ASTRONOMY GEEKS FOREVER!!!
Apr. 15th, 2005 06:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinclair_furiePuritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy. -H.L.
Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
The moon is a ridiculously Beautiful thing. Seriously. If there was a permanent lunar settlement, I would go there, no questions asked. Well, saftey precautions and occasional return to Earth, but no questions other than that.
I couldn't sleep yesterday night, so I got up at around 3 and looked out of my window, looking for the moon. Yes, I have to look for it- I work with a 15 degree slice of the sky and the moon keeps disappearing. Instead of the Moon, I saw this amazingly bright thing which looked like a much oversized star. So I got my binoculars and stared at it avidly for a long time, opening the windows and letting millions of mosquitos in. It was 100 degrees West from true north, about 30 degrees up in the sky at 3 AM. I actually measured the exact altitude using Pythagorean Theorem and two rulers. If only I had the 10-inch telescope we had in our astronomy club in Egypt with me! Anyway, it was bright, and I could make out three satellites. Two on the right side, one of them close, the other twice the distance and brighter. And the moon on the left was abotu three times as far away as the brigh moon. All were on the same plane and at about a 40 degree tilt (140 if you're using the unit circle).
Anyway, at the time I was pretty sure it was Jupiter. Discussed it with Yuki today, she thought it was Mars, but hadn't used binoculars to see the satellites (Mars has two tiny moons). So, being the geek I am I looked it up on Heavens-Above, it was Jupiter. Here's the sky chart for that time:
So now I'm happy. Plus there's an Iridium Flare in about 20 minutes which I'm hoping to catch...
[edit] I missed it, but I did see the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn! w00t!
Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
The moon is a ridiculously Beautiful thing. Seriously. If there was a permanent lunar settlement, I would go there, no questions asked. Well, saftey precautions and occasional return to Earth, but no questions other than that.
I couldn't sleep yesterday night, so I got up at around 3 and looked out of my window, looking for the moon. Yes, I have to look for it- I work with a 15 degree slice of the sky and the moon keeps disappearing. Instead of the Moon, I saw this amazingly bright thing which looked like a much oversized star. So I got my binoculars and stared at it avidly for a long time, opening the windows and letting millions of mosquitos in. It was 100 degrees West from true north, about 30 degrees up in the sky at 3 AM. I actually measured the exact altitude using Pythagorean Theorem and two rulers. If only I had the 10-inch telescope we had in our astronomy club in Egypt with me! Anyway, it was bright, and I could make out three satellites. Two on the right side, one of them close, the other twice the distance and brighter. And the moon on the left was abotu three times as far away as the brigh moon. All were on the same plane and at about a 40 degree tilt (140 if you're using the unit circle).
Anyway, at the time I was pretty sure it was Jupiter. Discussed it with Yuki today, she thought it was Mars, but hadn't used binoculars to see the satellites (Mars has two tiny moons). So, being the geek I am I looked it up on Heavens-Above, it was Jupiter. Here's the sky chart for that time:
So now I'm happy. Plus there's an Iridium Flare in about 20 minutes which I'm hoping to catch...
[edit] I missed it, but I did see the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn! w00t!
