| Jupiter compared to the Hubble Deep Field |
[21 Jun 2009|05:57pm] |
I like a nice sense of scale. I love to old "Powers of Ten" video I saw when I was a kid. A few years back I plotted out where the Mars Rovers would be on a map of Downtown Pittsburgh if they had landed in the fountain at Point State Park then traveled as they had.
Something that has always bugged me about telescope pics has been going by arcseconds and acrminutes. It's a very fine system - I'm not arguing that - but my head always swims trying to visualize it in comparison. (As 1 minute is to 60 seconds, the same applies to arcminutes and seconds)
I often think to myself things like "Why can't they superimpose, say, Jupiter at the same aspect on this nebula - as if you could see them both at the same time through the same telescope, so I can get a grip on how big this thing is as seen from earth? I mean, everyone who owns a telescope has surely seen Jupiter..."
Well, today I decided that if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself. Here's the Hubble Deep Field with Jupiter to scale.
( Clicky for picy! )
SO... what we have is what you would see in terms of scale if you were peering at the Hubble Deep Field through a telescope (not that you could see it with a backyard telescope) and Jupiter happened to enter the viewing area - though God help us if Jupiter were to wander off the plane of the ecliptic to the north of Ursa Major! :D
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| What's going on in the Space above your head in LA? |
[20 Jun 2009|12:46am] |
Come join OASIS, the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the National Space Society, at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) space_above_la to find out where the REAL stars are in LA!
We hold lectures, visit various aerospace facilities in the LA area and go stargazing (yes, there really are places where you can still do that).
Come find out what's going on in the Space above your head in LA!
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| Memorial Day |
[25 May 2009|11:14am] |
Memorial Day is supposed to be about honoring those who have served our country. To you, does this mean only the military? Or are there other kinds of service that you believe would be appropriate to recognize on a day like today?
The Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia astronauts come to mind. Appropriate? Or no?
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[18 May 2009|05:34am] |
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) pecodave posted the link to that awesome gallery of Hubble-fixing; then I heard of another amazing pic:
( Yowsa )
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| Because ONLY you folks would understand..... |
[16 May 2009|07:01am] |
Here in Pittsburgh we have a Toyota dealership named Spitzer Toyota. (I just found out from looking it up for this that it has franchises in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, so there may be a chance you might have heard of them too.)
Anyway, their slogan jingle is: At Spitzer, our world revolves around YOU!
So every time I read about the Spitzer Space Telescope or hear the commercial for the Toyota dealer, the jingle runs through my head. I often thought "Actually, Spitzer revolves around the world." But then I found out that wasn't accurate either because the Spitzer Space Telescope is in an earth trailing, heliocentric obit.
I'm not going anywhere with this, really. Just wanted to share with folks who would get it. I hardly run in astonomy circles IRL so when I say "Spitzer Space Telescope" I often hear "You mean the Hubble?"
(Here's why I was thinking of Spitzer this morning: Spitzer runs out of coolant - begins warm mission.)
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| Teh dumb. It hurts. |
[18 Mar 2009|10:47am] |
[This CNN article] starts by saying a bat was seen clinging to the space shuttle's external fuel tank immediately before launch... and finishes by saying: "The crew of the Discovery safely docked at the International Space Station on Tuesday. It was unclear whether its stowaway was still clinging to the shuttle."
*facepalm*
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| Apparently they expanded the space station... |
[12 Mar 2009|01:43pm] |
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(CNN) -- Floating debris from a satellite forced the crew of the international space station to retreat to a safety capsule Thursday, according to a NASA news release.
Orbital debris was threatening to hit the station but passed by just before 1 p.m. EDT without causing damage, NASA said.
The debris was too close for the space station to move out of the way, so the station's 18 crew members were temporarily evacuated to a the station's Soyuz TMA-13 capsule, NASA said. From there, the crew could have undocked from the space station if the situation had become dangerous.
NASA said there was a possibility the station could have become depressurized if the satellite debris had hit it.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/12/space.station.evacuation/index.html
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| Kepler launched |
[08 Mar 2009|12:39pm] |
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NASA's Kepler mission was launched yesterday to search for exoplanets. They plan to observe a fair fraction of stars to make a first pass at determining the actual distribution of planets in our neighborhood of the galaxy, correcting for the fact that "hot fast Jupiters" are easier to observe. It uses the transit method, searching for a periodic dimming in the observed stars that indicates a planet orbiting in the plane between us and the star.
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| Calling all Browncoats! |
[04 Mar 2009|10:40am] |
NASA is letting people vote on the name of the new Space Station Node, and currently "Serenity" is leading by a landslide. But our girl might have some new competition from host Stephen Colbert, who last night urged his viewers to write in his name in the Suggestion Box. So head over to NASA and help make sure our Lady flies!
X-Posted lots of places...
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[05 Feb 2009|11:03pm] |
Just thought I'd tell you about some UFO sightings, though I've already spoken about it on a YouTube video, so I may as well just show you that:
( Video below cut )
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