has always held a fascination for me, ever since I was a small boy. There is so much to see up there, even with the naked eye, but you will be amazed what a decent pair of binoculars will reveal. The winter sky is always my favourite, as it has so much more to offer, although the summer constellations can provide some very nice views. The advantage of winter viewing, is longer and crisper nights, the disadvantage is the colder weather, so you need to wrap up warm.

 

The summer skies at night are much shorter, allowing only a short viewing period between sunset and sunrise. The air is more turbulent as the earth looses its daytime heat, thus making viewing some times more hazy caused by our atmosphere. The only real advantage is that it is more comfortable, without the need to keep warm. But there is still lots to see

 

I was just wondering if there is anyone interested in Astronomy. Anyone living in the Norfolk Broads area, are fortunate enough, to have reasonable dark skies. I live approx 15 miles NE of Birmingham, 3 miles S of Tamworth, so the area has quite a lot of light pollution. 

 

Observing the night sky through a pair of decent binoculars, can bring out much larger star fields than the naked eye and. There is a lot to see if you know where to look. Take the constellation of Orion for instance. Easy to pick out during the winter months right through to the end of April. Orion the Hunter cannot be missed, as it dominates high above the Southern horizon. Look at the three stars in the middle of Orion, (Orion's belt)  these form a diagonal line pointing upwards from left to right. Just below this belt there are a few stars pointing downwards, these form Orion's sword. Look at these through a pair of binoculars 10 x 50 and you should see a white fuzzy patch of light. This is the well known Horses Head Nebula. To see it much better, you need a decent sized telescope. 

 

You can buy a decent 4.5 inch reflecting telescope for about £130 which will enable you to view many distant galaxies, and star clusters, as well as good views of Mars, Jupiter and its four major moons, Saturn and its rings. The Moon can be explored in great detail by viewing at different magnifications. One of my favourite star clusters, are the Pleiades or The Seven Sisters. The main seven stars of the Pleiades can be seen with the naked eye and resemble a miniature version of the Plough but much closer together. It can be seen almost overhead during the winter months. View these through a pair of binoculars and you will be amazed how many stars there are in this cluster. A Telescope will reveal hundreds of tiny stars all grouped closly together, it is a beautiful site. Yet most of the larger stars of this group are actually light years distant from each other, its just that they are in the same line of sight, which make them appear very close to each other.

 

If you want to study the night sky in more detail, you will need to buy a star atlas, which will direct you month by month, as to what stars are visible throughout the year and how to find your way around. There are many good books available for the amateur astronomer, which will help you to get started.

 

Here are a couple of views of my 4.5" Reflector Telescope on Dobsonian Mount.

 

 

[littlesprite]

There is another member who is very into the whole star gazing thing.

 

Come on Grendel where are you. 

[BroadScot]

There is another member who is very into the whole star gazing thing.

 

Come on Grendel where are you. 

Aye Grendel,

 

Never mind stargazing..... HELP!! Reply to Geoff please!

 

 

Iain.

[Guest]

I wouldn't call myself an astronomy anorak, but I can identify most of the constellations and planets with the naked eye and binoculars.

 

I think I was about 10 years old when the bright dots suddenly snapped into recognisable groups and the night sky became very familiar and I could easily orient myself to the compass points.

 

Orion and the Plough were quickly followed by the rest. In those days it was with the aid of a Phillips "Planisphere", a rotating circular disc that could be set for the time of year and then held above the head.

 

Nowadays though, we have a number of excellent free computer programs that plot the sky and label the star groups. They even give the predicted positions of the planets, which previously were obtained from newspapers.

 

I use Stellarium on my PCs, http://www.stellarium.org/en_GB/ and Google skymap on my android tablet and phone. http://www.google.co.uk/mobile/skymap/

 

Most tablets and phones have gravity sensors now, so star maps on them have the amazing facility of you being able to hold the tablet above your head and see the stars and planets labelled on it in that direction, whichever way you twist and turn it, because it senses the compass direction and angle of tilt.

[BroadScot]

Jings Strowy yer a man of many guises don't ya know 

 

Iain

[Guest]

So many toys to play with, so little time to play with them....  

[MauriceMynah]

I can recognize binoculars with the naked eye... Does that count?

[grendel]

Here I am, I was where all good astronomers are on a cold winters night, when the skies are cloudy - Bed.

Some of the best skies I have ever seen were on my holiday on the  Broads, we moored up one night at Hardley Cross and I got my trusty travel scope (50mm f12 refractor) out and set it up on the bank and spent a glorious hour there just enjoying the peace and the stars. I have a whole host of telescopes ranging in sizes, but my favorites are my 1970's japanese built refractors, my two most favorite are the 76x1250 and the 80x1200 refractors.

I do have a home made 4.5" reflector, plus a 127mm skywatcher, and somewhere is a 12" mirror and parts awaiting a new tube.

Any astronomical questions you want answered I can usually help with (especially equipment related - my wifes great uncle was a engineering technician at hurstmonceux observatory and I have his photo collection).

Grendel

[grendel]

pictures taken at Hardley Cross. no special equipment, just a camera on a tripod.

Grendel

[littlesprite]

Hi Grendel,

I think you might need to clean your camera lens, that should get rid of all those spots on your photo.

[BroadScot]

All I require is a white tipped pen to join all the dots together, and make a picture!

 

 

Iain.

[Happy]

I had a decent black jumper that went like that - so annoying!  Regards Alan        

[Gracie]

Pay them no attention Grendel, I think the pictures are lovely, what they seem to forget is that we are all Anoraks on this Forum with our love of all things Boaty and Broadland, you and Geoff are just a bit more of an Anorak that's all  Only kidding but I do have a question.....have any of you guy's interested in Astronomy ever seen something that you couldn't explain, without sounding a complete nutter UFO's I suppose?

 

Grace

[GeoffandWendy]

I have never seen anything that could be described as a UFO, but I do believe that we are definitely not alone in this vast Universe.

 

There has to be other life forms out there, that may even be different from us. Recently, through ever increasing technology, scientist's have discovered that many distant stars (suns) have planetary systems, and even know that there are possibly similar planets to our own Earth, that could also possibly support some form of life.

 

Just look at it all this way:

 

Why should we, amongst hundreds of trillions of stars, just in our own galaxy (The Milky Way) be the only planet to support life. To add to this, there are thousands of other galaxies in the universe, some far larger than our own galaxy. The chances are that there are probably thousands of stars out there that have orbiting solar systems, very similar to our own and a good majority of these, there will be life.

 

Life as we know it today, was so very different five million years ago. Then only dinosaurs roamed the Earth. We had not even been developed. The Earth is reputed to be four and a half billion years old, since it was formed, so it has taken that length of time, to produce intelligent life. Compare this time span, with how long humans have been on the planet, is the equivalent of one word, out of all the words written in the Bible. Compare that to the average life span of the human species (approx 80 years) is just a drop in the ocean.

 

Okay, so let us now look at things on a similar pattern, of how the Universe has and still is evolving. As I have explained, that we are still in the infancy stage of evolution, it is quite possible that there are other much older star systems than ours. These could be at a much later stage of development than we are, therefore, there could be more advanced life forms than us. Just watching what we are doing, how we are developing.

 

Take the Nascar Lines in the Peruvian Desert, could these have been placed as a marker for visiting Gods (aliens) for what other purpose would all these lines and symbols be for, when they only make sense when viewed  from above. Maybe aliens gave the the natives the technology to build these great cities that have been lost over time and recently discovered in the Amazon Jungle.

 

This theory has been ridiculed many times, but I still maintain that these symbols were related to star visitors or aliens, what ever you want to call them, but with great technology, this cannot be completely ruled out.

 

If there are, more advanced intelligent life forms out there than us, then they could well have developed the technology to travel at the speed of light and are able to travel much greater distances in a much shorter time, thus enabling them to have the capability to observe the Earth. Yes, they would know of our existence and have probably been watching us for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

 

Most sightings of UFO's, have been seen, mainly around military establishments, especially those that had facilities for storing nuclear weapons. One prime example was at the USAF base at Bentwaters near Ipswich, where a UFO encounter was observed in the nearby Rendelsham Forrest during the 1980s. This was treated as top classified material and all personnel who came into contact with this incident being sworn to the official secrets act. So much of the actual information about this particular incident is still, and always will remain classified. Government's are well aware that UFO's do exist, but will never come clean and divulge all the known facts and material.

 

I agree, that there are a lot of sightings that can be explained and that many are just made up, but there are a few that, are more than likely, genuine physical sightings.

 

So why don't they make proper contact and make themselves known. Well I believe that, that time has not yet come. We are too much war hungry yet and are not civilised enough to all live in harmony together. The aliens could just be observing our behaviour. As long as we all have these nuclear weapons which are capable of destroying the planet, they may not be prepared to make proper contact. These alien civilisations have left that stage of their development as history and have learned to live in harmony and explore the solar systems that they know, exist. Are they sending us a message of warning, that unless we get rid of all these nuclear weapons, then we have no future. They may even be looking for other worlds to populate, because there own planets are dying, through exploitation, causing a similar form of global warming, like we are.

 

What I have said, will no doubt seem a bit over the top, to some of you, and think I am a bit of a dreamer, but just answer  this:

 

What is the purpose of the whole Universe? Why is it here? What was there before the Big Bang? Why should we just be the only populated planet in our own galaxy, never mind the rest of the Universe? I don't think so. We are not alone, believe me. We are amongst other greater civilisations. The problem being, we have not yet gained the technology, to make contact let alone, even visit any civilised worlds. Until we are capable, We will always wonder is there other life out there. But don't ridicule the possibility of UFOs. Other intelligent civilisations will have gained far greater technology than we have. Equally, there are possibly many other worlds that are at the stage of development, like we were during the evolution of man.

[Guest]

...... I do believe that we are definitely not alone in this vast Universe........

 

Absolutely right.

 

I think that's one of the great benefits of understanding the basics of Astronomy and I'm amazed it's not on the School curriculum (as far as I know).

 

It gives you an appreciation of the exponential distances and numbers of planets and stars.

 

When we landed on the Moon 45 years ago, people thought that Space travel had arrived, and Dan Dare was about to become a reality.

 

Few people could relate the comparative distances involved though. The Moon is only 240,000 miles away, but the nearest star apart from our Sun, is approx 24,000,000,000,000 ( 24 trillion) miles away. So the nearest solar system is a billion times further away than our Moon.

 

So as our technology has not made "warp drive" or "light speed" a reality, it's difficult to foresee when we could travel to other solar systems.

 

So could other life forms travel those distances at the speeds required ?

 

As you say, it's unimaginable that they cannot. The limitless number of solar systems (stars) each potentially having orbiting planets make the absence of highly developed, highly intelligent life impossible.

 

The human race cannot comprehend the range of life form possibilities.

 

The little green men with big eyes may have featured in most Scifi films, but real "aliens" could be the size of insects or Godzilla, or even not have solid forms at all.......

[grendel]

all of the strange things I have seen in the sky have had logical explanations, from groups of 3 lights in a triangle formations (a trio of satellites) to strange lights (spaceships venting fuel tanks) to other strange lights (russian space launches) I have seen a variety, but if you know what junk is up there you wouldnt be surprised- map of space junk orbiting earth - http://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1eeswi/map_of_every_known_piece_of_space_debris_orbiting/

Grendel

[grendel]

and yes I too am waiting for us to find evidence of aliens.

[clive]

I am fortunate in the fact we have an astronomy group who rent a room in our WMC and they produce a book each year with old and new information in it and give them out to whoever asks so as you can see I have two on board our boat and on clear warm evenings in the summer months I often lay on me back on our boats roof and watch the stars even though I am not a full time watcher I still enjoy searching the sky's the astronomy group have such a long name we just call them the moon men for the easiest. 

[GeoffandWendy]

I doubt it will happen in our lifetime grendel but it doesn't mean that aliens don't exist. If aliens have visited our Earth, (which I believe they have) then they must be many generations more advanced than we are, and have the technology to be able to build craft that can travel at the speed of light.

What form these aliens may take is anybodies guess, but I doubt that they would appear to look like us. 

 

For anyone interested in watching this video about the 1980 UFO incident in Rendelsham Forest here it is.

 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ufo-sighting-alert-strange-flashes-lights-over-rendlesham-forest-sparks-rumours-1485475

[littlesprite]

We had a halo around the moon last night (moon rings apparently)

 

[littlesprite]

So we also have three identical photo's 

 

Anyway this site reckons moon rings herald bad weather, we had our worst snow of the year today.

 

http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonring/

[grendel]

the halo is caused by refraction, through ice crystals in the clouds, we too saw the halo in Canterbury, one of my fellow astronomers got a nice shot of it that was shown on our local news last night.

Grendel