Well, I just got to talk to Peter S. Beagle. Now I am BUZZED.

[dianeduane]

It'll all be here.

(BTW, is it just me, or are we having a solar flare / CME? It sure looks like one.)

Comments

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

Mainly it's just a matter of comparing all the camera views and looking for similar structures and making an educated guess--and I'm just a piker, a rank amateur. SOHO (http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/) is one of my favorite space sites, along with APoD (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html), SETI@Home (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/) and Stardust@Home (http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/). My educational background is in political science... but my heart is in the stars. :)

[caiteydid.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember SETI! My old chemistry teacher in midschool used to run it on his computer, which was cool because we could all see it. I have to confess that many days I paid more attention to the Seti running on his computer than I did to his class.

I'm majoring in Bio in college, and trying to learn astronomy things on the side in my own time. It's fun... and I'm lucky, my dad has a pretty decent telescope, just the computer in it is broken and old, so I'd have to manually operate it I guess. Pfff, I can handle that. :P Well, maybe. I've no idea how hard that'd be. I'll try anyway, I'm sure.

Thanks for all those links!

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

Manually sighting isn't too bad, as long as you learn the main signposts in the sky. That's how I pilot my 4.5" reflector--and sometimes, I just point it somewhere "empty", because there really isn't anywhere empty up there.

And manually finding a faint fuzzy like the Ring Nebula (http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m057.html) is somehow more rewarding than letting a computer find it for you. :)

[caiteydid.livejournal.com]

That's kind of what I told my dad. He still thinks he's going to just get rid of the telescope if he can't get the computer fixed. I was like, "Uh, please don't. Give it to me!" so we'll see how that all pans out.

I really want my own telescope... but it wouldn't be so practical at college, which is sad, since down here in the city lights I can't see hardly anything at all.

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

I regularly observe from the middle of a major Midwestern city. Sure, the fainter ones are hard to pull out, but there's always the main planets, the Orion Nebula, the Pleiades (my personal favorite target), the Andromeda Galaxy, β Cygni (commonly Albiero, the beak of Cygnus, one of the most stunning double stars you'll ever see). A fair portion of the Messier catalog is visible without heading for the outskirts or for the sticks. Don't let a city scare you off from observing! I often like to set up in the front yard and give free views of Saturn or Jupiter to passers-by. During Mars' last close approach, I was able to resolve the polar ice cap, even in my relatively small scope, in the city. It takes a little patience, and a willingness to tolerate less-than-optimal seeing.