Astronomy can be so cool!

stratovani · #1 07-18-2010, 11:06 AM

I saw the coolest thing last night at Walmart while waiting for my son to finish work. In my rear-view mirror I was watching the moon setting, a half-moon. Since it was already low to the horizon it was already an orange-red, but as it got lower it got redder. When it was just about ten minutes from setting it acquired a deep blood-red color, and after a couple of minutes more it was so red that it was almost invisible. That's because the Earth's atmosphere is at its thickest along the horizon, and the only color that penetrates is red, since it has the longest wavelength of visible light (or something to that effect). Astronomy can be so cool when you see stuff like this!

P. Aaron · #2 07-18-2010, 11:21 AM

Hubble

stratovani · #3 07-18-2010, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by P. Aaron

Hubble

Great, great site! One site I check out every day is the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

sloasdaylight · #4 07-18-2010, 11:44 AM

FilterFunk · #5 07-18-2010, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stratovani

Astronomy can be so cool when you see stuff like this!

100% agree! I also love seeing Venus come out long before any stars on a summer night. The sun is down, but it's still quite light outside, and there's Venus in the Western sky. I wonder how many people wish on the "first star I see tonight", not knowing it's really a planet!

Marco A. Mayer · #6 07-18-2010, 11:55 AM

^Whoa!

metallicafan18 · #7 07-18-2010, 11:56 AM

^^^^^^^^^^^^
whoah....

stratovani · #8 07-18-2010, 02:17 PM

sloasdaylight - that is absolutely fantastic! Where did you get that?

hbarcat · #9 07-18-2010, 04:29 PM

Watching lunar eclipses is fun because you never can predict what color the moon will be when it's in full eclipse. Sometimes it's a steel gray or charcoal, sometimes it's brown or copper colored and occasionally it's a deep red.

sloasdaylight · #10 07-18-2010, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stratovani

sloasdaylight - that is absolutely fantastic! Where did you get that?

Believe it or not, 4chan.

stratovani · #11 07-18-2010, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sloasdaylight

Believe it or not, 4chan.

Got it saved to my hard drive. Thanks so much. When you see a star as big as VY Canis Majoris it makes me wonder just how big stars can get. Maybe there's an upper limit, perhaps influenced by gravity.

FilterFunk · #12 07-18-2010, 07:18 PM

When Mt. St. Helens erupted in Washington state in 1980, the volcanic debris in the air made the moon look violet from my view in Sacramento, CA.

Munjibunga · #13 07-18-2010, 10:42 PM

What a coincidence that you would post his today. Last night I was at a dinner party in San Clemente, and one of the guests said, "Hey, I've got a couple telescopes in my car. Mind if I set one up?" Of course the host was cool with it. The guy's a telescope dealer, so he had a pretty good-sized telescope and a bunch of ocular lenses of different powers.

First we looked at the moon, and the detail was astonishing. Craters within craters ... just amazing. Then he focused in on Saturn, and I was blown away by seeing the rings and two of its moons. It was just a lot of fun.

So, I had just bought a new camera lens (18-200mm) with Vibration Reduction, so I whipped out my camera and took a picture of the moon. I was very surprised by the picture. The shot below is hand-held at 200mm. No, not through the telescope.

beelzelboss · #14 07-18-2010, 11:29 PM

Wow, Munji, you should have taken one from the telescope..... Here in Vegas we see no stars as it is too bright outside from the strip. I have to go out about half an hour before I can see anything.

Munjibunga · #15 07-19-2010, 12:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beelzelboss

Wow, Munji, you should have taken one from the telescope..... Here in Vegas we see no stars as it is too bright outside from the strip. I have to go out about half an hour before I can see anything.

No adapter.

stratovani · #16 07-19-2010, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Munjibunga

What a coincidence that you would post his today. Last night I was at a dinner party in San Clemente, and one of the guests said, "Hey, I've got a couple telescopes in my car. Mind if I set one up?" Of course the host was cool with it. The guy's a telescope dealer, so he had a pretty good-sized telescope and a bunch of ocular lenses of different powers.

First we looked at the moon, and the detail was astonishing. Craters within craters ... just amazing. Then he focused in on Saturn, and I was blown away by seeing the rings and two of its moons. It was just a lot of fun.

So, I had just bought a new camera lens (18-200mm) with Vibration Reduction, so I whipped out my camera and took a picture of the moon. I was very surprised by the picture. The shot below is hand-held at 200mm. No, not through the telescope.

Wow! That's an amazing amout of detail in your picture. If you ever get a telescope and a camera adapter there's no telling what kind of pictures you'd be able to take!