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An eruption sends out fumes and various gases, so volcanic activity on a rocky exoplanet might leave a telltale atmospheric signature. View full post on Astronomy.com – News

If you are a beginner or amateur astronomer, you might be interested in reading this article. Telescopes can be quite difficult to use if you are not familiar with what you are doing. Please take a moment to review this information, it should prove to be quite useful as you make your foray into astronomy.

Light Pollution

The first thing to consider is light pollution. If you live in a large city with a lot of lights, you may have a hard time viewing objects through your telescope. This isn’t always true, as some of our local planets and our moon can be seen with the naked eye, you just have to know where to look. If there are more rural areas for you to travel to without much hassle, consider hopping in the car and taking a short drive.

Obstructions

If you live in a mountainous area, or if there tall buildings in your way, this might also keep you from viewing objects with your telescope. If mountains are troubling you, consider taking a road to a higher point on the mountain, or to the top if possible.

Comfort

Find a nice, level place to set your telescope up. With the electronic view-finding telescopes of today, having a level setting will help your telescope find objects more effectively. This will also help prevent your telescope from suffering any accidents. Also, bring food and drinks. You might spend a few hours looking at the stars, so you might as well enjoy. Bring chairs and even music (a tailgate and a car stereo may also work).

Setting Up

Before you leave the house to explore the sky, set your telescope up at home. Make sure you understand all of the components. Your telescope should have instructions with it, and based on its design, you will need to properly set it up. Make sure all of your eye pieces and lenses are accounted for. If it has an electronic view-finder, ensure that it has battery power.

Finding Objects

Using your owner’s manual, you shouldn’t have any problems setting your telescope up. Now we move on to the fun part.

If your telescope has an automated view-finder, then you will most likely need to calibrate it. Each view-finder may have a different process for calibration (use your instruction manual, or follow directions to accomplish this). It may ask you to manually find a couple of targets in the sky (easy ones, like the North Star, or a planet). Once your telescope is properly calibrated, you should be on auto-pilot from here on out, but you may have to adjust the focus. To adjust the focus of what you are viewing, you will want to turn the wheel that is integrated into your eyepiece. Do it slowly and methodically.

For telescopes with manual view-finders, you may have a more difficult time locating certain objects in the sky. In my opinion, manual location is much more fun. You will become a lot more familiar with constellations and you can even impress your friends by being able to point out locations of certain constellations with the naked eye!

Your telescope should have a view finder that rests on the outside of the telescope. This viewfinder may be a small window or less powerful telescope that will help you see where your telescope is pointed to in the sky. Without a view-finder, you will have a difficult time simply pointing your telescope at the stars. Using the view-finder, position the object that you with to view in the center of the frame or crosshairs. Once you have proper positioning with the view finder, you can now look through your telescopes eye piece to get a closer look at a star or planet. You will also want to adjust the focus using the eyepiece.

Voila! That is pretty much all you need to do. Take your time and try not to get frustrated if you are having troubles. Always keep your owner’s manual nearby. Not all telescopes are alike and you may need to refer to your manual for help with certain aspects of using your telescope.

Make sure that you pack to head home that all of the components of your telescope are accounted for. A carrying case or hard case might be very useful. You may also want to consider cleaning your telescope after using it. Refer to the owner’s manual for proper care and maintenance of your telescope.

There you have it folks. It’s not so hard being an astronomer; you just have to plan carefully and have a little patience. It’s all worth it in the end. Nothing is more exhilarating than catching a glimpse at a distant star or planet. If you’re lucky, you might even catch a meteor shower.

The team used a massive galaxy cluster as a cosmic magnifying lens to study the nature of dark energy and improve current measurements of the mass and energy content of the universe. View full post on Astronomy.com – News

Astronomers say they have found previously undetected landforms that indicate the Moon has been shrinking, albeit by only a tiny amount. View full post on Tag: Astronomy – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Scientists have demonstrated that a magnetar formed from a star with at least 40 times the mass of the Sun, but theory states that mass should form a black hole. View full post on Astronomy.com – News

A frequently recounted Chinese story says that Hsi and Ho, the court astronomers, got drunk and neglected their duties so that they failed to predict an eclipse of the Sun. For this, the emperor had them executed. So much for negligent astronomers.

If this story were an account of an actual event, the dynasty mentioned would place the eclipse somewhere between 2159 and 1948 B.C., making it by far the oldest solar eclipse recorded in history. But all serious attempts to identify one particular eclipse as the source of this story have been abandoned as scholars have recognized that the episode is mythological.

In ancient Chinese literature, Hsi-Ho is not two persons but a single mythological being who is sometimes the mother of the Sun and at other times the chariot driver for the Sun. Later, in the Shu Ching (Historical Classic), parts of which may date from as early as the seventh or sixth century B.C., this single character is split, not into two, but into six.

In the Shu Ching story, the legendary Chinese emperor Yao commissions the eldest of the Hsi and Ho brothers “to calculate and delineate the sun, moon, the stars, and the zodiacal markers; and so to deliver respectfully the seasons to the people.” In further orders, he sends a younger Hsi brother to the east and another to the south; he orders a younger Ho brother to the west and another to the north. Each is responsible for a portion of the rhythms of the days and seasons, to turn the Sun back at the solstices and to keep it moving at the equinoxes.

These mythological magicians are always charged with the prevention of eclipsesohence the story that appears later in the Shu Ching about the emperor’s anger with his servants for failing to prevent an eclipse, not just predict or respond ceremonially to it. The story appears in a chapter that is an exhortation by the Prince of Yin, commander of the armies, to government officials to fulfill their duties to the administration, thereby making the emperor “entirely intelligent. “If anyone neglects this requirement, “the country has regular punishments for you.”

Now here are Hsi and Ho. They have entirely subverted their virtue, and are sunk and lost in wine. They have violated the duties of their office, and left their posts. They have been the first to allow the regulations of heaven to get into disorder, putting far from them their proper business. On the first day of the last month of autumn, the sun and moon did not meet harmoniously in Fang.

The blind musicians beat their drums; the inferior officers and common people bustled and ran about. Hsi and Ho, however, as if they were mere personators of the dead in their offices, heard nothing and knew nothing;oso stupidly went they astray from their duty in the matter of the heavenly appearances, and rendering themselves liable to the death appointed by the former kings. The statutes of government say, “When they anticipate the time, let them be put to death without mercy; when they are behind the time, let them be put to death without mercy.
We never hear whether Hsi and Ho were ever tracked down and executed.

The story of Hsi and Ho as drunken astronomers was a myth. But the myth did come true in a sense about 33 centuries later. Chinese history records that in A.D. 1202, for the second time in four years, the chief court astronomer made an eclipse forecast that was not as accurate as predictions from people with no official scientific credentials or status.

Water Industry Network HC : Beijing December 17, according to the British “Daily Mail” reported that the astronomers found a dark star operation around the terrestrial planets, only 40 light years from Earth. It is a hot “water world”, 6 times the size of the Earth. It is believed that 75% of the planet’s surface area is covered with water, but the temperature is too high, it can not support the existence of Earth-type life. There is evidence that the “water world” have the same atmosphere. Astronomers think the planet outside the solar system and had discovered more than any extrasolar planets close to Earth. An operation around a dark star terrestrial planets
Fengyun water planet is classified as “super-Earth” the ranks of such size in the earth, and smaller rocky planets Uranus, Neptune, etc. between the ice giants. Although its parent star is a dim red dwarf star, the brightness of the sun 1/3000 only, but short distance between the two Yeomans water planet’s surface temperature as high as 200 degrees Celsius. Water planet and the distance between the parent star is only 1.3 million miles (about 2.09 million kilometers), orbit around the parent star only needs 38 hours a week. Fengyun around the red dwarf star GJ1214 planet is found in a small array of ground-based telescopes, the telescopes used by amateur no better than a lot of big. MEarthProject plans to use eight 16-inch diameter, the same (about 40 cm) telescope to monitor 2000 red dwarf star. Red dwarf stars in the Milky Way the most common type. Red dwarf star telescope by observing the change of brightness that a planet across its front. Because too dim, red dwarf star itself raised the possibility of planets found in this way. Caused by measuring the brightness of the planet through reduced, scientists can calculate a planet’s density and its components are based on speculation. New planet named “GJ1214b”, believed to three-quarters of the surface area covered by water and ice, leaving only about one quarter of the regional rock. Harvard – Smithsonian Center graduate students, astronomers, Charles Kerry? Berta found Fengyun water planet. He said: “Although the temperature is high, it is still a water world. And other than any known extrasolar planets, planet, smaller, cooler and closer to the Earth.” Scientists believe that in addition to GJ1214b surface, a number of things must block the light from the parent star, its surrounding could be a form of hydrogen and helium atmosphere. With the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers may determine the composition of the planet. MEarthProject, David? Charbonneau said: “The planet Earth is very close, ‘Hubble’ should be carried out on the atmosphere Probe And determine its composition. With luck, it will be the first to have a super-Earth atmosphere has been confirmed, although the atmosphere may be life as we know is not friendship. ” 16 today’s issue of “Nature” magazine reported the discovery. In the published in “Nature” article, the famous planet hunter, the University of California, Jeffrey? Professor Ma Xi may be present in this water world scene was speculation. He wrote: “It may have a high depth of the ocean, the liquid should be presented. As the heat given to the mother star, its surface temperature reaches 190 degrees Celsius. Also, a steam sauna like atmosphere may exist.”

A quick list of some of my own personal favorite astronomers from America. It is impossible and downright silly to create a list of the “best” astronomers because, really, what would the rankings be based on? All three of these men have helped shape and inform our current view of the universe and what man is capable of in the future.

01)  Carl Sagan

I rank Sagan so high in my list because personally, I find him to be one of the most engaging, lucid and fairly skeptical of the astronomers. Rewatching Sagan’s landmark television series, “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” you can see the sense of wonder that Sagan has for our world and its ultimate beauty and mysteries. You can see free tv episodes of Comos still frequently every now and then. Today, Sagan is probably most well known for the film adaption of his novel, “Contact” which starred Jodi Foster and in my mind is still one of the most realistic representations of what alien contact would actually be like. Sagan was a one of a kind and will be remembered fondly.

02)  Stephen Hawking

More of a theoretical physicist than an astronomer, Hawking has nonetheless put forth some of the most brilliant theories and work on the subject of cosmology and quantum gravity, specifically in the area of black holes. Hawking’s prediction that black holes should emit radiation has thus been named after him, called the Hawking Radiation. His recent illness has not slowed down his writing or lecturing with Hawking one of the most famous speakers on quantum gravity and physics.

03)  Richard Feynman

One of the most eccentric and interesting astronomers and physicists, Feynman could never be pinholed to one subject but was interesting in many different subjects, from biology to art, to Maya hieroglyphs and to the development of the atomic bomb. His is most well known today for being involved in the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger crash as well as his work in introducing the still very relevant concept of nanotechnology.

Tips for Finding the Right Astronomy Telescope for You

Children and adults everywhere find the night sky fascinating and love to make wishes on the stars they see. As children get older, they begin to learn about what is in the night sky and many develop an interest in astronomy.

Astronomy is a word from the Greek language. Astro, the first part of the word, comes from the Greek word for the star shape and also refers to outer space. The last part of the word, onomy, is Greek for “the study of”. So from the original Greek, astronomy means study of the star or outer space.

Novices and experienced astronomers need one main tool to learn about and enjoy the night sky: an astronomy telescope. There are many different kinds of astronomy telescopes. You need to choose carefully and consider some important aspects of the telescope, such as the size of the lens and the sturdiness of the telescope stand, when you are looking to buy your first telescope.

The Importance of the Lens Diameter

Certain aspects of your new astronomy telescope will either make it enjoyable or leave you frustrated. Lens diameter is one of these aspects. Forget about magnification; the size of the lens of the telescope is more important. The larger the lens diameter, the more light it lets into the telescope and that affects how well you can see the things you are trying to look at in the night sky. The brighter the light, the clearer the images will be.

Choosing a Good Astronomy Telescope Stand

You will want to give a lot of thought to the type of stand you mount your new telescope to so that you get the most efficient use out of your telescope. A good tripod stand is the way to go. You want to choose a stand that will keep the telescope still so you get the best views of the night sky. Any movement at all will make the images you see blurry and cause you frustration.

Where and How to Shop for an Astronomy Telescope

You need to find out what your options are and know what the different telescopes offer before choosing one. One of the easiest ways to gather information about telescopes is by looking online. You should try and find out what the features are that are offered on each kind of telescope, how much they cost and what reviewers think about the different brands of telescopes.

One way to choose a good astronomy telescope is to try some of your potential telescopes out. If there is an astronomy club in your local area, you might be able to join and meet people who share your hobby. Then, you can try a variety of different telescopes to see which ones work for you.

You can also get a lot of useful information to help you choose an astronomy telescope by talking to people who are in astronomy. Your friends and family members who have astronomy telescopes can tell you what they like and dislike about theirs. If you have friends or family involved in astronomy, you might ask them to let you know when they are replacing their telescopes so you can possibly buy their old one from them.

The official trailer for “The Astronomer’s Dream” (visit www.animalcolm.com/theastronomersdream)