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Thread: The thrust of curiosity that leads men to try to go where no one has gone before. (The Space thread)

  1. #551
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    Space station, the final frontier..., without the virus and protests...

    Actually Antarctica is doing well too!

    Humanity needs to explore harsh new environments in order to get along well with each other I guess.

    Anyway, I thank God for SpaceX! Well done Elon! Commercial Space travel most likely could become possible within our life time! One of the few positive memories of 2020...

    Here's hoping we won't burn it all down...
    Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; June 1st, 2020 at 08:31 AM.

  2. #552
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    Not sure if this belongs here as it's not about going to space, but it is about space. Every time a comet has come around I've lived in a place where it was overcast every night. I missed Hale-Bopp, I missed Halley's, but now I've got a chance to see NEOWISE. So, I picked up maybe the first non-crappy binoculars I've ever owned and plan to head to the mountains tomorrow night to try to see it. I'm kinda hoping that, a lot like my Vitamix, that maybe just spending the extra money once will mean I have a solid set for the foreseeable future instead of little dinky binoculars that I end up losing anyway. We'll see. That said, I doubt I'll be able to do much when it comes to taking pictures of it, so instead I'll share the one my friend took from the hills above Malibu the other night.


  3. #553
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    Nice!

  4. #554
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    Woot, finally saw a comet!

  5. #555
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    How are you able to see it? We went up Mt Wilson and wasn’t able to see it... it should be dark enough, but perhaps it got so close and near the horizon so it was blocked by some of the mountain ranges?

    Ideally we need to go some where dark and flat... so where was that for you?

  6. #556
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    Mt. Wilson seems like it should have worked. We first tried to go to Palisades Park in Santa Monica, but I guess the coastline heads more northwest than I thought rather than due north, so it was just behind the mountains fo runs. So, we drove up into the Santa Monica mountains and ended up at the intersection of Schueren and Stunt Rd. above Calabasas. You can find the spot on google maps if you search for "Topanga Lookout Trailhead". The drive up is a little more treacherous coming from the PCH side, using Old Topanga, Mulholland, and Stunt to get there from the valley isn't particularly tough. We got there probably about 9:30pm or so, a good half hour after the last sunlight had gone away.

    That said, it was barely, barely, barely visible with the naked eye. I'm glad I looked beforehand at a skymap on the web to be able to try to spot it, if I didn't know pretty much exactly where to look I don't think I would have found it. Shortest version of that is that the big dipper is just above it in the sky, and if you follow the line between the star that makes the edge of the dipper part and the handle and then the next one on the handle downwards, it's maybe 10 degrees or so below the constellation in that direction. (I just looked up the names of the stars, if you follow a line from Alioth through Megrez, it'll point pretty close to the comet). It looked like a little bit of a smudge in the sky, and was faint enough that it was one of those things where if you look not-directly at it, it's a little easier to make out. It was clearly visible with the 9x63 binoculars I was using, however.

    My sister and her family saw it pretty well from up in the high desert, they took 395 out past Adelanto, about halfway between there and the Kramer Junction with 58, and said they were able to see it quite well from there. Definitely less light out there and it's very flat.

  7. #557
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    Thanks for the tip! Will try tonight!

    Another friend of ours also tried Mt Wilson and had no success... I bet it’s probably blocked by the trees or mountain ranges... anyway, the. They went all the way to Mojave and was finally able to see it! I’m not sure I want to go all that way...

  8. #558
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    Good luck! It was actually pretty crowded where we parked on Saturday night, but we were still able to score a parking spot. I imagine it'll be less crowded on a Monday, so you shouldn't have much trouble.

  9. #559
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    Again, not my pic, but it looks like if you've got something to help with light pollution, it is visible from Griffith Park.


  10. #560
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    Wow, that’s a nice shot!

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