Slashdot Mirror

Just the first couple of hits on Google:

http://www.suite101.com/content/more-evidence-of-light-pollution-harm-to-animals-a89082
http://www.urbanwildlands.org/abstracts.html
http://www.britastro.org/dark-skies/wildlife.html
http://calgary.rasc.ca/lp/animals.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pollution

http://calgary.rasc.ca/howfast.htm
most are not as impornant as the main ones but yes there is quite a bit

Launch windows dictate what time of the day you have to launch. The ISS has a rather eccentric orbit to make things easier for Russia, and it precesses relative to the ground, so you have to wait for it to cross the right longitude. And of course after Challenger, they really don't like to launch at night if they don't have to.

http://calgary.rasc.ca/moonscope.htm

Telescopes are not an option: http://calgary.rasc.ca/moonscope.htm

No lunar recon probes have had the camera resolution to do it as far as I know. The closest was SMART-1 which was plowed into the moon.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEM1O6BUQPE_0. html

I suggest that most countries and their citizens do benefit from street lights.

Actually they don't. We'd be safer not having them.

I have some questions though, about galactic structure and stability. When we (laymen) think of the spiral galaxy its generally as a static or very-slowly changing pinwheel form. But, considering the length of the galactic year, its noteable that the Milky Way hasn't gone through very many revolutions; perhaps 30 or 40, depending on estimates for the time since galaxy-forming. As that article suggests, observations of so many other spiral galaxies seem to suggest visibly similar structure that we suspect the structure doesn't change much; at least within a few dozen orbits.

Are there any credible or serious theories as to how long this sort of structure would be maintained? Thirty orbits is NOT a lot and seems to suggest the universe is still pretty young in some regards. Its a pity that most of the brighter stars will be fading in only a few dozen more orbits hence.

Hrm. Are there any decent statistics for rates of stellar formation? One suspects that, as galactic hydrogen slowly becomes transmuted into helium->iron the rate must decline, but I have not seen any strong suggestions as to the evolution of stellar and galactic nurseries over time.

• Poor weather (especially in the North East) means that you can't observer frequently enough to have good odds of being the first one to see something because you will be clouded out far too often. Truly serious comet hunters move to Arizona to have enought clear skys to have good odds.
• Today most comets are found by professional searches such as linear with bigger scopes. That doesn't leave much left for amateurs
• Equipement maybe affordable for SillyValley stock holders but not for the masses out there. Min. req. these days for comet hunting is about a 20" or 22" obsession scope. That's the trend in recent amateur discovery such as comet Petriew
• to find stuff that faint you need to be several hours out of town to get a dark enough sky becuase you work in a big town to affoard all the equipement. Avoiding light pollution is essential to see stuff that faint so you can't do it often enough

So SOHO is actually a playing field leveler in that sense and makes comet discovery more accessible than before. Sure the is less glory that doing it the old fashion way. It's free, always good weather, timely data. It's also the only legitimate way to get your name in the heavens instead of buying stars which is nothing more than a scam IMHO. So, sure, it's sure a much bigger kick to find one at the eyepiece but a SOHO one still counts in my book.

One of the team leaders was on a CBC radio science show. He said that while the $3 billion Hubble was designed to be good at many different observation tasks, the MOST will be great in only a few limited tasks. It would be, as noted in the proposal STELLAR SEISMOLOGY FROM SPACE , ironic if an optical telescope only 15 cm across, armed only with a broadband photometer and with a budget of only about Cdn$12M, could probe the cores of stars and set a limit on the age of the Universe thus shedding new light on a fundamental question in cosmology.

He also said that an unprecedented amount of time will be allocated to amateur observer projects through a public outreach programme.

After MOST achieves its primary scientific goals, we plan to give the Canadian public a chance to make observations with this unique space observatory. In conjunction with the RASC (Royal Astronomical Society of Canada), an Amateur Observers' Contest will be held. Amateur astronomers and students will be able to submit observing proposals for MOST, with the technical support of Canadian astronomers.

The MOST Project also plans to spread information about our project and its science through the Pacific Space Centre in Vancouver, B.C.