Objects in sky
morp...@my-deja.com
Clear skies
Giannis
Sent via Deja.com
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Randy Rogers
Randy
<morp...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:93s14b$5s0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Paul Schlyter
>Which is the most beautiful object you have seen in the sky?
> Which is the most beautiful object you have seen in the sky?
sky, and I interpret that to mean visual observations rather than
photographs. Then my choice is very easy:
The most beautiful celestial object I've seen is the corona of the
totally eclipsed Sun of 11 Aug 1999, in 20x60 binoculars: coronal
rays in virtually all directions, plus several prominences. Much
more impressive than the only other solar corona I've seen (in June
1973; unfortunately I was clouded out in July 1990).
OTOH you asked for an object "in the sky", without requiring it to be
an astronomical object. In that case, some unusually spectacular
halo displays, and also some iridiscent clouds with unusually strong
colors, could rival the solar corona in beauty. Once I also saw a
red rainbow against a dramatically dark cloud, right before sunset
during a sudden clearing up after a violent thunderstorm - that too
was very beautiful.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
Grev Turegatan 40, S-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at saaf dot se or paul.schlyter at ausys dot se
WWW: http://hotel04.ausys.se/pausch http://welcome.to/pausch
Esmail Bonakdarian
Hi Giannis,
I think this is a hard, if not impossible question, to answer.
For a "discovered object", i.e., something I saw in the sky while
sweeping it with my 10x50 binocs and now knowing what I would see
ahead of time it would have to be
Coathanger (Collinder 399) - Also known as Brocchi's Cluster
I got really excited and ran inside to look this up. Very cool.
For known targets, Saturn of course, M7 and the Pleiades M45. Plus
a bunch of other stuff I still haven't seen!
Esmail
PS: My observations are done with naked eye, 10x50 binocs, a ST80, and
lots of enthusiasm :-)
--
Esmail Bonakdarian - esm...@uiowa.edu - http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~bonak
2001 - The start of the Cremer-free millennium
Gary Irwin
http://www.excelsis.com/vote/astro/
Gary
<morp...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:93s14b$5s0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
John C. Abbott
>
> Clear skies
> Giannis
Hi Giannis:
Last year, about this time, I was just getting started and was
exploring the sky from my driveway with a borrowed pair of binoculars.
I was able to find Saturn and Jupiter, as they were direcly overhead,
but they just looked like stars.
Then, as I was sweeping through the sky, I accidently spotted the
Pleiades. That was a beautiful sight, and hooked me on astronomy. Now
I have a 4.5" reflector (soon to be upgraded to an 8" scope) and my
trusty binoculars.
After that sight, there have been many beautiful astronomical sights,
just as there are many other beautiful things. Among the ones I have
seen:
M42 for the first time in my scope
M13 at 300X in a friend's 10" SCT
The double cluster in Perseus
Nebula alley in Sagittarius
These are just the highlights of about 10 months of observing. The
wonderful thing about this hobby is that it is like a good looking car;
You know what you like when you see it and there will always be new
models to catch you eye!
Clear, dark skies and plentiful opportunities
John Abbott
Wheaton, MD.
Marty
objects through an amateur telescope is definitely an acquired taste,
but I'd have to say...
The Pleiades through 7x35 binoculars. This isn't a difficult
observation, but the relatively low resolution makes the stars big and
close together, and the wide field shows lots of dark sky around 'em.
Beautiful!
The only better thing is to just stand under a clear, dark, sky,
and look at the stars. Unfortunately, THIS is becoming a very difficult
observation to make.
Marty
dss1951
Comet Hale-Bopp on a moonless night.
dss1951
Mark Wagner
: Which is the most beautiful object you have seen in the sky?
1. Comet Hyukatake. The blue tail stretching over 53 degrees of sky,
sinuous, mimicking portions of the Veil Nebula, finally merging into the
open cluster Melotte 111 in Coma Berenices.
2. Spiraling jets of ejecta shooting forward, the gracefully bending back
away from the head of Comet Hale-Bopp. These views could be seen nightly
from my suburban backyard in an 8" Dob.
3. The Cats Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) through Lick Observatory's 36" Clark
refractor.
4. The Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009), same scope as number 3.
--
Mark Wagner
Astronomy-Mall: http://Astronomy-Mall.com TAC: http://observers.org
La Caja de Los Gatos Observatory: 37:13:36N 121:58:25W
Chris L Peterson
>Which is the most beautiful object you have seen in the sky?
Events: Solar eclipse, Comet Hyakutake
Objects: The Moon
_________________________________________________
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
P. Edward Murray
movie clips we have
all seen of an Aurora with curtains all over the sky! I saw it from
Akron, Ohio.
Ed Murray
Michael Lott
8" SCT. Which one i LIKE the best, would probably be saturn or jupiter. I
think the neatest thing i've seen so far was the double shadow transit on
jupiter a week or so ago. It was my FIRST shadow transit, and my first
real observation of the GRS, and the seeing was excellent. What more can
you want?
In article <93s14b$5s0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, morp...@my-deja.com wrote:
Richard DeLuca
<star...@email.msn.com> wrote:
> M51 through a 25" telescope. M42 comes in 2nd.
> Randy
>
Although I'm a planetary observer, I have to agree with Randy.
1) M51 in my 18" dob
2) Comet Hyakutake in a dark sky, unaided eye
3) M42, 18" dob
3) Centaurus A, 18" dob
4) Omega Centauri Cluster
5) Total solar eclipse, 1970 and 1991, both in Mexico
6) Aurora, 1989?
Best Regards,
Rich
--
In the beginning there was nothing, and God said, "Let there be light."
And there was still nothing, but you could see it.
Hilton Evans
Naked eye day: Rainbow
Naked eye night: Milky Way
Telescope night object: M13
Telescope Event : Mars occultation of a bright star(Arturus?)
--
Hilton Evans
-----------------------------------------------
ChemPen Chemical Structure Software
http://home.earthlink.net/~hiltonevans/chempen.htm
ngc...@my-deja.com
dob6er
<morp...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:93s14b$5s0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Bret Akers
<morp...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:93s14b$5s0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Scott Justis
<morp...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:93s14b$5s0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Which is the most beautiful object you have seen in the sky?
*Comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock moving against the starry background
in my 6'' f/5 Newtonian.
Scott
--
Preston S. Justis
Astrophotography home page:
http://home.earthlink.net/~psjustis/index.htm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
david_...@my-deja.com
>
> Clear skies
> Giannis
I assume you mean astronomical object so I'm discounting atmospheric
phenomena such as aurorae, sunsets and sunrises, noctilucent clouds,
rainbows, parhelia, lightning, and so on.
The most spectacular naked eye sights I've had have been a total solar
eclipse, Comet Hyakutake when it cut a huge swath across the heavens,
and the Milky Way from very dark sites.
Comet Hyakutake was the best of the many binocular objects that I've
beheld.
Through a small telescope the 1998 total solar eclipse (80mm Orion ST)
and the Eta Carinae Nebula (105mm Astro-Physics Traveler) come to mind;
through a large one (36" Tectron Dob) Omega Centauri was incredibly
spellbinding. (I've always been partial to the Veil Nebula through a
25" or larger scope too.)
Dave Mitsky
Jan Owen
area in sunny South Vietnam...
After that, it'd be a tossup between M-51 as seen through my 10" f/10 SCT
from Peeples Valley Arizona several years ago when the sky was so dark I
actually briefly mistook the Milky Way for a cloud, or M-42 as seen through
several scopes of varying apertures from 10" to 20", from various locations
around rural Arizona. Perhaps the best of these was a magical, but not all
that dark night, with my long gone 17.5" from atop the Mogollon rim near
Bear Canyon Lake in 18 inches of freshly fallen snow, and bitter cold, not
knowing if my truck could get me back through the snow to the main road, in
rural central Arizona.
The Double Cluster in Perseus as seen through my 13.1" f/4.47 from various
locations from suburban to rural Arizona, comes in right after the above.
<morp...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:93s14b$5s0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Paul Schlyter
Hilton Evans <hilto...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Telescope Event : Mars occultation of a bright star(Arturus?)
is simply too far away from the ecliptic for that.
As a matter of fact, the brightest star occulted by Mars since 1900
is Epsilon Geminorum (mag 3.2) which was occulted by Mars on 8 April
1978. Is this the event you were thinking of?
On 3 Oct 2078 Mars will occult Theta Ophiuchi (mag 3.4)
The only time a planet has occulted a 1st magnitude star since 1900
was 7 July 1959, when Venus occulted Regulus. This was a daytime
event in Europe and Africa, invisible in the Americas, and best seen
in eastern Asia.
On 1 October 2044, Venus will again occult Regulus.
mark d. doiron
the most beautiful thing i've seen in the sky was a full moon that
was illuminating a sky filled with streaks of high cirrus clouds.
really. :-)
the second most beautiful thing was a sunset while driving a lonely
stretch of highway just west of tonapah, nevada. the clouds were
all little puffs completely blanketing the entire sky, like the
trees of an apple orchard turned upside down. they were all
illuminated with the orange red glow of the sunset. spectacular.
clear, dark skies--
mark d.
<morp...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:93s14b$5s0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Axel
when I saw it for the first time at a dark site. I stared at the
cluster for about 20 minutes, using 100x and 150x in my 8" f/6. Scores
(hundreds?) of sparkling Mag 11-13+ blue diamonds set against velvet,
with a single bright orange star in the middle that seemed to hover in
front of the rest.
I was also very impressed by Neptune when I first saw it. It was a
combination of the deep blue color, the knowledge that it's the
remotest gas giant in the Solar System, and successfully hunting down
the quarry and seeing it as a clear disk. As a beginner that last
point was the most exhilarating. Although it wasn't visually striking,
there was a subtle beauty to it, enough to keep me tracking the planet
for 20-30 minutes at 300x. Strangely, I never got that same intense
blue color again for the following five or so observing sessions. I
can't wait to try it again this year with tracking!
Ritesh
In article <93s14b$5s0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
morp...@my-deja.com wrote:
Whatever563
afterall to identify such a thing is a fools errand, but one that sticks out in
recent memory is a lengthy look at M33 in an 18" f/6 with a 31 nag from a dark
site. I think I came to understand god and new divine grace. Ditto on M31,
same night, similar with NGC 253 I believe it was, the greatest of the sculptor
spirals.
William R. Meyers
Yes, that was great. I followed it in a 4.25 inch Newt RFT. An amazing
sight, seeing it move through Ursa Major as I watched.
Bill Meyers
William R. Meyers
Hi, Esmail,
For a discovered object, try h3945. (You'll need your ST80 not binocs.)
One of my great original discoveries, somewhat antedated by Herschel.:-)
Clear skies,
Bill Meyers
Esmail Bonakdarian
"William R. Meyers" wrote:
>
> Hi, Esmail,
> For a discovered object, try h3945. (You'll need your ST80 not binocs.)
> One of my great original discoveries, somewhat antedated by Herschel.:-)
> Clear skies,
H3945 .. does that number denote a Herschel catalog? (I haven't gotten
the hang of all the various catalogs yet). How does this relate to
NGC 3945 .. or is it the same?
Are you sure my ST80 will be able to see this? I'm curious now to see
if this is the same as NGC 3945 which looks neat.
Thanks for info.
Esmail
--
Esmail Bonakdarian - esm...@uiowa.edu - http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~bonak
-
We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that
"justice too long delayed is justice denied." Martin Luther King 1963
Randy Muller
That is an interesting question.
The moon and Milky Way rate way up there.
The Double Cluster, the Great Orion Nebula (M42), the Great Hercules
Cluster (M13), Jupiter and Saturn are also way up there.
If I had to pick one, I'd probably pick M42.
Cousin Ricky
>Which is the most beautiful object you have seen in the sky?
Gotta be the total eclipse of the Sun, November 3, 1994.
--
---------------- Richard Callwood III -----------------
~ U.S. Virgin Islands ~ USDA zone 11 ~ 18.3°N, 64.9°W ~
-------------------------------------------------------
I regret that I will no longer leave an active e-mail
address, as the spammers have pushed me past the limit.
James Horn
> Which is the most beautiful object you have seen in the sky?
On my our first date I took Celeste up in a Cessna. She would be my
nomination (we married later that year).
Jim Horn (not astro, I know, but an honest answer!)
noylj
the sun.
mark d. doiron
news:3A65149B...@value.net...
> The SR71, B2, Saturn, M42, and, hopefully, some day, a total
eclipse of
> the sun.
that reminds me--couple years ago i had taken my scope to a cub
scout den meeting to show the boys the conjunction of jupiter and
venus. as i was setting up the scope, i took a quick peek to
confirm that i could see both objects in one ep fov. as i was
admiring the view, a shadowy figure seem to linger between the two
planets. at first i thought it was a bat, but after a few seconds i
realized that it was a b2 bomber on approach to Tinker afb! there,
in one ep fov was venus, jupiter and a b2 bomber. it was so far
away that when i told my son "look, b2 bomber!" he couldn't see a
thing except the planets. it was pretty cool.
Esmail Bonakdarian
>
>
> that reminds me--couple years ago i had taken my scope to a cub
> scout den meeting to show the boys the conjunction of jupiter and
> venus. as i was setting up the scope, i took a quick peek to
> confirm that i could see both objects in one ep fov. as i was
> admiring the view, a shadowy figure seem to linger between the two
> planets. at first i thought it was a bat, but after a few seconds i
> realized that it was a b2 bomber on approach to Tinker afb! there,
> in one ep fov was venus, jupiter and a b2 bomber. it was so far
> away that when i told my son "look, b2 bomber!" he couldn't see a
> thing except the planets. it was pretty cool.
Hi Mark,
Your post reminds me of this picture
http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=132339
mark d. doiron
"Esmail Bonakdarian" <esm...@uiowa.edu> wrote in message
news:3A65AA32...@uiowa.edu...
> Your post reminds me of this picture
>
> http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=132339
>
nice pic!
Hilton Evans
news:93uba3$9hm$1...@merope.saaf.se...
> In article <Hfs86.27515$U4.7...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> Hilton Evans <hilto...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > Telescope Event : Mars occultation of a bright star(Arturus?)
>
> No, Mars can never occult Arcturus as seen from the Earth. Arcturus
> is simply too far away from the ecliptic for that.
That's why the question mark. I was skeptical of my memory
on this one. It was a bright orange star and the occultation
was in the mid 70's.
>
> As a matter of fact, the brightest star occulted by Mars since 1900
> is Epsilon Geminorum (mag 3.2) which was occulted by Mars on 8 April
> 1978. Is this the event you were thinking of?
I doubt it. It occured while I was in grad school 1972 to 1977
and was visible from NYC.
SkySea
HC!OL
("Holy Cow!" Out Loud)
- Dale Gombert ( SkySea at AOL . COM )
122.38W, 47.58N, W. Seattle, WA
Axel
Ritesh
In article <rVk96.6766$tq1.4...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
"Hilton Evans" <hilto...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> "Paul Schlyter" <pau...@saaf.se> wrote in message
> news:93uba3$9hm$1...@merope.saaf.se...
> > In article <Hfs86.27515$U4.7...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> > Hilton Evans <hilto...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Telescope Event : Mars occultation of a bright star(Arturus?)
> >
> > No, Mars can never occult Arcturus as seen from the Earth. Arcturus
> > is simply too far away from the ecliptic for that.
>
> That's why the question mark. I was skeptical of my memory
> on this one. It was a bright orange star and the occultation
> was in the mid 70's.
> >
> > As a matter of fact, the brightest star occulted by Mars since 1900
> > is Epsilon Geminorum (mag 3.2) which was occulted by Mars on 8 April
> > 1978. Is this the event you were thinking of?
>
> I doubt it. It occured while I was in grad school 1972 to 1977
> and was visible from NYC.
>
> --
> Hilton Evans
> -----------------------------------------------
> ChemPen Chemical Structure Software
> http://home.earthlink.net/~hiltonevans/chempen.htm
>
>
Brian Tung
> Possibly Antares in Scorpius.
However, according to Paul Schlyter, Mars has not occulted Antares in
at least 100 years. (Too bad--we'd have Ares antagonizing Antares.)
Do you have a counterexample?
Maybe it was some other heavenly body. Antares does lie reasonably
close to the ecliptic, being perhaps some 4 or 5 degrees away. I seem
to recall that the moon has occulted it recently.
Brian Tung <br...@isi.edu>
Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
Paul Schlyter
Hilton Evans <hilto...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> "Paul Schlyter" <pau...@saaf.se> wrote in message
> news:93uba3$9hm$1...@merope.saaf.se...
> > In article <Hfs86.27515$U4.7...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> > Hilton Evans <hilto...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Telescope Event : Mars occultation of a bright star(Arturus?)
> >
> > No, Mars can never occult Arcturus as seen from the Earth. Arcturus
> > is simply too far away from the ecliptic for that.
>
> That's why the question mark. I was skeptical of my memory
> on this one. It was a bright orange star and the occultation
> was in the mid 70's.
> >
> > As a matter of fact, the brightest star occulted by Mars since 1900
> > is Epsilon Geminorum (mag 3.2) which was occulted by Mars on 8 April
> > 1978. Is this the event you were thinking of?
>
> I doubt it. It occured while I was in grad school 1972 to 1977
> and was visible from NYC.
magnitude occulted by Mars during the entire 1970-ies was Epsilon
Geminorum, which was occulted on 8 April 1976.
As a matter of fact, NO other star brigher than 6th magnitude was
occulted by ANY planet during the years 1972-1977. In 1971 there
were two such occultations though: on 13 May 1971 Jupiter occulted
Beta Scorpii, and on 22 Nov 1971 Venus occulted 44 Ophiuchi.
Perhaps you mis-remember the Jupiter-Beta Scorpii occultation?
Brian Tung
> As a matter of fact, the brightest star occulted by Mars since 1900
> is Epsilon Geminorum (mag 3.2) which was occulted by Mars on 8 April
> 1978. Is this the event you were thinking of?
and then later wrote:
> Then you must misremember it. The only star brighter than 6th
> magnitude occulted by Mars during the entire 1970-ies was Epsilon
> Geminorum, which was occulted on 8 April 1976.
I'm not being pedantic (OK, I'm not *just* being pedantic), I really
want to know: 1976 or 1978, which is it?
Hilton Evans
> In article <rVk96.6766$tq1.4...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> Then you must misremember it. The only star brighter than 6th
> magnitude occulted by Mars during the entire 1970-ies was Epsilon
> Geminorum, which was occulted on 8 April 1976.
You're right. That is, it was not as bright as I remember.
I observed it through an 8" Schmidt Cass and it looked great.
david_...@my-deja.com
Esmail Bonakdarian <esm...@uiowa.edu> wrote:
> "mark d. doiron" wrote:
> >
> >
> > that reminds me--couple years ago i had taken my scope to a cub
> > scout den meeting to show the boys the conjunction of jupiter and
> > venus. as i was setting up the scope, i took a quick peek to
> > confirm that i could see both objects in one ep fov. as i was
> > admiring the view, a shadowy figure seem to linger between the two
> > planets. at first i thought it was a bat, but after a few seconds i
> > realized that it was a b2 bomber on approach to Tinker afb! there,
> > in one ep fov was venus, jupiter and a b2 bomber. it was so far
> > away that when i told my son "look, b2 bomber!" he couldn't see a
> > thing except the planets. it was pretty cool.
>
> Hi Mark,
>
> Your post reminds me of this picture
>
> http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=132339
>
> Esmail
Some two weeks ago I was observing the sun through my C4.5 and an
8mm Tele Vue Radian when a jet airliner streaked across the sun's disk.
Dave Mitsky
mark d. doiron
<david_...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:94913r$9j$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <3A65AA32...@uiowa.edu>,
> Some two weeks ago I was observing the sun through my C4.5 and an
> 8mm Tele Vue Radian when a jet airliner streaked across the sun's
disk.
cool. did you wish you had a camera mounted at the time? :-)