Posted by
michael
on from the head-in-the-stars dept.
TrinSF writes "SFGate.com, run by the San Francisco Chronicle, has a story on Comet Ikeya-Zhang. It's on a 350 year cycle, and should be visible to the naked eye in some places over the next few weeks. Here's a gallery of pictures, too."
Hale-Bopp was a nice smudge, good for quiet talks with your girl in the darkness while you waited for your night vision to kick in so you could see more and more of the tail. But the winner for best comet ever has to be Shoemaker-Levy in 1994, which struck Jupiter on camera in a series of cataclysmic explosions that destroyed the comet itself, as well as the UFO that must have been following behind, full of aliens committing mass suicide in their mission to enter the afterlife in San Diego and find a bunch of brainwashed Nike-wearing New Age cult members who could teach them how they could live in paradise and make the rent on a multimillion dollar villa by being overpaid web designers during the mid-nineties. (For its part, Jupiter didn't seem to be too bothered by any of this and gobbled up the whole entourage with an enormous appetite.)
After that, I'm jaded. Unless a comet collides with a planet, it's a flop and I don't care. I mean, I recognize that a cult mass suicide is always an honor for any comet, but what I really want to see is a collision between two solar system bodies. This Ikeya-Zhang looks like it's going to be a big disappointment- mostly staying below the horizon except during daylight hours. You won't see it unless you wake up really early and look at the horizon in the few minutes before the sun comes up and ruins everything. (And it isn't even going to smash into anything. What a ripoff! What are my NASA tax dollars going, anyway?) Halley's comet pulled the same kind of stunt 16 years ago- it actually stayed on the other side of the sun from us, like it was trying to hide! You would think such a letdown would have triggered a mass cult suicide in 1986, but you would be wrong.
Everybody missed Halley's back in 86. It's 1910 appearance was spectacular. It filled the sky. I remember in 1986, old people were telling stories about how their parents showed it to them in 1910, and said that since they were so young, they might still be alive when it came around again. But the earth was in the wrong place in 1986. The only people who saw it were rich bastards who went on package tours to mountaintops in Peru. And all they saw was a tiny smudge through a telescope. Serves them right!
How does the first reference to something get modded as redundant? Hmm? Anyone care to explain this to me? Do moderators not view things in chronological order when the moderate or what?
Interestingly, according to the article, it's exactly five years after Hale-Bopp was in the sky... any other screwball cults out there? (no, pointing a $c13n+0l0gy (I hope I don't get sued) story doesn't count)
"screwball" is such a tough to define word, really, we should be careful not to accuse any organization of being a cult. I, for one, have told my followers that the comet will only take those of us pure of heart and mind, so most outsiders are safe from our plans for global domination. rest easy, brothers, I'm making applesauce only for us chosen few.
Even more impressive is that comet Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake appeared within a year of each other.
I took some pretty cool shots of comet hyakutake back in my amateur days. Just staring up in the sky and seeing a big cloudy star that seemed like it was BLAZING through space, but frozen in time... just made my jaw drop and made my heart skip a beat.
Can't wait until this comet rounds the sun for a better view in April. Hopefully I'll have my 8 inch reflector by then.
The best way to find the comet right now after twilight, Jones said, is to look below and to the right of the ruddy planet Mars, which lies above bright Venus, "a clenched fist or two above the western horizon," as Jones put it.
That has to be one of the best ways I've heard to describe how to find something in the sky:)
My copy of SMCT (Soldiers Manual of Common Tasks) gives the fist method as a way to measure elevation... they're talking about what part of the sky to search for when looking for airplanes. It is rather easy for a non-astronomer who can't visuallize degrees to do in the field, and it makes a quick verification if you have no equipment handy.
Yes, it's totally awesome.. no degrees, no finding ursula major or whatever. I was impressed;)
Re:"Clenched fist"
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Insightful
Is the clenched fist measure taken with your arm extended?
Re:"Clenched fist"
by
ryants
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· Score: 3, Informative
A clenched fist at arm's length covers about 10 degrees of sky. The sun moves about 10 degrees / hour, so seeing how many "fists" from the sun to the horizon gives a good approximation the number of hours of daylight left.
Note: this is all from hazy memory, so I may be wrong.
Well, it *does* travel 15 degrees per hour, one just has to be aware of the arc of the sun across the sky to make any sense of it...in some manner, its amazing that we're not aware of the suns movement through the sky, or the phase of the moon as a civilization. Its not hard to imagine the world in which length of day basically dictated behavior to people, and the changes in earth's seasonal behavior were daily factors in everyones life.
Re:"Clenched fist"
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
What are you talking about?
Check out this sunrise/sunset calculator to see how long the sun stays up. Surprise! It's almost 12 hours, depending where you are on the Earth.
Re:"Clenched fist"
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Um, the sun moves exactly 15 degrees/hour (360 degrees/24 hours)
Except that the Sun doesn't cover exactly 360 degrees per day. On spring/fall equinox it does, but on winter/summer solstice the path of the Sun isn't a great circle so it travels less than 360 degrees. As an extreme case, if the Earth was tilted 89 degrees, the path of the Sun would be a tiny tiny little circle. And no, a circle isn't "always 360 degrees", we're in 3D, and the angles are measured from the observer, not from the center of the circle.
So the speed is typically less than 15 degrees/hour, not exactly it.
Of course it is almost 12 hours, the first day of spring was less than a week ago! In 3 months we'll have the longest day of the year, and in 9 months from now, we'll have the shortest day of the year. Haven't you ever noticed the days get a lot longer/shorter depending on the seasons?
Well, it *does* travel 15 degrees per hour . . . its amazing that we're not aware of the suns movement through the sky,
Umm, didn't Copernicus and Galileo straighten this out a few centuries ago? The sun, while moving in relation to the rest of the universe, isn't really moving in relation to the earth. The earth is moving around the sun and at the same time rotating in relation to the sun to give the appearance to an earth bound observer that the sun is moving accross the sky. In reality the sky is moving across the sun.
[sarcasm] Wow, and you SlashDot guys think you know something about science?[/sarcasm]
ok ok, and yeah, i know we're not at the center of the universe....what i *meant* by suns movement was the changes in the arc of the sun as seasons change. So wordy though it may be, let me phrase my statement properly for you.
"Well, it *does* travel 15 degrees per hour, one just has to be aware of the arc of the sun across the sky to make any sense of it...in some manner, its amazing that we're not aware of the *change in the sun-arc as the polar tilt changes our orientation to the sun relative to our perpindicular position to the sun as we travel in our oval-shaped orbit around the fusion-ball* through the sky, or the phase of the moon as a civilization. Its not hard to imagine the world in which length of day basically dictated behavior to people, and the changes in earth's seasonal behavior were daily factors in everyones life.
hopes for us on the right coast (pun intended)
by
Raven42rac
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· Score: 1
Well, those of us on the East coast missed out on the Leonids, is there any hopes of us seeing this?
-- I hate sigs.
Re:hopes for us on the right coast (pun intended)
by
suss
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· Score: 3, Informative
Well, those of us on the East coast missed out on the Leonids, is there any hopes of us seeing this?
It's a comet, not a meteor shower. I can't see it with the naked eye here (52 degrees north), but it's visible with binoculars. Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp were much easier to find...
Re:hopes for us on the right coast (pun intended)
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Man, I don't know where you were for the Leonids, but I was on the East coast in rural Northeast Pennsylvania. I had THREE
nights of great viewing. There were plenty of
meteors to see the night before, but on the
night of the peak it was awesome. I really couldn't keep count. They were coming from every
direction almost every second. Somtimes in clusters of 2, 3, or 4. I watched for HOURS, and
some were so bright you could even see them as
the sun was rising and sky was getting quite
bright. And the night after the peak was equally
remarkable, and it alone would have been considered a great show, with bright meteors which could
be seen every 2 or 3 minutes. It was awesome, and I viewed this all on the East coast.
Re:hopes for us on the right coast (pun intended)
by
Raven42rac
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· Score: 1
I know the difference, I was referring to the fact that it was a celestial event, not a meteor shower. They are called context clues, and you read mine wrong, or actually, I should have been more specific.
-- I hate sigs.
Re:hopes for us on the right coast (pun intended)
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Well, those of us on the East coast missed out on the Leonids,....
You're kidding, right? Unless you have to be in bed before 6:00 pm.
Re:hopes for us on the right coast (pun intended)
by
suss
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· Score: 2
To see this comet, you need:
1) a clear night 2) an unobstructed view of the horizon 3) a pair of binoculars
When you have a clouded night and/or blink, a meteor shower is gone. A comet will be visible for a much longer time, weeks or even 1 or 2 months...
There's a map on http://www.spaceweather.com to show where you should look.
Re:hopes for us on the right coast (pun intended)
by
Raven42rac
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· Score: 1
Christ, do you have an utter lack of social skills, and are you devoid of any semblance of a sense of humor? Sorry if I offended your great sense of seriousness.
-- I hate sigs.
Viewer's Guide
by
Metrollica
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· Score: 4, Informative
There's a viewers guide to the comet that might come in handy at Space.com
--
--Metrollica
Re:Viewer's Guide
by
leibnizme
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· Score: 2, Informative
If you want lots of information and pix about the comet, try this site:
Comet Madness?
by
User+956
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· Score: 5, Interesting
"In 1910, when it was announced that Halley's Comet would once again pass the earth, hysteria broke out in Europe, based on the belief that the arrival of this comet always heralded castrophe. The war of 66 A.D. that brought about the fall of Jerusalem, the devastation of Rome by the Huns in 373, the Battle of Hastings in 1066 (it is Halley's Comet that can be seen in the famous Bayeux Tapestry, announcing the death of Harold), and many other tragic events did in fact coincide with the comet's appearance.
Whether or not these occurrences actually had anything to do with the comet anxiety spread throughout Europe as soon as its impending arrival was announced, and thousands of people fled to the mountains for safety. A group of French scientists published a paper claiming that the earth would be poisoned by fumes from the comet's tail.
Reports of 'comet insanity' and suicide attempts filled the newspapers, and 'anticomet pills' guaranteeing protection from the comet's noxious fumes, where bought up eagerly.
The comet, however, came and went without much incident"
- David Louis
from his book: 2201 Fascinating Facts
Doesn't this remind you of the madness today?
-- The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Re:Comet Madness?
by
phillymjs
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· Score: 3, Funny
'anticomet pills' guaranteeing protection from the comet's noxious fumes, were bought up eagerly.
Well, I'm off to eBay to post a few pill bottles full of Skittles with the "S" logos rubbed off!
This'll be as easy as selling Nikes to Heaven's Gaters.:-)
~Philly
Re:Comet Madness?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
1914...only 4 years of the comet's appearance...world war I broke out...
Hehe. Well when the comet came a few years ago.
You know, right when that cult all killed themselves, hale bopp.
That was one BIG COMET just hanging in the sky.
You drive across the state, and it is just hanging there, this BIG ***ed comet.
If you need a omen, that comet would apply.
For me it was the most beutiful thing I've ever seen and it changed my life very much. I didn't think I'd ever see a nice comet, not to menthing this BIG ***ed comet just sitting there in the sky no matter I was doin.
...hysteria broke out in Europe, based on the belief that the arrival of this comet always heralded castrophe...
Well, if that isn't a case of self-fulfilling prophecy!
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Re:Heaven's Gate - Too Late
by
ackthpt
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· Score: 1
You should have castrated yourself, got on your Nike's and sweats and eaten your Jello Pudding some time ago, it's on the way out. One could always hope that the Co$ leaders could follow in HG footsteps.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
-- satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
Re:Great Book on Cometography at amazon
by
User+956
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· Score: 1, Informative
I'm an amateur astronomer, and there's a really great book on Cometography on Amazon. It's called "Cometography: A Catalog of Comets", by Brian G. Marsden.
It may be backordered, but AFAIK the San Francisco Library has a copy.
-- The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
People say that to me all the time
by
jcsehak
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· Score: 1
Usually it's something like "You're a clenched fist away from a suprise visit to the dentist..."
How to set up telescope
by
Metrollica
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· Score: 0, Interesting
My telescope's manual is missing. I'm trying to view the Ikeya-Zhang comet, and I'm not sure if I have the telescope set up right? With the latitude set on Polaris from the previous night, it always swings to the same spot when I try for the Comet. Since I don't have a clock drive, how do I compensate for the time of day?
--
--Metrollica
Sorry, but...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I don't get it...
Take a good look at that comet.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Funny
A comet that strikes the earth will look just like that except will increase in size up until impact.
One day, you'll be outside doing some chores, and then will notice that you have more than one shadow. that shadow will sweep past the original like the arm of a stopwatch. And then....you can eat all the cookies and icecream you want.
Re:Great Book on Cometography at amazon
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I remember those days well. It was all part of the nervous hysteria in the lead up to Y2K. The Comet itself was well publicized by Art Bell, from the previous november or so to January 16th of that year, when they exposed the hoaxsters live on the air.
That group in sandiago (who made lots of money as an offbeat web development company) offed themselves in march or april, claiming that the ealier events did not matter.
-- "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
NASA approves 2004 mission to smash comet
by
User+956
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· Score: 1, Informative
I swear I'm not making this up. This is an article from yesterday's news page on canoe.ca.
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- NASA approved a mission Thursday designed to send a projectile hurtling into a comet in an effort to bare the dirty space snowball's nucleus for study.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials gave the Deep Impact mission team the nod to begin full-scale development of the spacecraft for a January 2004 launch.
The $240-million mission will take 18 months to arrive in the neighbourhood of Comet Tempel 1. Once at the comet, the main spacecraft will deploy a smaller, 350-kilogram impactor to smash into the body July 4, 2005.
The main spacecraft will remain at a safe distance to measure and image the outflow of gases from the blast hole, the size of a football field and seven storeys deep. The impact should cause the comet to brighten enough to be visible from Earth.
The artificial cratering of the comet won't destroy it but will kick up enough material to allow scientists to learn more about its composition. Preserved by the deep freeze of space, comets are thought to contain pristine examples of the primitive material that formed the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.
Comet Tempel 1 was discovered in 1867. It orbits the sun once every 5.5 years.
-- The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
DNS Issues on OSDN?
by
Nintendork
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
This is offtopic, but relevant to Slashdot and OSDN. It would appear that there's a new DNS server with no NS record responding to DNS queries. As a result, those with DNS servers setup securely are getting host not found errors. I temporarily disabled the cache poison detection so I could ask others if they're observing the same thing.
Ikeya-Zhang Now Visible
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Excuse me, I hate to embarass you, but your IKEYA-ZHANG is visible! Zip that up, boy!
Ikeya-Zhang is predicted by Nostradamus, in the quatrain:
A fiery ball from the sky
Two Twin brothers fall
The eagle is destroyed
The thirteen horned harlot prepares her bed
This is thought by many scholars to signify the collapse of the USA (eagle) and the rise of the EU (13-horned harlot). The EU backlash against US steel tariffs is a timely reminder of her dormant powers.
If this comet really is the one referred to by Nostradamus, then the end times truly are near. Perhaps the Antichrist will put in an appearence. Mind you, we won't be able to recognise him even if he does:-(
I wonder if any of NASA's astrologers have an opinion on this one ?
nostradamus didn't say that, it was a hoax. i dont have a link, but i'm sure you can find some info about it on google
-- Guns are like umbrellas and condoms. Better to have one and not need it, than need it and not have one.
Re:Right on time
by
xdistak
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually, Snopes (http://www.snopes2.com) dispels that rumor in fashion.
Claim: A 1654 Nostradamus prediction said World War III would begin with the fall of "two brothers," a reference to the destroyed World Trade Center towers.
Status: False.
A similar quote is:
"In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
Two brothers torn apart by Chaos,
while the fortress endures,
the great leader will succumb,
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning"
Nostradamus 1654
The quote has been modified and sent in chain letter fashion across the internet, but Nostradamus cannot claim credit for it. A college student made up the quote in 1997, in order to show how prophecies can be applied to almost any given situation. Anyways, the Snopes article is a great read on this exact quote, under 'Rumors of War'. Hell, the exact webpage is http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/predict.htm.
We are no longer the knights who say "ne",
by
Lord+Ender
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· Score: 4, Funny
we are the knights who say "icky icky Ikeya-Zhang zoooboing!"
-- A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Re:We are no longer the knights who say "ne",
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Dude, what the hell are you talking about? Comets are made from dust and ice, not Swedish wood...
"Ikeya-Zhang Now Visible"
by
Jucius+Maximus
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· Score: 1
OMG!!! Are you telling me that my favourite Swedish Import store was bought out by the Chinese?!?
Re:what?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
fuck siggy and slashdot-terminal. they can all lick my dick. whining pieces of troll shit.
Tracking interplanetary objects?
by
extrasolar
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Is there any free software that will allow me to track interplanetary objects perhaps with a display? In other words, I would like to know where asteroids, comets, and even planets are at any given time in real space (I'm not much of an amateur astronomer though--so sky coordinates wouldn't be so useful for me). Is there any existing software that would do that?
If not, can someone point me to or explain to me the mathematics behind the orbits of interplanetary objects? If so, I think I would be able to write the software myself. I suppose I would need to know the conventions used for the orbits of existing objects so I could input new objects into the system.
Thanks. If you don't like public forums, you can email me at kholmes@sedona.net.
Re:Tracking interplanetary objects?
by
pfalstad
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· Score: 4, Informative
Home Planet does a good job, and has an orrery display as well as a sky view.
you'll also want the orbital elements, which can be put into the cometnew.csv file so you know where all the latest comets are (including Ikeya-Zhang)
Re:Tracking interplanetary objects?
by
ender81b
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· Score: 3, Informative
If you make a open-source program, email it to me. I'd love to try it out. bill_dinger@N.O.S.P.A.M.yahoo.com
Re:Tracking interplanetary objects?
by
Shooter6947
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· Score: 3, Informative
Use Xephem -- you download and compile the source 'cuz it was developed for Unix systems, hence its Linux & FreeBSD friendly. Its also a FreeBSDport, which makes it trivial for you to install should you be so fortunate as to be running that OS.
Re:Tracking interplanetary objects?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
If not, can someone point me to or explain to me the mathematics behind the orbits of interplanetary objects?
The pics I've seen so far, show this to be a oblong projectile and not your normal everyday round comet.
Build Your Own Telescope
by
goingware
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I'm building my own telescope, an 8 inch (wide) reflector. You can build a telescope too, very inexpensively and with modest materials.
It's very interesting and enjoyable. Try it! Maybe you'll discover a comet too someday.
True, to purchase an 8 inch reflector isn't that bad anymore, but with the skill you gain from building a small telescope you would become able to build a much larger telescope affordably; to buy one, say a 20 inch, would be beyond the financial reach of most working people, but you could reasonably build one. Many people do.
The amateur telescope making mailing list will be glad to help you out. Mel Bartels has a lot of
telescope making links.
Re:Build Your Own Telescope
by
rapidweather
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· Score: 1
Gallelo built a nice one and determined from his observations that the Sun was the center of our Solar System, and the rest is history. Of course he paid dearly for his good work. Here's a quote I ran into just a few ago: "One of the main contributions of the Newton-Kepler-Copernicus-Gallelo group was to replace Ptolmey's epicycles
with ellipses in a sun centered coordinate system. The ellipses worked so well that they were used
to predict the existence of the three (previously unobserved) outer planets." Anyway, his work lead to many more discoveries by those that came after him.
Nucleus closeup
by
Shooter6947
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I took this image of the comet nucleus from the Steward Observatory1.6m Kuiper Telescope on top of Mt. Bigelow in Arizona on March 4. I took it for a friend of mine who's trying to nail down the comet's rotational period -- difficult to do when you can only observe it for about 1/2 hour each night before it sets. This is a raw image with a log stretch -- the dynamic range in brightness between the nucleus (saturated in the center), the coma (fuzzy part around bright area), and the three faint tails heading off to the left is huge (like a factor of several thousand). The area covered by the image is 5 arcminutes on a side, 1/6 the size of the full moon. The little bright lines are cosmic ray hits on the CCD, and the fat blotches (like the one above the coma) are stars.
Comets are one of the coolest things to observe in the sky because they CHANGE like every night!
Very nice image. I'm sure there is some explanation, but I can't see any tail in the image. One knows it's a comet if it has a tail. Would appreciate some technical enlightenment about this.
Actually, if I recall correctly, comets don't necessarily have tails. Tails grow larger on a comet as it get closer to the sun and the suns radiation cause gas and ice to get off away from the sun. The comet's tail isn't usually opposite of the path of the comet.
Even if this comet is close enough to the sun, its possible that the tail is pointing away or towards the earth and therefore not detectable from our point of view.
The problem is the stretch that I had to apply to bring out the tail without making the coma just a blob. Here's a stretch that brings out the tail better.
Re:"Hale-Bopp, which blazed across the night sky..
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
You're an idiot. Hale-Bopp was beautiful. It's not our fault you live in a human zoo with so much light pollution you can barely see the stars, much less anything else.
Try getting out of town once in while.
More Pics of Ikeya-Zhang
by
slinted
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· Score: 2, Informative
APOD ran a great picture of Ikeya-Zhang last monday, showing how much it has flaired up since coming into the stronger solar wind. Their links give more info about the comet for those interested in such things.
12 year old ice sheet
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Well it's probably just a coincidence a 12,000 year old ice sheet broke off of Antartica recently. Probably nothing. I hope.
> Perhaps the Antichrist will put in an appearence.
Given that the current Christ/God sits up there, infinitely powerful, as children are raped and tortured and murdered, and still calls Himself "good", I don't see how the Antichrist would be anything but a blessing.
Remember that Yaweh is the fuckhead who, knowingly, gave us intelligence, i.e. knowledge of good and evil, then cast us out.
For you cannot overcome the brute fact that, while it may be in the nature of an infinitely powerful and good being to create self-aware beings, it does not follow you put them in a universe where they can torture and murder each other. Sit and judge with me: that god is fucked up.
Good, I knew you could.
-- "All representatives are busy. The estimated hold time is one..hundred..sixty..four..minutes." Detroit Edison, 02/01/02
Re:I hope the Antichrist comes
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Ahhh yes. We all know how much kinder Satanists are.
Your reading of Genesis 1 is a tad distorted, though; God didn't 'give' them that, they disobeyed a direct order not to eat said fruit. Not that the story isn't likely an allegory [e.g. not literal] anyhow...
But if you think that this world is such a messed up place, why don't you just depart from it? Oh. It's not as bad as some people like to make it, then, is it?
Now then, if God never let us make any mistakes, we'd never hold any responsibility. Humans cause human suffering, though, so don't you think we're responsible for fixing it? Besides; no pain is forever and death is not final--your perspective is rather distorted. The Argument from Evil is old hat...
Since there's not exactly been an abundance of actual observations, I'll throw my own: I saw the comet for first time at the beginning of the month (5.3.) with binoculars. Back then XEphem(a really nice program) estimated its brightness as 5.42 magnitudes; my own estimate was somewhat less, somewhere between 5.5 and 6.0 magnitudes but it's of course difficult to do this for nebulous patches of light compared to stars.;)
Since that I've seen it three times (it's been horribly cloudy in Finland during this month!), and only at last week I managed to see the tail faintly. Today weather has been nice, so maybe now I can make another observation.
I'm a bit pessimistic as far as seeing it without binoculars goes for myself; living at the edge of city means some light pollution and its nebulous appearance definitely does not make things easier. (For comparison, persons with good eyesight should be able to see stars of magnitude 6 with naked eye under good conditions and the brightness of comet should be now around magnitude 4.)
-- Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
Mod the above DOWN - goatsex link
by
DarkRabbit
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Stupid trolls, you don't think people look at the link destination?
(* Hale-Bopp was awesome and it had the added advantage of culling the low end of the gene pool. *)
I saw the funniest bumper sticker just after the Hale-Bopp event: "So many idiots, so few comets".
BTW, I don't think those guys were "dim", per say, just fanatical. IOW, their religious fever overrode rational thought.
I am not one to conclude that heavily religious people are necessarily intellectually lacking. The two have a low correlation as far as I know. (Note, I am not religious.....at least not in the traditional sense.)
The ancient battle between our rational body of knowledge and our passions is complex. I think, but could be recalling the facts incorrectly, that the original context for theory has to do with a Dionysian orgastic communion with a god. I hold we, as bio-chemical entities, are necessarily junkies. Culture has much to do with the witch's brew we self-generate to propogate our kind and stay safe. Acquiring the habit of critically questioning most, if not all, facets of one's life doesn't make for a fun person. I agree religion has little to do with the degree of intelligence of the practioner. Many of the great minds of our history is almost a list of famous religious personages who, inter alia, furthered learning when the Church of Rome was the only stable institution.
I'd drive out somewhere to the country to see it, but I know I'd just keep my nose in a Chinese dictionary the entire time trying to figure out how to pronounce it..
--
["Marge, I agree with you - in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory." - Homer]
Scares the .hit out of me
by
Anonymous Coward
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Since I missed my salvation the first time around with Hale-Bopp, I can now be saved! Where should I get in line?
Interestingly, according to the article, it's exactly five years after Hale-Bopp was in the sky... any other screwball cults out there? (no, pointing a $c13n+0l0gy (I hope I don't get sued) story doesn't count)
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
That has to be one of the best ways I've heard to describe how to find something in the sky
Well, those of us on the East coast missed out on the Leonids, is there any hopes of us seeing this?
I hate sigs.
There's a viewers guide to the comet that might come in handy at Space.com
--Metrollica
"In 1910, when it was announced that Halley's Comet would once again pass the earth, hysteria broke out in Europe, based on the belief that the arrival of this comet always heralded castrophe. The war of 66 A.D. that brought about the fall of Jerusalem, the devastation of Rome by the Huns in 373, the Battle of Hastings in 1066 (it is Halley's Comet that can be seen in the famous Bayeux Tapestry, announcing the death of Harold), and many other tragic events did in fact coincide with the comet's appearance.
Whether or not these occurrences actually had anything to do with the comet anxiety spread throughout Europe as soon as its impending arrival was announced, and thousands of people fled to the mountains for safety. A group of French scientists published a paper claiming that the earth would be poisoned by fumes from the comet's tail.
Reports of 'comet insanity' and suicide attempts filled the newspapers, and 'anticomet pills' guaranteeing protection from the comet's noxious fumes, where bought up eagerly.
The comet, however, came and went without much incident"
- David Louis
from his book: 2201 Fascinating Facts
Doesn't this remind you of the madness today?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
You should have castrated yourself, got on your Nike's and sweats and eaten your Jello Pudding some time ago, it's on the way out. One could always hope that the Co$ leaders could follow in HG footsteps.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Reuters also carries the story here
--Metrollica
Hale-Bopp was awesome and it had the added advantage of culling the low end of the gene pool.
heuristic algorithm seeks stochastic relationship
Oh, yes what a blazing glory that was.
I guess a dim smudge is better than the wonderous display put on by comet Kohoutek
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
I'm an amateur astronomer, and there's a really great book on Cometography on Amazon. It's called "Cometography: A Catalog of Comets", by Brian G. Marsden.
It may be backordered, but AFAIK the San Francisco Library has a copy.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Usually it's something like "You're a clenched fist away from a suprise visit to the dentist..."
c-hack.com |
My telescope's manual is missing. I'm trying to view the Ikeya-Zhang comet, and I'm not sure if I have the telescope set up right? With the latitude set on Polaris from the previous night, it always swings to the same spot when I try for the Comet. Since I don't have a clock drive, how do I compensate for the time of day?
--Metrollica
I don't get it...
A comet that strikes the earth will look just like that except will increase in size up until impact.
One day, you'll be outside doing some chores, and then will notice that you have more than one shadow. that shadow will sweep past the original like the arm of a stopwatch. And then....you can eat all the cookies and icecream you want.
Thank you for referring me to that great book ;)
--James Hetfield
That group in sandiago (who made lots of money as an offbeat web development company) offed themselves in march or april, claiming that the ealier events did not matter.
other details here.
don't forget to look over your shoulder.
[smile]
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I swear I'm not making this up. This is an article from yesterday's news page on canoe.ca.
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- NASA approved a mission Thursday designed to send a projectile hurtling into a comet in an effort to bare the dirty space snowball's nucleus for study.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials gave the Deep Impact mission team the nod to begin full-scale development of the spacecraft for a January 2004 launch.
The $240-million mission will take 18 months to arrive in the neighbourhood of Comet Tempel 1. Once at the comet, the main spacecraft will deploy a smaller, 350-kilogram impactor to smash into the body July 4, 2005.
The main spacecraft will remain at a safe distance to measure and image the outflow of gases from the blast hole, the size of a football field and seven storeys deep. The impact should cause the comet to brighten enough to be visible from Earth.
The artificial cratering of the comet won't destroy it but will kick up enough material to allow scientists to learn more about its composition. Preserved by the deep freeze of space, comets are thought to contain pristine examples of the primitive material that formed the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.
Comet Tempel 1 was discovered in 1867. It orbits the sun once every 5.5 years.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
This is offtopic, but relevant to Slashdot and OSDN. It would appear that there's a new DNS server with no NS record responding to DNS queries. As a result, those with DNS servers setup securely are getting host not found errors. I temporarily disabled the cache poison detection so I could ask others if they're observing the same thing.
Excuse me, I hate to embarass you, but your IKEYA-ZHANG is visible! Zip that up, boy!
A fiery ball from the sky
Two Twin brothers fall
The eagle is destroyed
The thirteen horned harlot prepares her bed
This is thought by many scholars to signify the collapse of the USA (eagle) and the rise of the EU (13-horned harlot). The EU backlash against US steel tariffs is a timely reminder of her dormant powers.
If this comet really is the one referred to by Nostradamus, then the end times truly are near. Perhaps the Antichrist will put in an appearence. Mind you, we won't be able to recognise him even if he does :-(
I wonder if any of NASA's astrologers have an opinion on this one ?
we are the knights who say "icky icky Ikeya-Zhang zoooboing!"
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Dude, what the hell are you talking about? Comets are made from dust and ice, not Swedish wood...
OMG!!! Are you telling me that my favourite Swedish Import store was bought out by the Chinese?!?
fuck siggy and slashdot-terminal. they can all lick my dick. whining pieces of troll shit.
Is there any free software that will allow me to track interplanetary objects perhaps with a display? In other words, I would like to know where asteroids, comets, and even planets are at any given time in real space (I'm not much of an amateur astronomer though--so sky coordinates wouldn't be so useful for me). Is there any existing software that would do that?
If not, can someone point me to or explain to me the mathematics behind the orbits of interplanetary objects? If so, I think I would be able to write the software myself. I suppose I would need to know the conventions used for the orbits of existing objects so I could input new objects into the system.
Thanks. If you don't like public forums, you can email me at kholmes@sedona.net.
The pics I've seen so far, show this to be a oblong projectile and not your normal everyday round comet.
It's very interesting and enjoyable. Try it! Maybe you'll discover a comet too someday.
True, to purchase an 8 inch reflector isn't that bad anymore, but with the skill you gain from building a small telescope you would become able to build a much larger telescope affordably; to buy one, say a 20 inch, would be beyond the financial reach of most working people, but you could reasonably build one. Many people do.
The amateur telescope making mailing list will be glad to help you out. Mel Bartels has a lot of telescope making links.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
Comets are one of the coolest things to observe in the sky because they CHANGE like every night!
You're an idiot. Hale-Bopp was beautiful. It's not our fault you live in a human zoo with so much light pollution you can barely see the stars, much less anything else.
Try getting out of town once in while.
APOD ran a great picture of Ikeya-Zhang last monday, showing how much it has flaired up since coming into the stronger solar wind. Their links give more info about the comet for those interested in such things.
Well it's probably just a coincidence a 12,000 year old ice sheet broke off of Antartica recently. Probably nothing. I hope.
> Perhaps the Antichrist will put in an appearence.
Given that the current Christ/God sits up there, infinitely powerful, as children are raped and tortured and murdered, and still calls Himself "good", I don't see how the Antichrist would be anything but a blessing.
Remember that Yaweh is the fuckhead who, knowingly, gave us intelligence, i.e. knowledge of good and evil, then cast us out.
For you cannot overcome the brute fact that, while it may be in the nature of an infinitely powerful and good being to create self-aware beings, it does not follow you put them in a universe where they can torture and murder each other. Sit and judge with me: that god is fucked up.
Good, I knew you could.
"All representatives are busy. The estimated hold time is one..hundred..sixty..four..minutes." Detroit Edison, 02/01/02
Since there's not exactly been an abundance of actual observations, I'll throw my own: I saw the comet for first time at the beginning of the month (5.3.) with binoculars. Back then XEphem(a really nice program) estimated its brightness as 5.42 magnitudes; my own estimate was somewhat less, somewhere between 5.5 and 6.0 magnitudes but it's of course difficult to do this for nebulous patches of light compared to stars. ;)
Since that I've seen it three times (it's been horribly cloudy in Finland during this month!), and only at last week I managed to see the tail faintly. Today weather has been nice, so maybe now I can make another observation.
I'm a bit pessimistic as far as seeing it without binoculars goes for myself; living at the edge of city means some light pollution and its nebulous appearance definitely does not make things easier. (For comparison, persons with good eyesight should be able to see stars of magnitude 6 with naked eye under good conditions and the brightness of comet should be now around magnitude 4.)
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
Stupid trolls, you don't think people look at the link destination?
(* Hale-Bopp was awesome and it had the added advantage of culling the low end of the gene pool. *)
I saw the funniest bumper sticker just after the Hale-Bopp event: "So many idiots, so few comets".
BTW, I don't think those guys were "dim", per say, just fanatical. IOW, their religious fever overrode rational thought.
I am not one to conclude that heavily religious people are necessarily intellectually lacking. The two have a low correlation as far as I know. (Note, I am not religious.....at least not in the traditional sense.)
Table-ized A.I.
I'd drive out somewhere to the country to see it, but I know I'd just keep my nose in a Chinese dictionary the entire time trying to figure out how to pronounce it..
["Marge, I agree with you - in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory." - Homer]
I think I'll wait for the movie.