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You know you're a moron, and so is the idiot who modded you up.
http://astronomy.com/news/2019...

This kind of shit should not be allowed...

http://astronomy.com/news/2019...

Broken link? Astronomy has this info: https://astronomy.com/news/201...

Here's a better article, that doesn't prattle about Nazis: http://www.astronomy.com/news/...

So, what are those big honking things seeing?

Don't know. Sometimes you think you've seen one thing but then it turns out it's something entirely different. That's the joy of learning. Our understanding (generally) improves over time.

Is this a case where something has been mathematically proven to not exist after it's been observationally confirmed?

Could be. Or not. I don't have the background to know if this paper is factually correct or not. But that's the thing about radio astronomy regarding things massively distant... you're not actually observing anything. You're taking in massive amounts of data then interpreting it. Sure, your eye does that when you look at a banana but it's not quite the same thing when you point a telescope at the far reaches of the universe and conclude "we've seen X". We've had a lot of cases recently where - for instance - some exoplanets have been found to not actually exist, because... reasons. It's all about how you interpret the data. If the math says that black holes cannot exist, perhaps you reinterpret your observational data and come to a better understanding of what you are seeing.

So, what are those big honking things seeing?

Is this a case where something has been mathematically proven to not exist after it's been observationally confirmed?

I didn't start reading science fiction until 9th grade so that's what..... 14? A friend told me to read Foundation's Edge. Prior to that point I mostly *watched* science fiction like Star Trek and Buck Rogers.

Back at age 8 I was more interesting in REAL science rather than fiction. Here's what I used to read back then:

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/
http://www.astronomy.com/Magazine/
http://www.sciencenews.org/ (once I reached middle school)

Via these magazines he can learn to read AND learn science at the same time:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/
http://www.astronomy.com/
http://www.sciencenews.com/
AND audio/video courses on chemistry (a lot of this stuff you can download for free off isohunt.com) http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/search/search.aspx?searchphrase=chemistry

Pont him here too: My love of science started with magazines, because of the potential to learn new things.
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/
http://sciencenews.com/
http://astronomy.com/
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ (formerly NatGeo World)

It's my understanding that dust devils have done a pretty good job of keeping the solar panels clean over the years.

There seems to be a growing trend of young amateur astronomers. In 2009, Caroline Moore, a 14 year-old at the time became the youngest person to discover a supernova- http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2009/06/Profile%20Youngest%20person%20to%20discover%20a%20supernova.aspx. She was then shortly thereafter surpassed by the 10-year old Kathryn Aurora Gray http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/04/girl-10-becomes-youngest-to-discover-supernova/ If one is at all old this thing starts to really make one feel unaccomplished by comparison.

One thing you might notice is that all of these people are female. I tentatively don't think this is a coincidence but at the same time don't think this is a strong example of the growth of females in science (although it certainly should help inspire other young girls). There's been for a very long history of women astronomers. While the specific example prior to about 1850 there are isolated examples like Caroline Herschel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Herschel but in the second half of the 19th century a large number of women went into astronomy related work. Examples include Antonia Maury who did some of the first careful analysis and cataloging of stellar spectra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonia_Maury and Annie Jump Cannon who followed on Maury's and others work making systematic the correlations between spectra, temperature and brightness, a crucial issue for trying to estimate the distance of any start that is more than a few hundred light years away http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Jump_Cannon. And then you have Henrietta Swan Leavitt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Swan_Leavitt who discovered Cepheid variable stars which allow one to extend distance estimates even farther, to outside our own galaxy. One thing that is important to notice is that a lot of these early female astronomers were doing work careful cataloging and classification work that was actually considered women's work and considered to be not that important by many. Thus, they got a lot less credit in their lifetimes than male astronomers. So at least that aspect has changed a lot.

There are also abundant levels of Thorium on the lunar near-side

"Abundance" is, of course, a relative term. Average abundance of thorium in Earth's crust is around 7 ppm; most of it, however, is in much richer deposits, so that a handful of dirt from my backyard is essentially free of thorium. (I hope.)

The abundant levels on the Moon that you quote peak (not average) at around 13 ppm. Not trivial, but we won't be scooping it up in buckets and shoveling it into reactors either. The chemistry to extract and refine it using minerals and elements available on the Moon would have to be developed.

LFTR: Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor. Inherently safe, no water required for cooling, and a ton of other advantages for lunar deployment including plentiful supplies of lunar near-side Thorium

Too late. The moon is already full of that nasty radioactive, rare-earth isotope Thorium. Darn! I guess we'll have to use that. :-)

LFTRs advantages:

1. - adapt to load and are self-regulating: the molten-salt blanket around the core expands as heat increases and contracts as heat reduces
2. - require no high-pressure containment vessel or water cooling
3. - will auto-shutdown if there is a critical power failure
4. - use a Uranium/Thorium cycle which consumes 99.9% of the fuel, increasing energy output and reducing waste products
5. - use a 50% efficient Brayton cycle gas turbine generator, waste heat can be used to purify water (important on moon)
6. - could be mass produced and delivered on trucks. A LFTR the size of a semi-truck should produce at least 100KW.
7. - waste products that do remain can be contained and become safe in 300 years instead of 300,000 years. (87% waste safe in 10 years, 13% in 300)
8. - proliferation-resistant: removing the only useful actinides for weapons would shut the reactor down, are deadly (hard gamma emitters) which also make them traceable

There are also abundant levels of Thorium on the lunar near-side

The base concepts of the LFTR were desinged in the late 50's by Alvin Weinberg for a nuclear airplane design. Further refinements of the molten salt concept were tested very successfully for four years (1964-1969) at Oak Ridge National Lab.
The project was eventually discontinued because the molten-salt reactors can't be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium and they are very safe relative to almost any other reactor and made fast breeder reactors look bad. LFTR reactors could be mass produced and delivered on trucks, from 100kw to multi-gigawatts.

A LFTR the size of an 18 wheeler should deliver at least 100kw.
The quantity of Thorium on Earth is thought to be enough to power the planet at the current rate for approximately 100,000 years.

Why not fund LFTR research at NASA while they are at it? The Chinese have already restarted all of our original research. If they create a good reactor and patent it we will feel like total idiots.

Energy From Thorium: here

By way of Wikipedia, this article on Astronomy.com seems to point out that indeed the connection to SG-1 is there in terms of how this asteroid was named.

It is sort of ironic too as there was an episode of SG-1 that dealt with an asteroid that was purposely deflected to hit the Earth by that Goa'uld system lord of the same name. That the mythology of the Egyptian god fits so well and the name up to that point had not been previously used on an asteroid only made it a perfect fit. It certainly isn't a name that would upset the IAU as much as 2309 Mr. Spock did at the time it was named. BTW, that particular asteroid was named after a pet cat and not the Star Trek character.

200F surface temperature on Mars? Try 70F on a really hot day:

http://quest.nasa.gov/aero/planetary/mars.html
http://www.ehow.com/about_4610050_what-mars-highest-temperature.html
http://www.universetoday.com/35664/temperature-of-the-planets/

This page claims 90F but that is speculation, and is still way shy of 200F:

http://www.astronomy.com/en/sitecore/content/Home/News-Observing/Astronomy%20Kids/2008/03/Mars.aspx

No the rotational axis is along the North Geomagnetic Pole not the Magnetic North Pole. You've obviously confused the two.

Kids are taught to navigate via Polaris but it is not an exact measure of North.

It might slow down the speed at which it is moving away :-)

Almost got me, there, Roland.

Astronomy.com Linky.

While away a useful few hours with Google Tech Talks
http://research.google.com/video.html

Then do some searching for podcasts, both audio and video. A quick sample of a hundred feeds or so:

http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/podcast/podcast.xml

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AiBquicktime

http://www.archaeologychannel.org/rss/TACfeed.xml

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses/rss/archive.php?seriesid=1906978378

http://aaweekly.blip.tv/?skin=rss

http://www.techonline.mtu.edu/iTunes_Media/astronomy_rss.xml

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast161/Audio/Podcast.xml

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Audio/Podcast.xml

http://astronomy.libsyn.com/rss

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/podcasts

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~clgroks/groks.rss

Pick your own subjects!

Personally, if I had the kind of space you had, with no light pollution, and if I had the budget you mentioned: I would buy a high quality digital SLR camera. Obviously, if you're looking to photograph things that you need a telescope to see, this wouldn't be a good use of money for you. But, if you're looking to take shots of constellations and the moon and such, then a high-quality digital SLR with a tripod will work beautifully.

To stay within budget and get good exposures of the night sky, stars and planets, it's better to get a 35 mm film camera. Then get a mount along with the telescope, using the mount the camera can be attached to the telescope. Someone at Astronomy.com asks for advise on getting a camera and mount for $500. Here's an adapter and mounts for different cameras for less than $100. If there is already a camera then several hundred dollars is available for the telescope. However if a camera is needed as well, one can be bought for $300 leaving $600 for the telescope. Oh, and a high quality dslr won't fit in that budget, for astrophotography and high quality a fullframe DSLR is where it's at. And the cheapest fullframe DSLR I know of is the Canon EOS 5D which retails for about $3000.

Though I haven't spent much tyme researching it, I have done some because I'm interested in astrophotography myself. I've got the 35mm and have been looking at telescopes, unfortunately I live in a brightly lit city and know of no place where I can go to shoot the stars.

Hang out at astronomy clubs and go to their camp-outs and slowly glean more info before blowing a wad of cash. Maybe subscribe to Astronomy Magazine. However, don't be tempted by the ads to buy the Ultra-Mega-Scope. Work your way up slowly. And, purchase a good star map with all the common nebula's and galaxies marked. Also note that the best viewing targets tend to come out in the winter, so prepare yourself for cold weather.

Well, personally I think this is governmental revenge for the telescope more or less proving there is no water on the moon. Can't have that! Why keep going to the moon if there's no water there? Answer - cut any research that proves otherwise. Arecibo has been darn useful for analyzing the characteristics of near earth objects as well. I'd hate to see it shut down.

It seems to me that were going to spend entirely to much money on something that is old obsolete. Why not replace it with something new and better?

IMHO, we should. A copy from an old post of mine:

Hubble Origins Probe: replace instead of repair?

Astronomy Magazine reports that an international team of astronomers has proposed an alternative to sending a robotic or human repair mission to the ailing Hubble Space Telescope. Their proposal is to build a new Hubble Origins Probe, reusing the Hubble design but using lighter and more cost-effective technologies. The probe would include instruments currently waiting to be installed on Hubble, as well as a Japanese-built imager which 'will allow scientists to map the heavens more than 20 times faster than even a refurbished Hubble Space Telescope could.' It would take an estimated 65 months and under $1 billion to build and launch, less than the estimated cost of a service mission.

As I often mention, a solution that everybody seems to be ignoring is putting up a new telescope, the Hubble Origins Probe. This new telescope would be more capable than the original Hubble and cost less than a robotic repair mission. For whatever reason, this possibility is almost never mentioned, although it's IMHO the best option by far.

Obligatory blurb:

Astronomy Magazine reports that an international team of astronomers has proposed an alternative to sending a robotic or human repair mission to the ailing Hubble Space Telescope. Their proposal is to build a new Hubble Origins Probe, reusing the Hubble design but using lighter and more cost-effective technologies. The probe would include instruments currently waiting to be installed on Hubble, as well as a Japanese-built imager which 'will allow scientists to map the heavens more than 20 times faster than even a refurbished Hubble Space Telescope could.' It would take an estimated 65 months and under $1 billion to build, less than the estimated cost of a service mission.

here. *everyone's* house is in this picture

WMAP showed that the universe is flat beyond reasonable doubt.

I don't understand your point about "true movement". If the distance between two objects changes as a function of time they are said to be moving.

Simon

So I wonder, why are devices like Hubble not built to be retooled - built with some type of standard socket connections so batteries, comupters, lenses, etc. could be more easily upgraded by swapping out major units and bolting them together on a frame just like a computer?

AFAIK, it is. I know that they've replaced several modules on it, particularly on the "eyepiece" side of the system, and I think they've also replaced several mission-critical components such as reaction wheels. Hubble's real problem is that we've come up with other ways of getting the resolution formerly possible only with space-based solutions.

I'd like very much for them to recover the telescope, but the question that plagues the future of manned space exploration - Is it worth risking lives - will prevent us from ever seeing Hubble in a museum.

We've been looking at the sky with telescopes for nearly 400 years now, and we're still learning more. While part of this is due to improved instruments, part of it is due to just how much sky there is out there to look at. Even quite old instruments, such as the 1908 Mt Wilson 100 inch reflector where Hubble did his work, are still capable of doing significant observations.

Other sites have pictures as well as not needing registration.

Their measurements are very accurate, and the sensitivity of the initial conditions depends (by several orders of magnitude) on whether the asteroid makes any close approaches to massive objects before it's final pass at earth. There are things like the Yarkovsky Effect that are difficult to predict for, but the effect of that is only significant in objects less than 100m in diameter, and only over very long time scales (it might move 1km from its original orbit per thousand years) So I wouldn't worry about that one.

Astronomy magazine has an article about this, unfortunitly, there is no free online version. They do have some spiffy graphics that went with the article though, showing the death of the universe: http://www.astronomy.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/ 000/000/001/165gbnzz.asp

The effect you are thinking of is called the Yarkovsky effect. The asteroid must rotate for it to come about. What happens is that the afternoon side of the asteroid, having been exposed to the sun longer, is warmer than the morning side and so it radiates more energy, mostly infrared, into space than the morning side. Obviously, the asteroid must rotate for there to be a morning side and a afternoon side.

How this small net force affects the asteroid's orbit depends on the orientation and direction of the asteroid's spin axis. From this month's Astronomy magazine: If the spin goes one way, Yarkovsky thrust adds to the orbital speed and the asteroid moves outward, away from the sun. If the asteroid rotates the other way, Yarkovsky thrust slows the asteroid's orbital velocity, and it draws closer to the sun.

"Painting" the asteroid with a material to alter its absorption and re-radiation of solar energy is very likely to be the most cost-effective method for altering an asteroid's orbit. It may even be the most practical method, assuming that we have enough time to allow the small change in thrust to alter the orbit enough to cause a miss.

There is an asteroid that is a very likely candidate for this treatment. 1950 DA was discovered and lost over 50 years ago, but was recovered on Dec 31, 2000, and was recognized as the long lost asteroid soon afterwards. With a 50-year basline to work with, its orbit was found to be in 11 to 5 resonance with Earth, which has the effect of making predictions reliable out to several hundred years. In the year 2641, the resonance will begin to decompose, sending the asteroid into a more chaotic phase of its orbital evolution. But the reliability holds long enough for scientists to recognize that there is a 1 in 300 chance of 1950 DA striking the Earth in the year 2880. This is the highest chance of collision ever estimated for any asteroid, and due to the resonance effects, it is considered very reliable.

So sometime during the next 900 years or so, we will probably have to decide that an attempt to alter its orbit is necessary. The sooner we act, the more likely we will succeed. 1950 DA is about 1.1 km in diameter, which would directly destroy an area the size of Wisconsin upon impact, and cause widespread devastation over a continent-wide area. But as little as a few tons of white chalk spread over one hemisphere could alter the Yarkovsky effect enough to change its orbit sufficiently over the next few centuries to complete avert any chance of impact.

The last Leonid shower I saw was in 1998 while I was doing some work at the Woodbury Research Facility... It was quite a good show and since this place is in rural Georgia, it was extremely dark... I tried looking at last year's shower, but the light situation in suburban Philly is horrible..

One other fun thing that I've found to look at is occultation around the edge of the moon. On occasion, mountains on the moon obscure stars passing near the horizon for a few minutes. With a small scope, it's really cool to watch them disappear and reappear along the edge. You can find occultations listen in Astronomy Magazine...

Happy Viewing...

Actually, if it is made of stuff different than the Moon, let's drop it on the Moon. The Moon's orbit is decaying anyway, so we can give it a little boost...and create a rich mining area before the Moon gets occupied. How rich? A single metallic asteroid has more metals than we can reach in the Earth's crust.

Some of the moons in the solar system are in decaying orbits, but the Moon's orbit is expanding by about 4 cm a year.

Friction causes the tidal bulges on the earth to be dragged slightly forward of the earth-moon line. The moon's gravity exerts a torque on the earth through these bulges and causes the earth to slow down in it's spin. The lost angular momentum ends up in the moon's orbit. If the moon's orbital period was shorter than the earth's day, and the moon still tidally locked, the orbital momentum would be transferred in the other direction and the orbit would decay.

Check here for some more information. It's got a "graph" which shows where it will be visible, and how much of the eclipse you'll see for your particular location.

This finding won't be of much help against the larger doomsday asteroids (like the recently discovered 1950 DA)

The good news is that the same effect might be harnessed someday to provide the gentlest of all methods of nudging this or any other asteroid aside if it does turn out to be on a collision course. Simply altering the surface albedo in places, for example by selectively dropping white chalk or black carbon powder to darken or lighten some regions, could be enough to do the trick. If so, it might be the first time in history that a whitewash was the real solution to a serious problem.

Most articles on the 1950 DA asteroid mention that it can be deflected "by selectively dropping white chalk or black carbon powder to darken or lighten some regions". That's because the potential impact is in 878 years, so a small nudge now can make a huge change over many centuries. In other words: yes this paint technique can help against 1950 DA. Claiming anything else shows a poor understanding of the basics of asteroid deflection.

gee thats a good guess, considering the article says it. Oh and they even include video of it here!

Posting as AC as to avoid karma whoreing, but if you would like to support my efforts buy a t-shirt or ten.

Saturn is near it's highest tilt towards the earth now, providing the best view of it's rings. astronomy.comI'll be getting out the 6-inch for both Saturn and Jupiter if it would only clear up!

But the next leap forward is going to be European... ESO (European Southern Observatory) are constructing two identical telescopes in Chile and Hawaii (project Gemini.) How's that for a long baseline? ;p

And for bluesky "gee whizz" quotient, check out the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL)...

I've seen a chart somewhere (can't find a link - anyone?) charting aperture (light collecting capacity) of telescopes since Galileo. The Keck and other 10m class telescopes have moved the curve from a nice straight line to an exponetial curve - and that's not allowing for vastly increased computer power, active optics, and out-of-visible band stuff. Truly this is a fantastic time to be interested in astronomy, even (especially?) as an amateur. For a couple of thousand dollars you can do stuff in your yard that was the province of professionals only a few decades ago.
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles

Kinda reminds me of my first astronomy class. I hadn't even made it to my freshman year of high school and I had 4 credits of Astronomy from the local community college.

Many people have given good advice above. I'll mainly just second their comments. The order I'd proceed in is.

First item, a good beginners star atlas.

Second item, warm clothing.

Third item, many nights in the country just learning the stars and constelations.

After that go and get a good pair of binoculars or a good telescope.

Last, but not least. As your doughter is so young, you will need to be there as a source of infromation. You'll need to learn alot to help guide her in the early years.

Now for some Links. The first two have good beginners information. Some of the links below may be dead. I just quick cut and pasted them from the astronomy section of my Interesting Places page.

• Astronomy Mag. (www.astronomy.com/home.asp).
• Sky & Telescope Mag. (www.skypub.com).
• Minnesota Astronomical Society (MAS) (www.mnastro.org).
• The Telescope Shoppe (www.telescopeshop.com), 3402 Federal Dr., Eagan, MN, 651-688-7335. Yes this is a local Twin Cities telescope shop. They have a map on their site showing where they are. They are tucked in the lower level along the side of the strip mall they are in. The store is small and easy to miss. If your at the corner of Yankee Doodle RD and Federal Dr., park in the lot to the south east. They are a short stones throw from the intersection.
• Telescope making links
• • Many good links on making AltAz mounts (zebu.uoregon.edu/~mbartels/altaz/altaz.html).
  • ATM's resource List (www.freenet.tlh.fl.us/~blombard).
• Astronomy-Mall.com (www.astronomy-mall.com/Astronomy-Mall).
• Stellafane (www.stellafane.com).
• Terrestrial Planet Finder (tpf.jpl.nasa.gov).
• Many Images of the moon (www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/pxmoon.html) .
• Solar Views (www.solarviews.com).
• Planetary Image Atlas (www-pdsimage.JPL.NASA.GOV/PDS/public/Atlas).
• Hubble Space Telescope Archive (oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html).
• Hummble Site (hubble.stsci.edu).
• StarStuff (www.starstuff.org).
• SpaceRef (www.spaceref.com), Your space refference.
• Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive (antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html).
• SkyView (skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov) virtual observatory.
• 2MASS (www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/) and (pegasus.astro.umass.edu/GradProg/2mass.html) Two Micron All Sky Survey.
• Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) (http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/lasco.html).
• AAVSO Network to Search for Optical Counterparts of Gamma-Ray Bursts (www.aavso.org/grb.stm).
• High Altitude Observatory (www.hao.ucar.edu).
• Asteroid Comet Impact Hazards (impact.arc.nasa.gov).
• • Unusual Minor Planets (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Unusual.html).
  • Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/PHACloseApp.html).& nbsp; Of particular interest to me are LB16 and AN10 which will pass at a distance closer than the moon's orbit. LB16 currently only has one opposition charted so it's predicted orbit will likely change as new data comes in. It's expected to swing by in 2004. In 2027 AN10 will visit earth. It's orbit is calculated with three oppositions meaning it't much more likely to really showup ontime and in place. With further data LB16 could either get closer or farther away. When AN10's orbit was first predicted (only one opposition at the time) it's error envelope included earth. With further data it was found to just pass within the moon's orbit and miss the earth.
  • Forthcoming Close Approaches To The Earth (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/CloseApp.html).&nbs p; This is the document to look at when you want to know who will visit next and how far away. It has all close approaches to 0.2 AU away from earth or within 20% of the distance of between the sun and earth. On Sep 19th, 2000 we will have a visiter at 0.0477 AU and on Oct 31st anotehr one will pass at 0.07386 AU. LB16 and AN10 are expected to pass at around 0.25% of the distance between the sun and earth.
• Mars Global Surveyor (mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/index.html).
• Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) (ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html). There are full data on the shape of Mars including 1 degree and .5 degree elevation data sets.
• Planetary photojournal by JPL (photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov).
• NASA's Origins Program (origins.jpl.nasa.gov).

1. Naked-eye observing (more rewarding than many people realize - especially those who haven't experienced country skies - if you can get to a nice, open area that's as far away from light pollution as possible). Check out the Internation Dark Sky Association for more information about "light pollution".
   
   
2. Buy a good pair of binoculars. Head to your library and quickly glance at the covers of the last two or three years of two magazines: "Astronomy" and "Sky and Telescope". It's guaranteed you'll see a review mentioned on the cover for binoculars that are especially well-suited for astronomy. Both magazines have typically done reviews of binoculars every few years.
   
   
3. If you've got the money to take a bit more of a risk (in case your daughter's interest fades in a year or two), then yes, consider buying a telescope. But as others have mentioned, stay away from "department store" telescopes (e.g. "Tasco" brand, etc.). A frequent indicator of an inferior telescope is one that tries to dazzle you with how much it magnifies things. It's often hard for beginners to understand, but this point is crucial for first time telescope buyers: magnification is not what you should be concerned about when buying a telescope! Any scope can be made to magnify any amount, just by changing the eyepiece. The critical things include the scope's ability to gather light (generally, the bigger the aperture the better), the tripod (don't consider this to be minor!), optical quality, overall construction, and so on.
   

1. Naked-eye observing (more rewarding than many people realize - especially those who haven't experienced country skies - if you can get to a nice, open area that's as far away from light pollution as possible). Check out the Internation Dark Sky Association for more information about "light pollution".
   
   
2. Buy a good pair of binoculars. Head to your library and quickly glance at the covers of the last two or three years of two magazines: "Astronomy" and "Sky and Telescope". It's guaranteed you'll see a review mentioned on the cover for binoculars that are especially well-suited for astronomy. Both magazines have typically done reviews of binoculars every few years.
   
   
3. If you've got the money to take a bit more of a risk (in case your daughter's interest fades in a year or two), then yes, consider buying a telescope. But as others have mentioned, stay away from "department store" telescopes (e.g. "Tasco" brand, etc.). A frequent indicator of an inferior telescope is one that tries to dazzle you with how much it magnifies things. It's often hard for beginners to understand, but this point is crucial for first time telescope buyers: magnification is not what you should be concerned about when buying a telescope! Any scope can be made to magnify any amount, just by changing the eyepiece. The critical things include the scope's ability to gather light (generally, the bigger the aperture the better), the tripod (don't consider this to be minor!), optical quality, overall construction, and so on.
   

1. Naked-eye observing (more rewarding than many people realize - especially those who haven't experienced country skies - if you can get to a nice, open area that's as far away from light pollution as possible). Check out the Internation Dark Sky Association for more information about "light pollution".
   
   
2. Buy a good pair of binoculars. Head to your library and quickly glance at the covers of the last two or three years of two magazines: "Astronomy" and "Sky and Telescope". It's guaranteed you'll see a review mentioned on the cover for binoculars that are especially well-suited for astronomy. Both magazines have typically done reviews of binoculars every few years.
   
   
3. If you've got the money to take a bit more of a risk (in case your daughter's interest fades in a year or two), then yes, consider buying a telescope. But as others have mentioned, stay away from "department store" telescopes (e.g. "Tasco" brand, etc.). A frequent indicator of an inferior telescope is one that tries to dazzle you with how much it magnifies things. It's often hard for beginners to understand, but this point is crucial for first time telescope buyers: magnification is not what you should be concerned about when buying a telescope! Any scope can be made to magnify any amount, just by changing the eyepiece. The critical things include the scope's ability to gather light (generally, the bigger the aperture the better), the tripod (don't consider this to be minor!), optical quality, overall construction, and so on.
   

There is also some controversy about when and where our gas giants formed -- there is mounting evidence that they formed much closer in, then drifted outwards to their current locations.

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There is also some controversy about when and where our gas giants formed -- there is mounting evidence that they formed much closer in, then drifted outwards to their current locations.

--