Space Forum / Amateur Astronomy / October 2007

What a waste.  We are 30 years behind in space exploration because of
it.  That little tear in the solar panel will probably cost 10s of
millions of $'s to fix, 100s of millions if they have to use a special
Shuttle mission to do it.

I was able to get a deep image of the comet tonight without any
moonlight or dust to interfere. Multiple dust lanes are now visible in
the central coma. Clearly, there is some interesting stuff going on
inside. I still can't pull out any hint of a tail (at least, nothing

Why don't they incorporate RTG's to power the ISS??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

hi ,i am from india....
fr 3-4 days i have been seeing an extremely bright object in eastern
sky ..towards 3am upto 6am
What is that.... looks like a planet...

The approximate size of the comet nucleus itself is about the size of the
moon or so it seems
according to this scaling of the whole comet and Jupiters red spot.
http://www.spaceweather.com/

Albeit a rather faint one. Here's my first preliminary result from
tonights session (29th) - a 45 minute exposure (9x5min @ ISO 800)
stacked and contrast stretched. It shows a number of faint structures
heading away from the coma to the upper right. When I've had some

hi ,i am from india....
fr 3-4 days i have been seeing an extremely bright object in eastern
sky ..towards 3am upto 6am
What is that.... looks like a planet...

I got an H-alpha  PST and it works great. The sun is remarkably quiet at the
moment.
Seeing the surface detail and what prominences there are really fills out
backyard

Hi.  I see the links to the Clear Air Turbulence images, such as
http://www.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/opdb/aviation/turb/tidaily/TIAVN6p.GIF
no longer work.  Can't seem to find where they moved, or if they even
exist.  Any help is appreciated...Dennis

Anyone started doing much Mars observing yet?
What are your thoughts about how difficult it will be to observe this
year?

Details revealed will likely be best shown by stacking and webcams and
like the Ring, doesn't gain much by being under dark skies.  Which is
good, everyone who wants to see it well can, even with binoculars.

Hi all,
Here's my first Registax'd result from last nights session - the first
where there were no damned clouds in the way!
The 'pretty' images will follow later...

I was unable to make any observations last night due to poor weather.
Today and tonight we've been under a thick layer of smoke (presumably
drifted over 800 miles from California), but I was nevertheless able to
make a new series of images. The comet has grown to nearly 1 million

I appreciate the info from this group on finding Comet Holmes. In the
moonlit sky, it was beautiful in my binoculars, and  better in my
telescope.
I have just started using Sky Atlas 2000 Deluxe. What I didn't realize

Hi.  In this digital age, fellow astronomy club members are constantly
posting images on the Internet.  Currently, there are two ways:  1)
Email them to me, the club webmaster, whereupon I upload them to our web
site.  2)  Log onto our Yahoo group and upload them to a folder in ...