365 Nights of Skywatching

Disturbing entry... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 02:37 · Score: 4, Funny

"March 3, Asteroid 758-A crashes into Earth destroying all life. [Ed. Please remove this, may panic readers. Add something about Mutara Nebula. Most readers won't realize it's a fictional place from Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan"]"

NASA by User+956 · 2006-01-07 02:43 · Score: 4, Informative

Nasa has up a Skywatching site with all sorts of fancy pictures.

--
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.

Re:NASA by rapidweather · 2006-01-07 08:16 · Score: 1

Lead Story on that site:
"Earth is orbiting through a swarm of space debris that may be producing an unusual number of nighttime fireballs."
I need to stay up later. I'm missing something here.

--
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
Re:NASA by fremsley471 · 2006-01-07 12:43 · Score: 1

looks through a five-thousand-dollar backyard telescope
What the hell would you be doing looking through a "backyard" $5K telescope for?

Go outside? by mtenhagen · 2006-01-07 02:43 · Score: 3, Funny

Why should you go outside? They should provide a live stream instead of just an ebook.

Do they think I go out with my laptop in the night while I could be coding in my basement?

--
200GB/2TB $7.95 Coupon: SAVE90DOLLAR

Re:Go outside? by thatguywhoiam · 2006-01-07 02:58 · Score: 2, Funny

Why should you go outside? They should provide a live stream instead of just an ebook.
It's a PDF. You know, for printing.
Do they think I go out with my laptop in the night while I could be coding in my basement?
I'm sure they are not concerned about you ever leaving your computer in your basement.

--
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Re:Go outside? by paroneayea · 2006-01-07 03:10 · Score: 1, Interesting

Do they think I go out with my laptop in the night while I could be coding in my basement?

I just wish I had that option. I live in Chicago. I can't see the stars even if I want to. Which I do.

But even when I lived in the suburbs, it was hard as hell to see the stars anyway. The city's light penetrates that far.

--
http://mediagoblin.org/
Re:Go outside? by User+956 · 2006-01-07 03:25 · Score: 4, Funny

Why should you go outside?

What is this... "outside"... that you speak of?

--
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Re:Go outside? by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2006-01-07 03:27 · Score: 1

I live in Chicago. I can't see the stars even if I want to.

Yes you can

--
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Re:Go outside? by x_man · 2006-01-07 03:30 · Score: 4, Informative

Amateur astronomy has come a long way in the last ten years. With CCD imaging and sigal processing software, you can filter out light pollution and get some absolutely amazing images from your backyard. Take a look at
this guy's pictures:

He lives just outside of Houston, Texas.

X
Re:Go outside? by Mercuria · 2006-01-07 03:42 · Score: 2, Funny

It's that big room, with a blue ceiling between 6 am and 6pm most latitudes/days of the year, a black one between 6pm and 6am, has either green bio-carpet or concrete floor, with a giant nuclear-fusion based lighting system. It's generally the more distant components of the lighting system, as well as some wandering light reflectors, that these people seem to be interested in.
Re:Go outside? by User+956 · 2006-01-07 03:48 · Score: 2, Funny

It's that big room, with a blue ceiling between 6 am and 6pm most latitudes/days of the year, a black one between 6pm and 6am

We doesn't like that room. The daystar burns us.

--
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Re:Go outside? by zuluechopapa · 2006-01-07 04:02 · Score: 1

the feed could be useful to people in terribly light polluted areas (Bay Area, DC and NYC come to mind). It could easily take an hour of driving to get to a point where it's dark enough to see anything (and then it could be difficult to find an appropriate place to stop)

--
even the magic 8 ball has an opinion on email clients: Outlook not so good.
Re:Go outside? by DoraLives · 2006-01-07 04:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

But even when I lived in the suburbs, it was hard as hell to see the stars anyway. The city's light penetrates that far.
you can filter out light pollution and get some absolutely amazing images from your backyard.

All well and good, but you're failing to properly appreciate the sense of the original post. For far too many people, the option of walking out into the night and just staring up at the sky in awe no longer exists.
This, although it might not seem so, is a profound and disturbing change in the lives of people and few are even aware that it has befallen them. Technical fixes are no substitute for direct, "through the pores of your skin," experience. No good can come of this.

--
Is it fascism yet?
Re:Go outside? by jrp2 · 2006-01-07 05:31 · Score: 1

"I just wish I had that option. I live in Chicago. I can't see the stars even if I want to. Which I do."

Interesting you mention Chicago. I also live in Chicago, and have lived in the same neighborhood on the NW side for 22 years. Though it is far from an astronomer's dream, the city has made an effort to reduce light pollution over the past decade, and the improvement is very noticeable. 20 years ago, you could see almost no stars, occasionally some bright one would be visible. Now, many are visible on any non-cloudy night, especially if you go for a walk in a large park or along the lakefront.

The city did not spend any serious amount of money on a retrofit, but instead put in fairly strict requirements on any new lights both on public property, as well as in the building codes for new private construction (especially parking lots). They need to light the street/lot well, but must limit the upword radiation directly from the light (within reason). Usually it is using pretty simple technology (reflective hoods, etc.). I think this stuff costs a little more initially, but pays itself off pretty quickly with reduced energy requirements.

I do walk a lot around the city, often at night. I do appreciate the well lit streets and walks from a security standpoint. I appreciate the effort the city has made to balance the two opposing needs.

Bottom line, I can't argue with your general point. If astronomy was my hobby, I would not find Chicago to be a good place to do it. But, it is a good example of how a common sense approach can not only save energy, but make it a better place to live. The light pollution problem has gone from pathetic, to mediocre. At least it is moving in the right direction, slowly. I hope the situation continues to improve over the next decade. I hope more cities go down the same road.

--
The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon - Douglas William Jerrold
Re:Go outside? by coruscus · 2006-01-07 06:43 · Score: 1

Don't you mean your mom's basement?

--
If we appear to seek the unattainable, as it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable
Re:Go outside? by Fizzog · 2006-01-07 10:41 · Score: 1

"walking out into the night and just staring up at the sky in awe"

To be honest the Northern Hemisphere pretty much sucks for that anyway. The Northern Hemisphere faces away from the Milky Way, so you can really only see stuff that is more on the outskirts of the galaxy than even we are (and we are).

Even on a clear night under dark skies you will see a couple of stars here, a couple there, etc.

Now if you want to see starry skies, make a trip to the Southern Hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere faces the Milky Way (you can see it with the naked eye), and the night sky is absolutely *filled* with stars. It is really spectacular even under very average conditions.

If you enjoy night skies then make a point of visiting Australia, South America, or Africa at some point. You really won't regret it.
Re:Go outside? by mrhartwig · 2006-01-07 13:47 · Score: 2, Informative

I'll agree that there are more, brighter, stars in the south. And I'll also agree that we're above the plane of our galaxy's equator -- but only by about 20 light years. I fail to see how that orients us so that "The Northern Hemisphere faces away from the Milky Way...".
The center of our galaxy lies roughly in Sagittarius, which, as a Zodiacal constellation, is visible in most of the northern hemisphere. Maybe not as directly, and maybe not as often, but it's visible. See http://www.seds.org/messier/more/mw.html for more information.
Were you possibly referring to the Magellanic clouds?
In any case, there's lots & lots of Good Stuff to see in the night sky, regardless of the hemisphere in which you live. Given the choice of some super-dark area of northern Canada or Alaska or a static location in the center of downtown [pick your large, southern hemisphere city, here], I'd take the north.
Of course, an ulimited travel budget would be even better.... :-)

The "Hubble Syndrome" by Slugster · 2006-01-07 02:53 · Score: 1

This is what amateur astronomy people call it when a "regular" person looks through a five-thousand-dollar backyard telescope and is dissappointed that they can't see the US flag left on the moon.
.....
Amateur astronomy can be entertaining if 1) you resolve yourself to reading astronomy-related history on cloudy nights, 2) you don't live in an area of high light pollution and 3) you don't live in an area with a lot of biting insects....
~

Re:The "Hubble Syndrome" by User+956 · 2006-01-07 02:57 · Score: 2, Funny

Amateur astronomy can be entertaining if 1) you resolve yourself to reading astronomy-related history on cloudy nights, 2) you don't live in an area of high light pollution and 3) you don't live in an area with a lot of biting insects....

So you do most of your skywatching from the moon, then?

--
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Re:The "Hubble Syndrome" by Quiet_Desperation · 2006-01-07 03:20 · Score: 1

I stopped showing people anything after showing a friend and his wife Mars during one of the recent close passes. You could make out the polar cap and a few surface features.
"Oh... I thought you'd be able to see the storms," said his wife.
Re:The "Hubble Syndrome" by FireFury03 · 2006-01-07 04:28 · Score: 4, Informative

This is what amateur astronomy people call it when a "regular" person looks through a five-thousand-dollar backyard telescope and is dissappointed that they can't see the US flag left on the moon.

Most astronomy photos the public sees are taken by massive professional telescopes (either Hubble or large ground based scopes) and so they have no idea what kind of results they would get out of the many many different types of amateur scope available. And of the amateur photos that are published, in my experience almost none of them are captioned with information about the equipment used, exposure times, post processing, etc.

What would be really good is a collaborative astronomy database where you could look up an astronomical object and see the results of different equipment - i.e. I could look up the Horsehead Nebula and get to see lots of photos of it all stating what equipment and settings were used. That kind of thing would certainly be really useful when deciding what equipment to buy.

you don't live in an area of high light pollution

This is a serious problem and aparantly one that the UK government/councils at least don't appear to care about. More and more street lights go up every year, few of them seem to have full cutoff shades and worryingly most of the new ones now seem to be high presure sodium lights (much less filterable than the old low pressure sodium lights). Do we really _need_ our streets to be lit so brightly at night? Some legislation designed to reduce light pollution would be a good step - i.e. requiring all lights to have full cutoff shades and putting limits on the amount of lighting used.

--
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Re:The "Hubble Syndrome" by h4rm0ny · 2006-01-07 06:33 · Score: 2, Informative

It looks like you're not the only one sick of brightly-lit nights. There is an article in the Independent here on moves to change the situation. And the Campaign for Dark Skies covers any developments on their, quite frankly, rather ugly website.

So there is hope.

--

Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Re:The "Hubble Syndrome" by jiawen · 2006-01-07 09:56 · Score: 1

Personally, I think the two big problems are a) light gathering in most astrophotography is far better than the human eye is capable of, and b) there's a lot of 'false-color' imaging that isn't adequately labeled as such. The famous 'Pillars of Creation' image isn't a real-light image; it's a combination of several (non-RGB) filters. (Of course, it's still beautiful.)

Many books now, though, give real depictions of what objects will look like through scopes and binoculars, or at least point out the difference. I'm thinking specifically of The Year-Round Messier Marathon Field Guide by H. C. Pennington and The Backyard Astronomers' Guide by Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer. These books show M42 are a slight blotch of white against the black, and explain that that's what you'll see when you're not using cameras with long exposure times.
Re:The "Hubble Syndrome" by camelmix · 2006-01-07 13:03 · Score: 1

Do know however that as much of an annoyance light pollution may be, in some areas it's for your own saftey . I also don't know what it's like in the UK however.
Re:The "Hubble Syndrome" by YGingras · 2006-01-07 15:11 · Score: 1

Please see the Skywater Gallery for examples of what you can see with their excellent and affordable telescopes. I really like the Mak90 because I can take it with me on a motorcycle.
Re:The "Hubble Syndrome" by niktemadur · 2006-01-07 17:39 · Score: 1

Not necessarily. A city could do a great deal to minimize light pollution without sacrificing luminosity by replacing light sources from white halogen to amber, as well as concentrating that light exclusively in a downward direction with the aid of metal screens painted white on the inside; picture something like a tablelamb-style screen and you're there. This would get rid of glare while keeping the streets as well-lit as they are now.

If implemented, less wattage is needed to achieve the same level of illumination, thereby saving the city a TON of money every single night from now until kingdom come, as well as wasting less energy resources, always a good idea in an age of fossil fuels.

Hence, less resources spent - good for astronomy, good for the environment, good for the city, and so it goes. Imagine if every city in the world implemented this! The one big problem would be the cost to refurbish all those street lamps, but the investment would probably pay for itself in the short-to-medium term; after the break-even point, it's all savings.

--
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Re:The "Hubble Syndrome" by FireFury03 · 2006-01-07 23:12 · Score: 1

Do know however that as much of an annoyance light pollution may be, in some areas it's for your own saftey

I'm failing to see how directing light straight up into the sky increases my safety... Also, IMHO the roads are more than brightly enough lit at night and there would be no safety problem with decreasing the brightness of the lighting.

And I'm sure lighting up the walls of buildings with floodlights also increase my safety... on the odd occasions I walk up vertical walls.

--
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Re:The "Hubble Syndrome" by FireFury03 · 2006-01-07 23:32 · Score: 1

Please see the Skywater Gallery for examples of what you can see with their excellent and affordable telescopes.

Unfortunately they only seem to do planetary photos - I'm much more interested in deep sky objects (and yes, I do realise you need a bigger scope).

--
http://blog.nexusuk.org

Got in quick........ by Typingsux · 2006-01-07 02:54 · Score: 2, Informative

Was downloading at 100k now down to 25 and plummeting. Thanks to /. I should have this in time for 2007.

--
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents

I can't see any stars, you insensitive clod! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 02:55 · Score: 1, Insightful

Thanks for reminding me what I've lost!

Here in Orlando, we can see about 12 stars because of the light pollution from Maus-witz

Date checking, anyone.....? by stedlj · 2006-01-07 02:57 · Score: 1

The dates are off January 7th is listed as a Sunday!

Re:Date checking, anyone.....? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 03:03 · Score: 0

The dates are off January 7th is listed as a Sunday!

Actually, the dates are right. Move ahead a day and you'll see . . . Sunday the 8th. And next week, we have . . . Saturday the 14th. They just mislabeled the 7th as a sunday. The dates remain correct besides that (though I admit that I haven't checked every date in the whole book).

Oh, the temptation... by Quiet_Desperation · 2006-01-07 02:58 · Score: 2, Funny

...to sneak into work on a Saturday morning and print this whole thing out on one of the fancy color printers.

400+ Pages by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 02:59 · Score: 0

so one page for each day, an overview table of contents, an index, a forward, couple of appendices and a whats on the cd-rom page.

Will this be Amazons best seller of 2007?

No, I didn't RTFA.

This is brilliant by thatguywhoiam · 2006-01-07 03:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

I am very happy to have found this.

I used to be pretty good at my constellations when I was much, much younger - I had those dumb stickers that you affixed to your bedroom ceiling that would glow in the dark. Painstakingly applied in the most realistic manner I was capable of at the time (think I was around 11-12). But of course time moves on and you spend more time looking at the monitor than looking at the stars... anyways I had been hoping to find a nice 'refresh primer' and this looks like it will do that nicely.

If you want to re-learn your stars, or start for the first time, this is a high quality free guide.

--
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.

I was a huge amateur astronomer by Quiet_Desperation · 2006-01-07 03:09 · Score: 1

I used to be able to take a simple Dobsonian scope outside and find most of the Messier catalog without star maps. I don't know if that was a good thing or bad thing. :) And I seemed to have an innate sense of where each planet was at any given moment.

Obligatory astronomy links by Lord+Satri · 2006-01-07 03:22 · Score: 5, Informative

The Great Stellarium (open source):
http://www.stellarium.org/
Celestia (also free):
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
NASA's astronoly picture of the day:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/

Stellarium is really a must-download for anyone even slightly interested in astronomy. It's another open source software success.

There is always the moon from our overlords... but moon through NASA's WorldWind too.

--
Animoog.org

Re:Obligatory astronomy links by Jugalator · 2006-01-07 04:30 · Score: 2, Informative

Stellarium is nice, however, I believe Starry Night is even more powerful. It's proprietary software though, if it matters to you, but I believe much more powerful, and pretty much the best on the market right now.

--
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Re:Obligatory astronomy links by bcrowell · 2006-01-07 04:38 · Score: 1

I have an open-source planetarium applet that can be handy for naked-eye stuff, e.g., "What planet is that?"
It's too bad that xephem has licensing problems, and has been dropped from Debian.

--
Find free books.
Re:Obligatory astronomy links by VStrider · 2006-01-07 07:53 · Score: 1

Stelarium and Celestia are great programs, but you forgot Xephem. IMHO *the* most powerful astronomy tool, but it needs a beautiful gtk interface instead of the ugly motif. Heh, you can tell xephem was written by astronomers. :-D

--
VStrider.
Re:Obligatory astronomy links by mrhartwig · 2006-01-07 14:00 · Score: 1

Stellarium & Celestia are on pretty much every PC I own or use regularly [cough] work laptop.... And I don't start my day without APOD (and Dilbert, but that's another thread). However, the SW list can't be considered complete without Sky Charts (http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/index.html). Unfortunately Windows-only, but if you want to plan observation sessions & make charts, it's excellent.
You would have to have some serious equipment to be able to see something that Sky Charts doesn't have available.
Also, for completness (for Palm OS-based PDA users), Planetarium (http://www.aho.ch/pilotplanets/) is also a Must Have.

Something is very wrong... by numLocked · 2006-01-07 03:24 · Score: 0, Redundant

I'm looking at the pdf now, and it has entries for saturday, january 6th, and sunday, january 7th. The dates are all off! I'm not sure if the numeric dates are off or if the calendar days are, but its going to make it something of a headache trying to figure out whats visible when. Unless I missed something, this seems like a pretty obvious error.

Re:Something is very wrong... by numLocked · 2006-01-07 03:29 · Score: 1

I also just noticed that it strangely corrects itself the next day, and the calendar is accurate from the 8th forward.

The dates are correct, just ignore the day of the week for today.

the sky's the limit by moophus · 2006-01-07 03:39 · Score: 0, Flamebait

if only they kept it under 10 megabytes. I could then gmail it all my friends who care.

Re:the sky's the limit by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 04:30 · Score: 0

zipped version is almost exactly 10Mb. Will it fit in gmail...

Another Great '365' Night Book by DieByWire · 2006-01-07 03:49 · Score: 4, Informative

Chet Raymo's 365 Starry Nights is a great, easy introduction to the night sky and astronomy. You don't read like a textbook, you just pick it up and read the day's entry. (Amazon link for convenience - I have no sales affiliation with them.)

Some day's entries are visual objects, some are binocular, some are telescope, and some are 'here's what's there if you could see it.'

A great book for the casually curious. You could call it 'astronomy bait.' (Star bait?)

--
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.

Amazing Images by g_bowskill · 2006-01-07 04:05 · Score: 3, Informative

What amazes me about the images are that many are taken from peoples back gardens using relatively inexpensive equipment. The results are also in reach of most ordinary people, if your interested in advice on getting started with astronomy or even how to get results such as these then one of the contributes to the images in the book frequents this forum: http://stargazerslounge.co.uk/ and along with many others can offer you great advice, just like they have me.

--
Isee Stars Astro Image Hosting.

Nifty product out of CES by TimeForGuinness · 2006-01-07 04:27 · Score: 2, Informative

Looks like this might be a nice device for starting out if you want to get into astronomy.
Might be a good product to get kids interested as well.

http://www.celestron.com/skyscout/no_flash.php?Fla sh=N/

It has some pretty neat features such as:
"Tonight's Must-See List"
"Constellation Lessons"
etc

Cheers,
TimeForGuinness

I don't think it can be their server by Flying+pig · 2006-01-07 04:37 · Score: 1

It just averaged 230kByte/s and downloaded in a minute. Not bad.
Suggestion: If you want to print it, it looks like it should work well at A5.

--
Pining for the fjords

Printed version by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 04:58 · Score: 1, Informative

you can get a printed version from print(fu) here. It costs $21 for the printing and shipping - jd

Astronomy Events in a Calendar by Feneric · 2006-01-07 05:09 · Score: 1

I've personally been using the "Astronomy Events and Happenings" iCalendar feed from webcal://ical.mac.com/wesley/Astronomy.ics for the past couple of years. It works with Firefox/Thunderbird (pre 1.5 only with the calendar plug-in), Sunbird, Chandler, and of course iCal.

No big weekly download to manually contend with, and it covers enough of interest to satisfy my needs.

Torrent Download by zuffy · 2006-01-07 05:28 · Score: 2, Informative

Here is a torrent download for this PDF.

http://www.mininova.org/tor/193558

--
{justin.filip | jfilip AT gmail DOT com} {http://jfilip.ca/}

kpdf weirdness / Stellarium by matthewg42 · 2006-01-07 05:45 · Score: 1

For some reason the text doesn't render properly in kpdf under kubuntu. The offical Acrobat reader is so bloated, it's a pain to have to use it :(

But then why look at the real sky, when you can use Stellarium? The Stellarium User Guide contains a mini sky-guide for the Northern Hemisphere. Anyone in the South care to contribute one for your half of the night sky?

Re:kpdf weirdness / Stellarium by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 09:30 · Score: 0

Yep ... I also just get crap in xpdf (under OpenBSD, so is it isn't kubuntu's fault). Looks like the book is written in code =)
Re:kpdf weirdness / Stellarium by whitehatlurker · 2006-01-07 18:48 · Score: 1

Try ghostscript. The PDF opens with gs under windows, should work under Linux/BSD. Might not be as pretty, but what do you want? ;-)

--
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.

Can't I look today??? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 05:58 · Score: 0

Anybody notice that there are 2 Sunday January 7ths and no Saturday???

Re: Try it with aget (only took 25 seconds) by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 06:29 · Score: 0

$ aget -n 8 -f http://www.universetoday.com/365days.pdf
Download completed, job completed in 25 seconds. (556 Kb/sec)

Some more free pdf astronomy guides by cadelor · 2006-01-07 08:05 · Score: 2, Informative

If the Whats Up 2006 whetted your appetite for free downloadable astronomy guides you might like to take a look at some handbooks that the folks in the Irish Federation of Astronomical Societies have been working on.

IFAS Observing handbooks.

At the moment there are 3 handbooks written, we are working on more.

1. The Novice Observing Challenge
Compiled by Seanie Morris this handbook provides the perfect introduction to the hobby and science of astronomy. Everything that a beginner, or nearly-new, astronomer needs to know is covered here with explanations and advice as well as practical observing projects.

2. The Binocular Observing Challenge
Subtitled "110 extraordinary objects to see through ordinary binoculars" this handbook, which was compiled by John Flannery, serves as an excellent incentive to dust off the binoculars and see what you can really see through them. John's handbook has diagrams and charts to help find the objects as well as detailed descriptions to help appreciate what you are seeing.

3. The Messier Objects Observing Challenge
Mick O'Connell has put together a lavish observing guide to the next level of observing. This book gives detailed background information on Charles Messier, his catalogue of objects, and the deep-sky as well as star-charts and guides to help navigate your way through the most famous list of deep-sky splendours.

Or just get xplns... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 08:11 · Score: 0

it will show you what's visible in the sky from anywhere, any time (like from a thousand years ago to a thousand years in the future).

Very nice.

-- ac at home

Cloudy by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-07 08:39 · Score: 0

what you can see in the night sky every day in 2006

It's cloudy you insensitive clod.
It also doesn't say when I can see CowboyNeal.

Other free things that do the same job by jiawen · 2006-01-07 09:32 · Score: 1

There's a lot of free software out there that will give better skymaps than most books can. After all, the sky changes from minute to minute, not just day to day.

XEphem is my choice. The interface is pretty old-school, but the maps it prints out are perfect for my uses.

KStars has more bells and whistles but, in my experience, doesn't print as well.

As for advice on buying scopes, etc., check these places too.

Geeks aren't the only ones up in arms... by j_stirk · 2006-01-07 15:41 · Score: 1

Geeks aren't the only ones up in arms about light pollution either.

You'll also find plenty of greenies getting upset about light pollution due to the effect it has on insects and birds (and hence, lots of other critters too).

--
[root@GRIFFIN root]# rpm -e coffee-1.22.3-1a.i386.rpm
error: removing these packages would break dependencies:

Southern hemisphere? by GrahamCox · 2006-01-07 18:32 · Score: 1

Since the site is slashdotted into oblivion at the moment, can anyone tell me if it includes the southern hemisphere?

How do they compensate for geographic location? by Shag · 2006-01-07 19:11 · Score: 1

Software, and certain three-dimensional star guides, can compensate for location-based differences in the sky - e.g. Polaris is 45 degrees above the horizon if you're 45 degrees north, but not visible at all if you're 10 degrees south. Two-dimensional things, such as books, have a much harder time of this. Thus Planispheres come in several different versions, for different latitudes. In this e-book, there aren't charts. Although this book does include some good southern objects, there are still entire pages dedicated to things near Polaris, which reflects an inherent bias toward the northern hemisphere.

Happy to be somewhere with a view from 90N to ~70S...

--
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.

coolest thing I ever saw by le+duf · 2006-01-08 15:28 · Score: 1

One of them, at any rate. A few years ago, I was up in the Berkshires (U.S., not U.K.) and I noticed a really bright object close to the Moon. "Hey! That must be Jupiter!" I thought. Ran in, got a pair of binoculars, and tried to get it in view, using the chimney to block out the Moon. As soon as I found it, I noticed three bright pinpricks of light. Wow! Three of the Galilean satellites! I tried to get other people in the house to come out and look, but no one seemed all that interested. Losers.

Hey! Just found out yesterday was the 396th anniversary of their discovery. Not bad timing for a /. post.

Wonderful! by verlorenModus · 2006-01-09 06:49 · Score: 1

...if i could see the sky through the smog and light pollution... or the rain...

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-verlorenModus-

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