Astronomy

[HenryT]

Any of you guys into astronomy?

[henkc]

Any of you guys into astronomy?

When it starts to look like this, I enjoy it. It's an area I'd actually really like to learn more about.

[Big Hilux]

I also have an interest in this type of hobby, My late Father left me a very nice telescope, the tube is about a metre long, it has a wide range of lenses and even a special lens to look at the sun, comes with a re-adjustable tri-pod as well and a small view finder along the one side, but when I am a big boy I would like to buy a digital telescope that I can hook up to my computor.

In America there is a special type of GPS, this machine is similar to a small video recorder, you point it at a star or planet or moon and it will tell you the history of that object, I think it is called a Sky Scout but the business in America are not interested in selling this item to us guys here in South Africa, was retailing for about R4 000. from another company here is South Africa, this guy also ended up not been able to supply them, but a very interesting little toy, have any of you heard of this item.

[Bongani]

You can get the skyscout from B&H. They will supply to ZA but the shipping is crazy.

For beginner (myself) use the "Star Gazing from Game Reserves in Southern Africa" book. It is an excellent guide for beginners. Also get the Starmaps of SOuthern Africa and use it in conjunction with it.

To impress your friends get a Astro Laser from WickedLasers. The Classic 15mW is perfect. Let me know if you want the link to the lasers. I have two of them as SWAMBO and I fight to much over who can hold the laser.

Simon , at Makro is a scope where you can type in the name of the star and it will find it in the night sky for you.

Its a great hobby for late evening after the campfire has died down.

[Bryan Webber]

Morne pls post the link. Would love to get into this hobbie.

[Winston]

Thought it would come up sometime.

I use Starry night as a chart. V-town is a bit dirty and telescopes don't work as well.
Getting into the whole thing again. Have decided to build myself a telescope, Guasian type. Only need to find some time to do it and then find someone to measure my lens and coat it.

[Bongani]

For Astro Lasers there is only one make.
WickedLasers
http://www.wickedlasers.com/index.php?refer=14563

Read the review about Wicked Lasers
http://www.saao.ac.za/~wpk/laser/index.html

I have the 15mW and a 55mW. With the 55mW I have popped a balloon and burn holes in black plastic bags (the thin type)


For an excellent night sky program on your laptop use Stellarium. It a free download from their website. Configure the program for your location and that is it. It is awesome. It illustrates the stars as you will see it at the specific time at night (can also play forward and back), it shows star names, star sign lines, star sign images, nebules etc etc etc.
http://www.stellarium.org/


The SkyScout can be purchased at B&H. Check out the crazy shipping prices.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/
Also check out their scopes
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...rch&Q=&ci=3390

That should be enough to keep you busy.

[jdjoubert]

.

I use Starry night as a chart.

I downloaded Starry Night about 2 years ago. Very nice program. Have looked at the stars many a night with my laptop next to me to identify the stars.

Just the mere fact that you can set your location on the PC and then the direction you look in........ that is very impressive.

[Winston]

Starry night is OK, but has 1 or 2 bugs in. Moon is wrong for the southern hemisphere.

But the info and sky views are spectacular given that it gives pop-up info on every star/star cluster and a good zoom view.

It even shows Leo at the correct time/space to age the sphinx and make you wonder and very scared

Haven't looked at pointers though, still like to do the get lost and find your way thing.

[jdjoubert]

It even shows Leo at the correct time/space to age the sphinx and make you wonder and very scared

Huh? I have not tried that before, please explain if you can Winston. Can you set the date in the past?

Does Leo line up with the layout of the sphinx?

[Winston]

Yes, it does but WAY BACK try 10 000BC

You where up late

[HenryT]

Wow. Did not expect this kind of response. I have been following this hobby for a short period now and at a very amateur level. I have Starry Night Pro as well as Pocket Stars on my PDA. Bought a Buschell telescope but have found that the time taken to set it up correctly takes a lot of fun out of it. A friend of mine has a top of the range Meade - set it up vaguely looking north, find a prominent planet (Jupiter) - and it does the rest electronically. You just type in what planet/star you want to see and away it goes. Automatically tracks the earth movement so your object is in view all the time. Costs though!!!!! The lenses just cost R10000.00!

As I have tried to get a balance with being able to understand the skies while on the move on overland trips, I have bought a spotting scope and use my binoculars from time to time. A book that I bought from the JHB planetarium - a thin soft cover - has given me more than enough info on the history of Astronomy and how to find planets and stars etc.

[Jeepster]

I'm also quite interested in astronomy but have been neglecting this interest for the past couple of years.

When I was on Navigator Course about 10 years ago, Astro Navigation was one of our subjects. We had to know the 57 main navigational stars, and we used astro navigation and sextants to determine our position while flying (only in the simulator as the Dakota was not equipped with a sextant dome anymore). It was quite interesting, but also quite difficult as it involved quite a bit of calculation.

By working accurately you can achieve positional accuracy of 6 nautical miles or less. The americans had Astrotrackers in their SR-71 Blackbird that can do automatic astro navigation at speeds of up to Mach 3.

I've forgotten a lot of what we were taught, but would like to brush up on this knowledge if I get time for it. It is quite interesting to note all the different methods for determining direction by use of different constellations and methods of calculating the time of night by use of the Southern Cross.

[Winston]

Huh? I have not tried that before, please explain if you can Winston. Can you set the date in the past?

Does Leo line up with the layout of the sphinx?

Well I found it again

Sphinxs on the Giza Plateau at the west bank of the Nile River, near modern-day Cairo (29.975299° N 31.137496° E)

Wikipedia: The Great Sphinx is commonly accepted by Egyptologists to represent the likeness of King Khafra (also known by the Hellenised version of his name, Chephren) who is often credited as the builder as well. This would place the time of construction somewhere between 2520 BC and 2494 BC.

Know if this is so then the sphinxs aren't half lion AND then they cannot have water erosion AND they have nothing to do with the stars

Now I saw a BBC program that wanted to disprove 2 guys discoveries of the plateau. One used mathamatics and simulation programs and the other gathered measurements. The show left more questions than answers.

When I recieved Starry Night Enthusiast I started playing around. (support is stinky though ) I also tried to find Leo east of the sphinxs with Orion close in proximity. Well I did and go the same answer as the 2 Guys ( don't remember their names though.

Ok I know that the program only goes to an auto limit of 43 something, something, BC. I started playing around and found that by entering the date manually I got to the star maps that went past that limit.

I did a couple of pics from Starry Night just for show. First is between the 2 dates the clever people say it was built, next is between the 2 new dates. The last is 6 months short of 10000BC.

Note: To simulate this one has to get the spring equanox () on the horison and it has to be sunrise.

[Jeepster]

now if this is so then the sphinxs aren't half lion AND then they cannot have water erosion AND they have nothing to do with the stars

I've also read a number of books regarding egyptologists and some other theories regarding the sphynx and the great pyramids at Giza.

Water erosion is the only way to explain the erosion of the sphynx (proved by several scientists). The only time the sphynx and the great pyramids (Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure) lined up with Leo and the three sisters in Orion's Belt (Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka) was 10,500 BC and that also happens to be around the time that there was enough rain to explain the water erosion.

Then to add to the confusion (depending on the way you look at it) a lot of things relating to the construction and the inherent accuracies therein would apparently be difficult to reproduce - even with today's modern marvels. So, the question is - how did the egyptians do it 4500 years ago? Or did humankind move backwards in the last 4500 years?

[Winston]

Renier, what Starry Night do you have?
did you come right entering the dates?

Dates found so far (switch of the real time movement)
8950BC/06/09 at just after 06:00
9200BC/06/09 at a couple of minutes less.

[Jeepster]

I have no starry night - except if I walk outside and look at the stars. I haven't had an Astronomy program on my computer in a long time, will have a look at starry night at some stage. What I typed above is the little bits I can remember from some of the books I've read that dealt with the pyramids and the sphynx.

EDIT: Does Starry Night take the natural preccession and nutation of the Earth into account, because this can have an effect on the accuracy of the dates. That is something the more clever scientists would take into consideration and might be why they got to the date of 10,500BC.

[Winston]

EDIT: Does Starry Night take the natural preccession and nutation of the Earth into account, because this can have an effect on the accuracy of the dates. That is something the more clever scientists would take into consideration and might be why they got to the date of 10,500BC.

The Sun appears to be in the wrong Zodiac constellation on a given date.
Astrology uses the constellation boundaries as they existed several thousand years ago. Since that time, the stars have shifted in the sky, due to the precession of Earth, and the astronomical constellation boundaries no longer match the astrological constellation boundaries. Starry Night shows the astronomical constellation boundaries. With Starry Night, you can set the time back to about 600 BC (when the astrological boundaries were set), and you will find that the dates when the sun was in each constellation back then match the astrological dates.

The dates will be an issue since nobody know if the earth had a slight wobble.

I know that some scientists are looking into the whole thing. Polar caps melted in the past and they recon it could happen again (the wobble I mean) .

The Ice caps balance out the weight distrubution and thus if they are disturbed and become unbalanced. The earth being a natural system will want to balance itself out. The shocker is that they say hell will freeze over in the states

With no self documented history of the stone age and the sky above it. even the scientists can't give factual answers with out an amount of doubt.

Edit: haven't played with Kstars yet, but will have a look.

[shady]

interesting stuff....

[AMA-ZING]

What has happened to this thread - last post nearly 2 years ago !!
Due to my hobbies, I find myself often out in dark sky country and that is where my interest in this hobby started. the great thing about astronomy is that you do not need any specilised equipment, just try and identify the major constellations with your naked eye, then identify the stars that make up that constellation - that should keep you busy for some time. A pair of binoculars opens up another aspect to the sky which can keep one amazed for hours on end and whilst gazing up trying to identify a planet, you can be wowed by some breath taking metorites burning up on entry - best time for those is early morning though. So one doees not need fancy telescopes and goto electronics to enjoy the marvel of our Milky Way - just get out into some dark sky country and enjoy.