The Night Sky....

[Goonie]

Earthlink's newsletter had a link to a neat website. Although I've been staring off into space most of my life, I've never been real good with remembering constellations or stars. This was kind of a nice basic, interactive night sky identifier.

I thought some of you folks might like it.....so here it is.

"The Night Sky"

 

[RetireeRobert]

Cool. I'd go out and try it for real tonight, but in Oregon we just had a ten year storm blow through and the sky is nothing but liquid!

 

[Goonie]

Yeah, it's cloudy here, so the next clear night we have I'll bundle up and go out and stare into space......at the stars.

 

[calmloki]

Cool. I'd go out and try it for real tonight, but in Oregon we just had a ten year storm blow through and the sky is nothing but liquid!

Yeah, but it's a warm wet.

 

[cantlogin]

Yeah, but it's a warm wet.

That remark deserves some sort of award!

 

[donheff]

Nice site. I used to know quite a few constellations but this is a good brush-up site. When DD was in 8th grade I helped her build a telescope for a science project. Then we hooked up a $10 web cam to it coupled with some open source software to stack the video frames together and made some nice photos:

 

[Goonie]

Nice site. I used to know quite a few constellations but this is a good brush-up site. When DD was in 8th grade I helped her build a telescope for a science project. Then we hooked up a $10 web cam to it coupled with some open source software to stack the video frames together and made some nice photos......

Nice pix Don! Back when I was in Cub Scouts/Webelos I did a project about the constellations for a merit badge/pin. I knew them back then, but over the years I forgot most of what I had learned. One of the things on my "To Do" list for ER is to get a new telescope, and explore the universe......and do like you did, and take pix of it.

Thanks for posting the pix!

 

[FinallyRetired]

Cool! I always had a hard time figuring out the constellations, but now I know where orion's armpit is.

 

[sunshine]

Good refresher...took a class in college, but that was a long time ago. I can still find the north star, both dippers, and orion's belt...even when I'm on the other side of the world on travel...Always feel "conected" to home when I'm away, just by looking at the stars.

 

[FinallyRetired]

DW are just settling in for our semianual pilgrimage to the caribbean. Tonight was a starry night, so I got to try out this night sky tutorial operationally on the real sky. Found Orion, Betelgeuse and Mars but then clouds moved in. Pretty neat but have to say, the night sky is certainly bigger than a computer screen.

 

[tightasadrum]

At sea we used to shoot a navigational fix every night, unless it was overcast of course. Picking out the correct stars took some practice. Then shooting the three stars you picked while the ship rolled and moved along at 10-12 knots made it interesting. Plotting a fix on the chart with the three lines made a triangle. Some of my triangles would barely fit inside the state of Rhode Island. I wonder if new ships today are still outfitted with sextants?

 

[Goonie]

Pretty neat but have to say, the night sky is certainly bigger than a computer screen.

Only slightly bigger though. You just need a bigger monitor!

 

[whitestick]

Only slightly bigger though. You just need a bigger monitor!

See YouTube - CES 2008 - Panasonic 150" Plasma Display Advanced HD to satisfy that need.