Astrophysics and Cosmology - Discuss the Universe here

[Quick Karl]

AO, I wondered if you had seen my molecule question?

I am sure that answering these questions the way you do, is time consuming. Nevertheless, I would love to read your answer, when you have the time.

Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones - hope you have a great holiday.

[Quick Karl]

Okay, I need to get to bed so I just quickly set the telescope up and snapped this pic with the default optics.   I didn't bother looking for stars, it's late and I don't have time right now, plus clouds were starting to roll in.   Click for bigger picture.

Nice, A51!

What kind of telescope do you have? I have a 102mm F5.9 achromatic objective that's been laying around here for about 10-years and I've been trying to find the time to machine a few components so I can assemble a nice lil refractor! One of these days... deep space Astro-photography is definitely an art!

[area51drone]

I have a Celestron NexStar 114GT on a computerized mount:

http://www.celestron.com/sports_outdoors/celestron-nexstar-114-gt-computerized-telescope.html

The picture was taken with a AmScope MU300 Microscope camera (and their software), replacing the normal eyepiece with the camera.   The lens that the camera has says it is a 0.5x reduction lens.

http://www.amscope.com/mu300.html

I'm hoping the camera will at least do the planets half way decently, maybe needing  a barlow or maybe the camera can mount directly onto some of the other lenses I have, I haven't had a chance to see.

I also am *hoping* I can mount my NV monocular onto it, that would be really sweet.

[area51drone]

Trailer Park Boys - I Hate Playing Space

[Agent : Orange]

AO, I wondered if you had seen my molecule question?

I am sure that answering these questions the way you do, is time consuming. Nevertheless, I would love to read your answer, when you have the time.

Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones - hope you have a great holiday.

Sure have but just have not had enough time to put anything up yet. Might have to wait until after the holidays!
I've been on more in the past few days but I'm still busting it to finish off a project here so I've been more scarce than usual. But hopefully this will lighten up in the next few weeks.

[Agent : Orange]

Nice, A51!

What kind of telescope do you have? I have a 102mm F5.9 achromatic objective that's been laying around here for about 10-years and I've been trying to find the time to machine a few components so I can assemble a nice lil refractor! One of these days... deep space Astro-photography is definitely an art!

Machine a few components :O
This is getting serious!!
That would be a super rewarding thing, I have built a few decks, done some renovation and I love the satisfaction I get out of making things with my hands, so machining parts for a scope and then have them work... that would be something else.
Take plenty of photos while you work on it and post your process here

[steelbot]

Trailer Park Boys - I Hate Playing Space

LOL - damnit BUBBLES - I can't do this NAY SAW SHIT!

[steelbot]

Okay, I need to get to bed so I just quickly set the telescope up and snapped this pic with the default optics.   I didn't bother looking for stars, it's late and I don't have time right now, plus clouds were starting to roll in.   Click for bigger picture.

Nice - here are a couple of photos i took without tripod - using my canon3d (rested on the truck) but still manual press shutter - first one is supermoon 2011(12 maybe) next was August of this year -

http://imgur.com/a/hCZqJ





I used the Raw capture files imported into photoshop and exposure/whitebalance corrected - but no other touchups on the shots themselves.

[area51drone]

Nice pics Steelbot!  Isn't that amazing what can be done with just a camera by itself?  I would not be surprised if you could make out a cloud formation on jupiter with just a dslr and a 300mm by itself.

[steelbot]

Nice pics Steelbot!  Isn't that amazing what can be done with just a camera by itself?  I would not be surprised if you could make out a cloud formation on jupiter with just a dslr and a 300mm by itself.

yeah, i know the binoculars my cousin has you could clearly see the rings of/and Saturn and Titan.  On Jupiter we've been able to make out the giant spot, and multiple moons - with iOS apps to get exact viewing shot of what we're seeing we've been able to identify the moons correctly.  but only if it's really clear and the tripod/leaning in to see is cooperating =P

[area51drone]

yeah, i know the binoculars my cousin has you could clearly see the rings of/and Saturn and Titan.  On Jupiter we've been able to make out the giant spot, and multiple moons - with iOS apps to get exact viewing shot of what we're seeing we've been able to identify the moons correctly.  but only if it's really clear and the tripod/leaning in to see is cooperating =P

Yes, it's pretty easy to see all that stuff with cheap optics even.  I have a chincy tasco telescope that I jacked from my brother when we were kids and it was through that that I first saw Saturn's rings and Jupiter with a few moons.

[zeebo]

We need to do something like this here in the U.S.  If such a thing existed, I'm thinking it could be the makings for a cool road trip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System

[onan]

AO, I wondered if you had seen my molecule question?

I am sure that answering these questions the way you do, is time consuming. Nevertheless, I would love to read your answer, when you have the time.

Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones - hope you have a great holiday.

I will try to give an answer here. I don't have the background AO does but I did have a few science classes in college.

It is true that atoms, or more accurately electrons, have lots of space between themselves and the nucleus (relatively speaking).

If one thinks of a few atoms it does seem to be nothing but empty space. But an important consideration is the sheer volume of atoms, or for convenience, molecules which (obviously) are made of atoms. The common statement to explain the volume is: "there are more molecules of water in a cup of water, than there are cups of water in all the oceans combined. In actuality there are more than 250,000 times as many molecules in a cup of water as there are cups of water in the oceans.

So yes lots of space, but as relatively big as those spaces are they are still very tiny. Generally speaking there are more than 100,000,000,000,000 atoms in a cell. There are close to 38 trillion cells in the average sized human being. It is easy to look at the "emptiness" of an atom and think there is little but space. But there are so many atoms it does become crowded. The simple analogy I came up with is if a human body were a door it wouldn't be a screen door it would be a very thick steel vault door.

[steelbot]

I will try to give an answer here. I don't have the background AO does but I did have a few science classes in college.

It is true that atoms, or more accurately electrons, have lots of space between themselves and the nucleus (relatively speaking).

If one thinks of a few atoms it does seem to be nothing but empty space. But an important consideration is the sheer volume of atoms, or for convenience, molecules which (obviously) are made of atoms. The common statement to explain the volume is: "there are more molecules of water in a cup of water, than there are cups of water in all the oceans combined. In actuality there are more than 250,000 times as many molecules in a cup of water as there are cups of water in the oceans.

So yes lots of space, but as relatively big as those spaces are they are still very tiny. Generally speaking there are more than 100,000,000,000,000 atoms in a cell. There are close to 38 trillion cells in the average sized human being. It is easy to look at the "emptiness" of an atom and think there is little but space. But there are so many atoms it does become crowded. The simple analogy I came up with is if a human body were a door it wouldn't be a screen door it would be a very thick steel vault door.

I like it - but we can slow light photons down to near zero, and split them, plus there's this http://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/manufacturing ....which really is one atom thick...so...it's crazy what they can already do on a nano scale with engineering phd's and what not behind it.  When/IF it becomes the supermaterial unobtanium or not is yet to be seen.  It aint here yet, but it's not as far away as I think most would know.

[Camazotz Automat]

I like this photo of the ASTROlab in Quebec. Looks like ideal living quarters to me - functional MOMA nerdian, man.

[area51drone]

I like this photo of the ASTROlab in Quebec. Looks like ideal living quarters to me - functional MOMA nerdian, man.

Complete with nightly shooting star shows.

[Agent : Orange]

I will try to give an answer here. I don't have the background AO does but I did have a few science classes in college.

It is true that atoms, or more accurately electrons, have lots of space between themselves and the nucleus (relatively speaking).

If one thinks of a few atoms it does seem to be nothing but empty space. But an important consideration is the sheer volume of atoms, or for convenience, molecules which (obviously) are made of atoms. The common statement to explain the volume is: "there are more molecules of water in a cup of water, than there are cups of water in all the oceans combined. In actuality there are more than 250,000 times as many molecules in a cup of water as there are cups of water in the oceans.

So yes lots of space, but as relatively big as those spaces are they are still very tiny. Generally speaking there are more than 100,000,000,000,000 atoms in a cell. There are close to 38 trillion cells in the average sized human being. It is easy to look at the "emptiness" of an atom and think there is little but space. But there are so many atoms it does become crowded. The simple analogy I came up with is if a human body were a door it wouldn't be a screen door it would be a very thick steel vault door.

Sorry I've taken so long to respond to this, I haven't been online much at all in the past few weeks.

As for a response, I think Onan's pretty much got it covered.

I would only add this: we're used to thinking about things classically and when we do, we wind up picturing something like the Bohr view of the atom, which has particles as neat and discrete billiard balls, traveling around the nucleus like the planets of our solar system going around the Sun. In fact, this view is really incorrect because electrons and nuclei themselves are quantum in nature, and so the wave nature of the electrons has to be taken into account. The Bohr picture with point-like particles just doesn't take this into account, and in fact the electrons should orbit at radii of a multiple of their half-wavelength. So the electron wave around the atom, basically a standing wave, is actually quite large. The total charge of the electron is distributed throughout this cloud. You can see some details of the shape of the electron orbitals here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital). On our scale of experience we react to the interactions between atoms, and the electrical interaction is very strong so atoms don't occupy the same space as one another. In fact, when we apply enough force to pressing atoms together, then the electron orbitals can begin to overlap and we obtain a state called electron degeneracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron-degenerate_matter#Degenerate_gases), which is the material that supports the cores of collapsed stars in the white dwarf state. Further compression results in an analogous effect between neutrons and this is the material which supports neutron stars, which I posted about earlier in this thread.

[Agent : Orange]

We need to do something like this here in the U.S.  If such a thing existed, I'm thinking it could be the makings for a cool road trip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System

Wow this is awesome!!

[valdez]

We need to do something like this here in the U.S.  If such a thing existed, I'm thinking it could be the makings for a cool road trip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System

First Ikea, now this.  They're on a roll.

[Agent : Orange]

     First Ikea, now this.  They're on a roll.

The land of ideas

[area51drone]

We need to do something like this here in the U.S.  If such a thing existed, I'm thinking it could be the makings for a cool road trip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System

I heard the night janitor bumped Mars in Stockholm, and Richard C Hoagland has been analyzing the decaying orbit ever since...

[area51drone]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital

I can't wait until I have time to read through this... thinking about everything in terms of waves and not particles really makes you think.

[zeebo]

... thinking about everything in terms of waves and not particles really makes you think.

I couldn't help but remember this scene ...


S3E14.04 - It's a Wave.wmv

[area51drone]

Right...  it fucking pisses me off though.  It's like when I realized as youngster that god wasn't real.   You are lied to your whole life.  Fucking educators.  Just give us the damned truth from the start please.  Who knows what I might have thought up in the last 20 years had I realized particles weren't really particles, but quantization of energy in a field.  I'm not saying I would have solved anything but maybe other ideas would have popped into my head.   It's not like I couldn't have found this stuff out for myself, or I could have taken more classes and eventually found the truth, but they should have said even in middle school when they start teaching you about atoms, "hey, this is really just energy in a field".    All I can say is that my children will be educated in a different manner - when it comes to a lot of things, not just physics.   Educators think they know what's best, but really they just know what's best for the least common denominator of society.   Sad.

[b_dubb]

let's define the parameters of god before we sit down and discuss the likelihood that It exists

[area51drone]

let's define the parameters of god before we sit down and discuss the likelihood that It exists

Christian, jewish, muslim... you name the god and I'll tell you it doesn't exist.  It isn't a likelihood.  Can I prove it?  No.  Can you prove a god does exist?  No.  There's no reason to argue.  Believe if you want, I don't.

[onan]

Christian, jewish, muslim... you name the god and I'll tell you it doesn't exist.  It isn't a likelihood.  Can I prove it?  No.  Can you prove a god does exist?  No.  There's no reason to argue.  Believe if you want, I don't.

Immortal dreams in a mortal being... what kind of dick would plan that?

[West of the Rockies]

Please forgive the word wall below (though it is well worth your time to read):


“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

[Agent : Orange]

Right...  it fucking pisses me off though.  It's like when I realized as youngster that god wasn't real.   You are lied to your whole life.  Fucking educators.  Just give us the damned truth from the start please.  Who knows what I might have thought up in the last 20 years had I realized particles weren't really particles, but quantization of energy in a field.  I'm not saying I would have solved anything but maybe other ideas would have popped into my head.   It's not like I couldn't have found this stuff out for myself, or I could have taken more classes and eventually found the truth, but they should have said even in middle school when they start teaching you about atoms, "hey, this is really just energy in a field".    All I can say is that my children will be educated in a different manner - when it comes to a lot of things, not just physics.   Educators think they know what's best, but really they just know what's best for the least common denominator of society.   Sad.

You have to learn to crawl before you can walk. What good is explaining energy quantization when someone doesn't know what energy is?

[area51drone]

You have to learn to crawl before you can walk. What good is explaining energy quantization when someone doesn't know what energy is?

Come on, that's like saying what good is telling someone that electrons fly around protons when they don't even know what an electron is?   

Defining energy is relatively easy, IMO: Showing potential vs. kinetic (ball at a height, ball drops and does work), then show how magnetism can do the same work, then show how eletro magnetism does the same work.  People get energy, I think.   

I hate being lied to, and I feel like my entire physics education (which wasn't much but probably more than most) was pretty much a big lie.  I should have just sold drugs when I went to school.   Seriously though, not even the recent Novas will tell the truth.   Everything you see in the media makes it as if particles are where it's at.  You will hear about the wave particle duality, but not the truth.   That's the closest you get.