Space In General

[Dennisch]

Monday May 9th Mercury will travel in front of the Sun.

I have it scheduled in my agenda, I have a piece of welding glass on my 400mm and I am good to go.

 

[CodeRedR51]

http://www.universetoday.com/128520...ster-moves-back-to-ksc-for-eventual-reflight/

You know, when you watch it land on that drone ship it doesn't really seem that big. But this photo really puts it into perspective.

 

[tarnheld]

Monday May 9th Mercury will travel in front of the Sun.

I have it scheduled in my agenda, I have a piece of welding glass on my 400mm and I am good to go.

Looking forward to that too! Make sure you have a welding glass of class at least 14 before the mirror, you are collecting a serious amount of radiation with your telescope (awesome aperture 👍), in infrared and UV too -- especially dangerous as you can't see and adapt to it. Here is a german site with transmittance tests of various filters, hope it's of any help for you. An make sure the search scope is protected too, it's easy to inadvertently look through it.

 

[Dennisch]

Looking forward to that too! Make sure you have a welding glass of class at least 14 before the mirror, you are collecting a serious amount of radiation with your telescope (awesome aperture 👍), in infrared and UV too -- especially dangerous as you can't see and adapt to it. Here is a german site with transmittance tests of various filters, hope it's of any help for you. An make sure the search scope is protected too, it's easy to inadvertently look through it.

It's a 400mm telelens for my camera, my telescope is a just a 130mm. And I don't have any solar filters for that.

I have the welding glass glued on the cap that screws on the front of the lens.

 

[Michael88]

Monday May 9th Mercury will travel in front of the Sun.

I have it scheduled in my agenda, I have a piece of welding glass on my 400mm and I am good to go.

Use #14 welders glass!

 

[tarnheld]

It's a 400mm telelens for my camera, my telescope is a just a 130mm. And I don't have any solar filters for that.

Alright, thought of 400mm aperture which would be truly massive, but i think you mean focal length. And a camera can be damaged too if you don't use strong enough filter but it's more forgiving than the human eye. You can never be too cautious when looking at a yellow dwarf star that is only 8 light-minutes away.

 

[daan]

Surely one success (out of how many failures?) is not statistical evidence of anything other than happenstance.

Tell that to Apollo 7/8. Someone always has to to something first and spaceflight will never be routine in our lifetime.

 

[tarnheld]

After a five year odyssey around the sun, Japan's Venus probe Akatsuki made it into orbit and has delivered first images. The intriguing bow shape in the clouds in the LIR image seems to be caused by some surface feature.

Link

 

[CodeRedR51]

Next SpaceX launch and landing attempt could be on May 3. The landing will be a little more interesting than last time:

SpaceX plans to deliver a Japanese broadcast satellite into orbit 22,000km above the planet's surface...

This means that the first stage will accelerate to a greater velocity, moving almost parallel to the surface and away from the launch site, before it releases the second stage and the primary payload. This trajectory will leave the vehicle with far less fuel to arrest this horizontal motion, and to control its descent to the barge waiting below.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016...ake-next-launch-and-landing-attempt-on-may-3/

 

[Swagger897]

After a five year odyssey around the sun, Japan's Venus probe Akatsuki made it into orbit and has delivered first images. The intriguing bow shape in the clouds in the LIR image seems to be caused by some surface feature.

Link

Spoiler

 

[Lain]

A T-Rex taller than Olympus Mons, now there's a scary thought.

Panspermia is real, but it's not microorganisms... it's dinosaurs evolving to the point where they're so big, they can just jump across space.

 

[Dennisch]

SpaceX wants to send a unmanned rocket to Mars in 2018. The program will be called Red Dragon.

 

[CodeRedR51]

SpaceX posted a 360 degree video of the drone ship booster landing on their facebook page. I tried to figure out how to embed it here and couldn't get it.

Edit 2: They put it on YouTube, so here:



Edit: Not sure if we have an 'Earth' thread or one where this would be better suited?

 

[wfooshee]

That thing slid a bit across the deck, didn't it???

 

[CodeRedR51]

Yeah, wind maybe? That smoke cleared out pretty quickly.

 

[CodeRedR51]

SpaceX targeting Wednesday @ 10:21pm PST for the next launch.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Launch in 15 minutes. (and possible landing)

http://www.spacex.com/webcast

 

[eran0004]

Launch in 15 minutes. (and possible landing)

http://www.spacex.com/webcast

Looks like a bullseye!

 

[CodeRedR51]

Looks like a bullseye!

Funny, I was with the crowd at first with the bright flash of light I thought it had failed. Then poof, standing upright, right in the middle.

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[TRGTspecialist]

Was this Falcon one they've landed before, or a different one? If the latter, does anyone know when they plan to first reuse a landed rocket?

 

[TenEightyOne]

Was this Falcon one they've landed before, or a different one? If the latter, does anyone know when they plan to first reuse a landed rocket?

From rough memory... the one they landed was going to be checked over and hopefully re-used by "late summer".

 

[CodeRedR51]

From rough memory... the one they landed was going to be checked over and hopefully re-used by "late summer".

Elon said he hopes to have it ready for a launch as early as June.

 

[wfooshee]

They've not re-used on yet. This is three landed, though; one on land and two on the drone ship.

 

[Dennisch]

Monday May 9th Mercury will travel in front of the Sun.

I have it scheduled in my agenda, I have a piece of welding glass on my 400mm and I am good to go.

Well, color me ****** buy I ain't seeing ****. 2 welding glasses just to be safe on the 400mm but I don't see Mercury.

Even tried it with the 500mm with a 2 and 3x converter. Nothing.

Edit!

I haz planet!

Tiny but it's there. I'll keep on shooting every our or so, there are still 5 hours left.

 

[PeterJB]

Nothing but blazing sunshine for the past week and of course the UK chooses today to be overcast.

 

[tarnheld]

Our local observatory had a telescope with a H-alpha filter and a webcam! Mercury and protuberances around the big sunspot cluster:

 

[CodeRedR51]

Edit: YouTube for those that can't see facebook embeded posts:

 

[Dennisch]

 

[Dotini]