Starship Asterisk*

Orca wrote: ↑Wed Feb 24, 2021 10:31 pm

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Sat Nov 21, 2020 10:14 pm Two nights ago. Coming down off a hard hike up and back from a 12,500 foot pass...

That is a remarkably causal reference to a very big mountain! The highest point in OR is Mt Hood which is 11,250 feet - and that is a peak, not a pass.

Out of curiosity I compared the Cascades to the Rockies for highest peaks - Mt Rainier (14,411) is just a few feet shorter than the highest peak in the Rockies, Mt Elbert (14,433). Of course they are different types of mountain ranges and formed very differently. Not that it's a contest and I am comparing our mountains or anything! :shock:

Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Wed Aug 04, 2021 11:59 pm At sunrise this morning

rose a planetary-looking ball of plasma!

Ann wrote: ↑Thu Aug 05, 2021 4:05 am

Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Wed Aug 04, 2021 11:59 pm At sunrise this morning

rose a planetary-looking ball of plasma!

Lovely balls of plasma, Fred!

Tell me this, though. I've been meaning to ask you about the long green streak in another of your images.

What is that thing?

Ann

Cousin Ricky wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 3:08 pm During 40 minutes of looking up last night, I saw one (1) meteor. It had a Perseid trajectory. The sky was really turbid; so much so that I could barely make out the Pleiades as an indistinct fuzzy blob.

I drove out to a dark lookout point, because the new neighborhood streetlights are so bright that they make home astronomy all but impossible. Fortunately, they are full cutoff, making it possible for the lookout point to remain dark. A lot of people were already there, and there was a party atmosphere; I only hope they were masked up and vaccinated.

Orca wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 3:18 am I was hoping we'd catch some Perseids tonight or tomorrow night but the sky went from clear to obscured within hours; the smoke really rolled in fast.

Cousin Ricky wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 3:08 pm
During 40 minutes of looking up last night, I saw one (1) meteor. It had a Perseid trajectory.

The sky was really turbid; so much so that I could barely make out the Pleiades as an indistinct fuzzy blob.

https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=turbid&ref=searchbar_searchhint wrote:
turbid (adj.) "muddy, foul with extraneous matter, thick, not clear," used of liquids having the lees disturbed or colors, 1620s, from Latin turbidus "muddy, full of confusion," from turbare "to confuse, bewilder," from turba "turmoil, crowd," which is of uncertain origin. De Vaan writes: Turba seems most similar to [Greek syrbe, Attic tyrbe] 'noise, commotion', ... which are probably loanwords. In that case, Latin would have borrowed the word from a Greek dialect, or both Greek and Latin borrowed it from a third source. In view of the quite well-developed word family already in Plautus, which suggests that turba had been in the language for some time, the latter option seems preferable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliacal_rising wrote:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/image ... g-in-sudan
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/image ... white-nile

<<The heliacal rising or star rise of a star occurs annually, or the similar phenomenon of a planet, when it first becomes visible above the eastern horizon at dawn just before sunrise (thus becoming "the morning star"), after it has spent a season behind the sun rendering it invisible. Historically, the most important such rising is that of Sirius, which was an important feature of the Egyptian calendar and astronomical development. The rising of the Pleiades heralded the start of the Ancient Greek sailing season, using celestial navigation.

Because of its position about 40° off the ecliptic, the heliacal risings Sirius occur over a "Sothic year" almost exactly synchronized with the solar year. Since the development of civilization, this has occurred at Cairo on July 19 on the Julian calendar. Its returns also roughly corresponded to the onset of the annual flooding of the Nile before it was ended by the Aswan Low and High Dams. The ancient Egyptians appear to have constructed their 365-day civil calendar at a time when Wep Renpet, its New Year, corresponded with Sirius's return to the night sky. Although this calendar's lack of leap years caused the event to shift one day every four years or so, astronomical records of this displacement led to the discovery of the Sothic cycle and, later, the establishment of the more accurate Julian and Alexandrian calendars.

To the Māori of New Zealand, the Pleiades are called Matariki, and their heliacal rising signifies the beginning of the new year (around June). The Mapuche of South America called the Pleiades Ngauponi which in the vicinity of the we tripantu (Mapuche new year) will disappear by the west, lafkenmapu or ngulumapu, appearing at dawn to the East, a few days before the birth of new life in nature. Heliacal rising of Ngauponi, i.e. appearance of the Pleiades by the horizon over an hour before the Sun approximately 12 days before the winter solstice, announced we tripantu.>>

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:15 am Comet Leonard this morning before sunrise. Looking very pretty. Tail is at least a third of a degree long now.
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Click to view full size image

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Sun Feb 06, 2022 8:11 pm The entire sky.

Been playing around with the new allsky camera I've been developing. Here's a single capture- you can see Orion, the Pleiades, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper, and more. And a stack of 2100 images covering about 12 hours, twilight to twilight. Fun.
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M20220204_211619.jpg

2022.02.04 Stack.jpg

Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Mon Feb 07, 2022 3:42 pm

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Sun Feb 06, 2022 8:11 pm The entire sky.

Been playing around with the new allsky camera I've been developing. Here's a single capture- you can see Orion, the Pleiades, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper, and more. And a stack of 2100 images covering about 12 hours, twilight to twilight. Fun.
_
M20220204_211619.jpg
2022.02.04 Stack.jpg

Very fun! Is that different than your meteor camera? If so, how do you keep them from the image. :?