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Dos XX
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 23, 2012 - 01:17pm PT
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After seeing the interest among SuperTopians in the recent Solar Eclipse
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1814011/Solar-eclipse-to-be-seen-in-Western-US-on-May-20-2012
and noticing that Russ Walling has an excellent little telescope at his home in the High Desert
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1814011&msg=1832334#msg1832334
I decided to post this thread because I thought it would be nice to have a place to post space- and astronomy-themed items from time to time. I'll begin with an on-topic photo and a question ;-)
Taking into account the difference in gravity, would a V13 boulder problem on Earth be just V2 on the Moon?
I'm sure many of us have harboured a similar dream since childhood: to become an astronaut and explore new worlds beyond our own. Alas, very few humans (so far) have been able to realize that dream. But, I had a remarkable experience one evening, which helped me realize that we already are in space, and have the good fortune of living on an amazingly hospitable platform that affords spectacular views of the Universe.
While vacationing on Maui in the Hawaiian Islands a few years back, I happened to be driving a rental car on the narrow dirt road that skirts Maui's east coast -- you know -- the road that you sign a form for, promising you will not drive your rental car on it. There is one stretch of the road that comes right down to ocean level; when I got there it was near midnight, the sky was moonless and cloudless, there was not a breath of wind, and the ocean was, as they say, smooth as glass. I decided to stop the car and stretch my legs for a few minutes. I shut off the headlights and engine, lit a cigarette, and gazed eastward to where the Big Island would be. As my eyes became more dark-adapted, I was startled by the quantity and brightness of the stars in the sky. I was able to see the Milky Way arching overhead, and as I followed it downward I saw where it met the inky black surface of the ocean. Except the ocean's surface wasn't exactly inky black -- it had a faint glow to it. As my eyes became even better adapted to the low light, I realized that the glow I saw on the ocean's surface was actually a reflection of the Milky Way itself. I was seeing the centre of our own Galaxy, reflected off a warm, tropical sea! I was blown away by what I was witnessing and it was at that moment that I realized: we are already in space.
Not long after that experience I decided to install a semi-fixed telescope in the garden behind my home, for the purpose taking pretty pictures of objects in the night sky. Not long after I got the telescope and a specialized digital camera up and running, I found out via the Internet that there was a handful of amateur astronomers scattered across the globe who were doing real science that got published alongside the work of professional astronomers. I wanted into that game! To make a long-ish story short, I spent about 18 months going through an accreditation process administered by the Harvard Center for Astrophysics - Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which led to the assignment of an observatory code for the purpose of conducting science-grade astrometry (astrometry is the precise measurement of the position of an object in the sky with respect to a specified coordinate system, at specific moment in time). Over a period of a few years, my little observatory submitted tens of thousands of astrometric observations and was credited as co-discoverer of 21 Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and one comet; three of those NEAs were classified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs).
Remarkably, the very first set of observations from my observatory (the Francisquito Observatory) to be published in the scientific literature
http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/mpec/K04/K04H68.html
was for an object first detected by the Haleakala Observatory on Maui, located just a few miles from where my "journey" in space began.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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May 23, 2012 - 01:38pm PT
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Very cool story! thanks for your service!
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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May 23, 2012 - 01:55pm PT
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That shadowy right side looks like a lunar 'Streetcar named Desire', with a similarly slabby finish...
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Dos XX
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 24, 2012 - 08:28am PT
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Still alive and kicking, 7 years, 8 months after its work was supposed to be done, the Mars rover Opportunity snapped a self-portrait yesterday as it was perched on the edge of the Endeavour crater.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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May 24, 2012 - 10:39am PT
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DE-
Nice report! I too, have an observatory in my "back yard." I never became interested in the photographic aspsect of amateur astronomy, but prided myself on becoming a good visual astronomer. I have some pix which I will post later after retrieving them from an older computer via USB drives.
I currently have a 14.5" aperture Parallax Instruments equatorialy mounted f/5 Newtonian telescope (Royce Mirror), complete with rotating tube rings. I haven't done much with it recently due to some "personal issues." Prior to this scope, I had a beautiful TMB 203, f/7 apochromatic refractor mounted on a Takahashi NJP "go-to" equatorial mount, as well as a 12.5" Discovery Dobsonian. I still have the Dobsonian, and still use it a lot. The Parallax scope currently needs a mirror coating replacement.
I have made a hobby-within-a-hobby of observing Globular Clusters, but my real kick is hunting down and visually observing Globular Clusters in the Andromeda Galaxy, of which I've now found 9. My skies have been degraded by a neighbor building a big horse showing/training barn that he has festooned with outside lighting at night. Prior to his ruination of my skies, I could see M13 naked eye, almost every moonless/cloudless night, and occasionally M33 naked eye.
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Dos XX
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 24, 2012 - 11:40am PT
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Wow, @brokenndown, 14.5in. is a big light grabber! Being able to see globulars inside M31 is so cool!
Sorry to hear about your light encroachment problem. Same thing happened to me, which eventually caused me to pull the plug on the observatory. But I knew it was coming, as I lived (then) at the distant edge of a fast-growing suburb of L.A.
These were the optics when the observatory was up and running: a 30cm Schmidt-Cassegrain on a GTO equatorial mount, and a 90mm Takahashi APO piggybacked to the SCT; the Takahashi was used as an auto-guider when taking astrometric images. The whole system was controlled from my office inside the house.
Speaking of Andromeda, here's a shot taken through the Takahashi when I was calibrating equipment one evening. It was a short (about 30 sec. exposure) casual shot so there's not a lot of detail, but it's still one of my favourite "pretty pictures" taken at Francisquito.
I look forward to seeing some of your photos, @brokendown! When you post 'em up I'll put up a few of mine, too.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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May 24, 2012 - 11:45am PT
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Wow, that rover picture is so fecking cool. I can just imagine it being a lonely little robot up there, not willing to give up, and feeling so lucky that it's seeing what so many would give an eyeball for.....
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Dos XX
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 29, 2012 - 11:51am PT
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Next up on the Big Astronomical Events calendar for 2012 is a very rare transit of the planet Venus across the face of the Sun, on June 5th, 2012.
You might not think this is all that rare, as the last transit occurred in 2004, but the previous transit before 2004 occurred in 1882, and the next one won't occur for another 105 years, in 2117!
Here in Los Angeles the transit will begin just after 3pm local time and will continue until past Sunset.
Go to this web site to determine when the transit will be visible at your location:
http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/where-when/local-transit-times/
Please remember that all the usual warnings about viewing the Sun apply to this event.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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May 29, 2012 - 11:12pm PT
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As I mentioned in an earlier post...I have very little interest in astrophotography. I like the challenge of visually tracking down difficult to find and observe objects.
My number one observing sucess was finding and actually being able to see Palomar 12, a very faint and difuse globular cluster originally found photographically on the Palomar-National Geographic all sky survey. I became one of a handful of observers to see this faint object with an 8" aperture telescope, my now-departed TMB 203 Apochromatic triplet refractor. At one time, I had some of the darkest skies in the continental U.S.; sadly now ruined for my observing goals.
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Dos XX
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2012 - 08:31am PT
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Oh, my, @brokendown -- an 8in. refractor!!! Owning that would have been like having bouillon in the bank. I'm not sure they're even made anymore, by anyone. Yes, it's very, very difficult indeed to find dark skies in the US in a place that is also habitable.
Here's another shot taken through my Takahashi APO (90mm), using a Hydrogen-alpha filter:
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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May 30, 2012 - 09:35am PT
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Very cool!
Thanks for sharing your photos!
Astronomy is fascinating.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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May 30, 2012 - 09:40am PT
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I'm heading to Griffith Obs for that transit.
Used to have a 12.5 dogs. Now a 10" compound. Many climbers I know also know the sky.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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May 30, 2012 - 09:56am PT
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Very impressive, Dos.
I'd like to see more of your shots, too.
Perhaps you should find a secret spot for your tele setup in the high sierra or elsewhere to deal with the light issue.
I had an 8 inch a long time ago (I was on the sierra east side but in a lighted community) - that's what I had thought of doing.
Will you be photographing the transit?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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May 30, 2012 - 10:01am PT
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So maybe you're the one to answer a question for me...
Why are these doublet transits so rare? just once every century or so. Given the planar mechanics and all, I would've guessed they should happen more frequently. A guess: every 5-10 years or so.
Nah, that's silly. With Venusian orbit of 220+ days, once a century or so now that I think more deeply about it makes sense.
Nah, now I'm back to square one, trying to envision it, ala the pairing phenomenon too. Messy. Maybe someone will post up a diagram or gif or something as tue approaches.
Like this. ;)
So now I'm thinking, if the two orbits were exactly coplanar, then it would be every five years or so. Maybe...
.....
EDIT
DosXX, thanks for the clarification.
It would be cool if somebody on the internet posted a visual on the mechanics speeded up - where a year equals a second, something like that, then one could get a better sense of it. Maybe somebody will.
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Dos XX
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2012 - 11:00am PT
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I'll try to answer a couple of your questions, @fructose.
Regarding the frequency of transits of the inner planets across the Sun, the main reason that they're so rare is that each of the planets orbits the Sun on a slightly different plane, as well as having slightly different-shaped orbits. You combine that, with the fact that the disc of the Sun occupies such a small part of the sky (0.5 degrees out of 360 degrees), and it's amazing that these transits don't occur at intervals of thousands of years. Here's a snapshot of the orbital paths of planets in the inner solar system, for today (March 30th, 2012). I've tilted the image so you can (hopefully) see the small difference in the orbital planes of the individual planets (the red dot in the centre represents the Sun).
To answer your other question, yes, I'm going to attempt to photograph next week's Venus transit. But I'll be trying two things I've never tried before: 1) photographing the Sun through a telescope, and 2) attaching a standard digital SLR camera to a telescope. I've ordered an inexpensive film-type solar filter for my Takahashi 90mm refractor, as well as the hardware to mount a Canon EOS camera to the back of the Takahashi. I'm going to have to practice with this setup before next week and hopefully it'll all come together in time.
I'd been scratching my head about where I ought to try to the observe the transit, and @spider's mention of the Griffith Observatory seems like a really good idea. Thanks, Chris!
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Dos XX
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2012 - 05:58pm PT
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@fructose said:
It would be cool if somebody on the internet posted a visual on the mechanics speeded up - where a year equals a second, something like that...
Here's a case of "Your tax dollars at work" (like it or not)
1. Click on the link below
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi
2. In the Search box, type "Johnmuir" (without quotation marks) and hit ENTER.
3. You'll see a bunch of numerical info, but in the top 1/4 of the page look for a grey menu bar with the option "Orbit Diagram" and click on that option.
4. Allow a full minute or two for a Java application to load in your browser (assuming that you've got your browser Java-enabled). Eventually you'll see a diagram with the orbital paths of various planets in the Solar System, as well as the orbital path of the main belt asteroid named Johnmuir. This diagram is actually a live player. Test the different control buttons on the player and see what happens. Play with the sliders on the right and and on the bottom. Change the field of view with the Zoom slider. You can change the size of the time-step of the player by using the drop-down selector (initially set to 1 Day). With the player controls you can go forward in time, or backward.
5. Have fun!
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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May 30, 2012 - 07:08pm PT
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Will Johnmuir hit Earth?
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 30, 2012 - 08:02pm PT
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Perhaps it will splash down at Hetch Hetchy. Although Muir wasn't noted for being an angry or intemperate person.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 30, 2012 - 09:18pm PT
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"You combine that..."
The third rock, our observation platform, is moving as well. Another factor you should not ignore. I realize it is an inner planet, but never in the same relative position. Am I making sense?
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Dos XX
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 31, 2012 - 09:40am PT
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@climbski2 asked:
Will [the asteroid] Johnmuir hit Earth?
No, Johnmuir is a Main Belt Asteroid, meaning it's safely locked in a stable orbit between Mars and Jupiter.
This asteroid, however, is a possible bad boy. It's classified as a PHA (Potentially Hazardous Asteroid). My little observatory is credited as a co-discoverer. As of today, though, the probability of its colliding with Earth at some future date is calculated at something significantly less than one percent.
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