What did you see in the sky tonight?

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rstevenson
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by rstevenson » Thu Dec 23, 2010 2:36 am

beyond wrote:
rstevenson wrote:Alas, we were (and still are) having a Nor'easter. The whole universe could be eclipsed and I wouldn't know it.

Rob
Rob -- You are IN your own Eclipse :!: Enjoy it while you can. It won't be long before you are out of it and have to grab a snow shovel :!: :!:
My best shot from last night, during totality, showing a strange crater in the middle...
donut-eclipse-2010.jpg
Rob
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Beyond
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by Beyond » Thu Dec 23, 2010 2:46 am

Hey Rob, if you took a series of bites from a Donut and photograped them, you could then call it - "The human eclipsing of a Toroid".
If nothing else----it would be satisfying :!:
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orin stepanek
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by orin stepanek » Fri Dec 24, 2010 3:03 pm

Today I saw a snowflake in the sky! Oh My Gosh a lot of snowflakes. :mrgreen: Actually; we were lucky; only about a half an inch of snow fell. 8-)
Orin

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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by owlice » Fri Dec 24, 2010 3:17 pm

Yay, Orin! We are forecast to have a little snow coming our way; this could have been a significant storm for us if the track had been a bit different. But it isn't, so we are dodging it and will have perhaps an inch or two to make things pretty, but not so much that people are skiing to get to the grocery store.
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by owlice » Fri May 06, 2011 9:08 am

Tonight (or rather, at this point, last night) I saw a beautiful crescent moon smiling at me from the western sky.
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Ann
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by Ann » Fri May 06, 2011 11:42 am

rstevenson wrote:
beyond wrote:
rstevenson wrote:Alas, we were (and still are) having a Nor'easter. The whole universe could be eclipsed and I wouldn't know it.

Rob
Rob -- You are IN your own Eclipse :!: Enjoy it while you can. It won't be long before you are out of it and have to grab a snow shovel :!: :!:
My best shot from last night, during totality, showing a strange crater in the middle...
donut-eclipse-2010.jpg
Rob
Awesome!!!! :shock: :shock: :shock:

I guess the Moon really is made of cheese... what these guys hid from us!!!!

Image

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owlice
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by owlice » Thu May 26, 2011 6:06 pm

After a couple and a half weeks without riding, I got in a bike ride last night; when I got home, the skies had cleared a bit and the Big Dipper was over my driveway. Wasn't much, but I was glad to see it!
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billinger
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by billinger » Thu May 26, 2011 9:36 pm

I can`t to be jealous because some dark clouds accumulates over my house. Meteo heralds that some Viktor is going near my location (?); possible is whirlwind that I see nothing more than darkness. Second "cyclone" in seven days. Hard to believe.

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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by owlice » Sat May 28, 2011 3:39 pm

Last night: clouds! rain! lightning! It was a stupendous but brief storm. I suspect tonight will be more of the same.
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by Sam » Wed Jun 29, 2011 3:39 am

The ISS! I went out to the roof to do some binocular observing, immediately saw a bright (-3) star but cataloged it as an airplane, and didn't realize until a couple minutes later what it was, when it came into my field of view. I watched it go into Earth shadow over Kentucky, 1150km away!
Nice to be in the right place at the right time, for once.
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by Beyond » Wed Jun 29, 2011 4:32 am

Hey sam, now that you have accomplished being in the right place at the right time-once, try for twice. :mrgreen:
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by Ann » Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:59 am

Last night I saw noctilucent clouds! :D Not a lot of them, just a bit near the horizon. But their pearly blue-white shimmer is unmistakable. I shouldn't be happy, because they say that noctilucent clouds are bad for the ozone layer, but I can't help smiling because they are so beautiful.
Photo: Patrick Cobb.

"My" noctilucent clouds looked a bit like these, except that "mine" were closer to the horizon, and the sky above them wasn't nearly this dark. Instead, the northern sky was about these colors.

Capella was above the noctilucent clouds. When I see such clouds, Capella is always either above them or sitting right inside them. Yesterday night Capella was well above them. It was brilliantly bright and twinkling like mad. It seemed quite yellowish against the dark blue sky, so it looked a bit like a yellow Sirius. Higher in the sky and farther to the right (east), Mirfak, alpha Persei, was shining through quite faintly. Still higher and farther to the right, the majestic W of queen Cassiopeia decorated the sky.

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bystander
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by bystander » Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:03 pm

Noctilucent clouds are composed of water ice in the mesosphere, most likely from rocket exhaust (burning of liquid hydrogen and oxygen). How this is bad for the ozone layer escapes me.
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Jun 29, 2011 2:23 pm

bystander wrote:Noctilucent clouds are composed of water ice in the mesosphere, most likely from rocket exhaust (burning of liquid hydrogen and oxygen). How this is bad for the ozone layer escapes me.
While rocket exhaust can produce noctilucent clouds, they are usually a natural phenomenon. Rockets damage the ozone layer; perhaps that's where the confusion is coming from.

The "negative" aspect of noctilucent clouds is that their increasing frequency may well be tied to global warming, which has lowered the temperature of the upper atmosphere and altered the nature and amount of gases. In this sense, noctilucent clouds themselves are not harmful, but are indicators of an underlying harmful condition.
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BMAONE23
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by BMAONE23 » Wed Jun 29, 2011 5:11 pm

Last night I saw clouds and record rainfall
Click to play embedded YouTube video.

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owlice
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by owlice » Tue Jul 12, 2011 9:41 am

Clouds! Rain! Rain! Rain! And lot of lightning! It was a very fast-moving storm, taking about 12 hours to get from Chicago to the DC area.

Still cloudy out there.

That's all I saw. :(
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by Sam » Sat Aug 06, 2011 2:40 pm

Ahem. I saw:
Northern Lights
Milky Way
Lightning
Perseids

AT THE SAME TIME
From an observation tower in central Minnesota
while listening to mysterious creatures munching 100 feet below.
Pretty sure I also heard an owl.
So happy.
:D
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owlice
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by owlice » Sat Aug 06, 2011 3:05 pm

: gnashes teeth with envy :
: weeps into her tea :
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bystander
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by bystander » Sat Aug 06, 2011 3:07 pm

owlice wrote:: gnashes teeth with envy :
: weeps into her tea :
You should have used your miles :!:
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by Sam » Sat Aug 06, 2011 3:22 pm

owlice wrote:: gnashes teeth with envy :
: weeps into her tea :
No! Don't be sad.
You rather inspired me: if Owlice can fly to Edmonton or such to see it, I can surely drive two hours.

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owlice
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by owlice » Sat Aug 06, 2011 3:28 pm

bystander wrote:You should have used your miles :!:
I tried; couldn't do it. :(
Sam wrote: No! Don't be sad.
You rather inspired me: if Owlice can fly to Edmonton or such to see it, I can surely drive two hours.
Oh, Sam, I'm glad you drove the two hours, and I think it very likely you are, too!

I just need to be somewhere with darker skies.
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by Sam » Sat Aug 06, 2011 4:20 pm

229792_190856360977268_100001587151877_510710_6363909_n.jpg
185386_190856410977263_100001587151877_510712_362893_n.jpg
:D :D :D
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rstevenson
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by rstevenson » Sat Aug 06, 2011 5:36 pm

Alas, despite the sky clearing in the late evening after a dismal cloud cover all day, and despite my attempts to find a dark area to view the aurora, I saw plenty of nuttin'. Well, the usual suspects, the Moon, some stars, even blurry little Andromeda in my 7x50s, but narry a smear of northern lights. They just didn't get this far south, or I couldn't get out from under the urban light decay, one or the other. [sigh]

Years ago, while working in more northerly areas, I almost grew to take for granted the regular flashing and flaming of northern lights across the sky. I saw them so often I was comparing them -- "Oh this one is alright, but remember that one last month? Now that was an aurora!"

Rob

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owlice
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by owlice » Sat Aug 06, 2011 5:41 pm

: drinks her salty tea :
: needs more tissues :
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Beyond
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Re: What did you see in the sky tonight?

Post by Beyond » Sat Aug 06, 2011 10:06 pm

looks like our resident owl is showing symptoms of lack of auroras. Perhaps this will help relieve the symptoms until the actual medicine can be seen.
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronomy/ ... efault.asp
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