Anybody on here enjoy looking at the heavens? I'm the president of the Astronomy Club here on campus, and I love looking for planets and stuff. We just got a brand new 8 inch dobsonian for our club. It gets a pretty crisp view of the moon. Good for checking out craters and what not. Our adviser says we should be able to see ice caps on Mars when it becomes visible at a decent hour. I was just walking home from the library after finishing a paper around 4 am and noticed a really bright star... so I got out the telescope and found out it was actually Jupiter! I could even make out four of its moons, which, according to my starry night software, were Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, and Io. Also, on the actual planet, I could see two of the distinct red lines (they just showed up in an off white) that go around it. I don't know what those are called, but I thought it was pretty neat. Also, did anyone notice the big circle around the moon? Has nothing to do with astronomy, but cool nonetheless. It is apparently a result of ice crystals forming in the atmosphere, or something along those lines. I didn't really read too in depth on it, but apparently it foreshadows bad weather. Anyways, just thought I'd post this thread to see if anyone shared my interest for looking at stars and planets. If there is anyone, we can use this thread as a way to talk about what is visible and when.
How could the president of the damn astronomy club mistake Jupiter for a star? What kind of school are you going to? By the way, astronomy AND poetry? At an all boys school? C'mon, man. Just come on out. It's cool, only god can judge.
Enjoying seeing planets up close makes me gay? I can understand how people might think poetry is gay, but astronomy? Come on, next you are going to be saying "He plays football? And people call me the gay one on this site?"
I'm the president because I brought the club back. It was dead, and my roommate and I wanted a telescope to look at shit, so we started it back up. I didn't "mistake" it for a star. I was fairly certain it was a planet, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten my telescope out at 4 in the freakin morning. Seeing as I have no prior knowledge of this stuff, I'd say being able to figure that out is pretty good.
Yes. It was my busy schedule that prevented me from typing the paper until last night, which took me until 4 am to finish. I'm running on 2 and a half hours of sleep.
Al Wilson doesn't need a telescope to view stars. He reaches up and grabs them at will, for personal inspection.
Why does no one actually respond to my threads or stay on topic? I can understand the poetry one not being all that enjoyable for most, but I figured there were bound to be a few people who like checking out planets and what not. It's pretty cool to see something so well despite it being so far away.
My kid really likes looking at the night sky, so I've tried to go back and remember a few things about it that I used to know. We actually went to a pretty interesting show at the planetarium in LBL this summer; this one was geared towards middle school kids, but it is a neat set-up, and I enjoyed it for what it was. I think they have a pretty active astronomy club there, as well.
There are very few posts on here that even come close to staying on topic. They all end up in 1000 different directions. I think it just saves posters from having to come up with a thread topic sentence. Plus when NYYVol shows up they all go one way!
