If you love astronomy...

fluffer said:

Did anyone see this on the news this morning, about the new planet?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6589157.stm
It won't be until 2020 that NASA have developed a telescope powerful enough to view it though.

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I saw it just before I posted my previous post.
Good link. Thanks.

Moonrise over another world, Europa rising over Jupiter.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070507.html

Our recently renovated Griffith Observatory was barely saved from brush fires yesterday.

http://www.griffithobs.org/

Heard about it. That would have been terrible to lose.

This one is special.

The Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles.

Is that before or after the fires? I lke the picture thou.

Check out this program... it's free and I LOVE using it when I'm using our telescope...it's called Stellarium

rman said:

Is that before or after the fires? I lke the picture thou.

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Unfortunately before. It will take years to look like that again. I am actually very sad about it. The place has been closed since.
The photo while the fires were going is in the previous post.

GulfVetSAF said:

Check out this program... it's free and I LOVE using it when I'm using our telescope...it's called Stellarium

Click to expand...

Thanks.
mathogre beat you to it in #10.

You're welcome... it really is a better program than most that come with a telelscope... at least compatible anyway...

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/070525_ns_blue_moon.html

We're Going In!

...into the crater. We may lose the rover because the mission is risky, but Opportunity's been going for 3 years. Not bad for something that was supposed to survive for 3 months.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070703.html

These photos are so great I love looking at them!

mathogre said:

We're Going In ...into the crater. . . .

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070703.html

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I downloaded the image and opened it in Photoshop to make a desktop pic. But doing so made me wonder whether NASA adds more red to their Mars shots than exists in reality to heighten the drama and to meet the taxpaying public's expectations of an off-world landscape.

After all, the Hubble pix are false-colour, along with the saturation, and who would deny that isn't done to add drama? Nebulas and the universe in general do not look the way they do in those pix. It would be as easy to make them look ugly if they wanted to — to the detriment of their budget.

I spent only a few seconds on the Victoria Crater pic, using only Photoshop's auto settings. But I wonder whether the third pic more represents reality. All that red would be like every landscape on Earth being blue.

But what do I know from Mars? I'm just skeptical.



This way to the egress.

Nice pic.

In just under four hours - July 7, 2007, 00:00 UTC - we reach aphelion. This is the part of Earth's orbit when we're farthest from the Sun and moving the slowest around the Sun.

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.html
Happy Aphelion!

(It's a geek thing.)