If your interested, the Mercury will transit the sun starting now. You can project an image with binoculars or other, I hope. I'm trying the lens off a camera, so far I don't see it, but I have the binoculars for backup.
How to project the image.
formatting link
Or watch online.
formatting link
>formatting link
>formatting link
Very cool. That little guy was really hauling ass...
And, of COURSE, it is raining, here!
Jon
Too bad. Got a pretty good day for observing here (clouds about 1/3 of the time).
(Taken with a phone camera through 14mm eyepiece on a 102mm refractor- the disk of Mercury was razor sharp visually). Top blotch is a big sunspot.
The yellow color is an artifact of the solar filter.
--sp
On Tue, 10 May 2016 00:28:40 -0400, Spehro Pefhany Gave us:
Just watch the superior NASA video. It is a modern world.
Always has been. ;)
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
Nice, I remember making a pin hole "camera" and light tube to watch the Venus transit with the kids. (a few years ago.)
George H.
Decadent thinks you wasted your time and should have just watched NASA's version. He must have lost his sense of adventure,
?happiness is a journey, not a destination" Souza
My goose bump moment was seeing the ISS and space shuttle shortly after separation, live, in the Northern sky with my 14 yr old son. It was a surprise, we didn't know about the separation until I googled it. Mikek
Yes, I could just watch the world from my computer, just run simulations of circuits, look at 4K images of things and places.
It's grittier and more fun to do it hands-on. Going to a star party in Africa, for example. Or swimming in the crater lake atop Mt. Pinatubu.
There's the possibility of giving poor people a virtual experience, surrounded by all the (virtual) riches of the world, yet they would be in the most wretched of environments. Maybe that's where we are going as a species.
Cool! A friend has some binos with a high grade intensifier. You can see satellites whizzing by quite readily with them.
--sp
You are probably aware, but just after sunset satellites can be seen with bare eye as they go over. I use
Mine was the total eclipse on the East Coast in '70. I was in high school and went on the field trip with the university's astronomy club (pretty much all astronomy students). The prominence in a 2.4" telescope (no filters) were something I'll never forget.
Yes, I remember watching one of those with my daughter; great fun. Also watching an *extremely* bright shuttle pass overhead.
Surprise was finding a blood red moon in a cloudless sky during a total lunar eclipse in 75/76.
The pessimism antidote was the total solar eclipse of '99. There was extensive live media coverage, which missed everything. Where we were a hole in the cloud opened up 5 minutes before the eclipse and closed 10 minutes afterwards.
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required