Beautiful

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Once I had the joy of looking at the summer Galaxy through 10x binoculars from a truly dark site. Under dark skies all the faint tatters and gaps show up that are washed out in even the best photos. I came away with a lasting impression that I was looking at a storm more violent than a hurricane with a volcano in it ... raging more slowly than our firefly consciousness can see. Imagine an enormous hurricane that lasts not days but billions of years ...
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Comet special installment 1. Comet P/Holmes

In the fall of 2007 an unexpected bright comet appeared in the northern sky. It experienced a sudden mass loss event. In about 42 hours it went from a visual magnitude of 17 (out of reach of any instrument less than twenty or so inches in aperture) to 2.8, within easy sight of the unaided eye. I watched it with binoculars from a decently dark site. The comet stayed bright and slowly expanded until it was visually larger than the full moon, and physically larger than the sun. It was round with almost none of a comet's usual directionality, as the emitted matter expanded in an apparent sphere. The comet was near opposition (distance opposite the sun from us), so some of that was a consequence of our seeing it head-on.

How it looked through binoculars



With NGC 1499, the diffuse "California Nebula"



A montage of the changing angular size and surface brightness of the comet over about a month



Long-exposure showed the ion tail and the big green dust halo



In this image the two zones are visible, dust around gas



which reminds me of a nuke blast in orbital space ...

 
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BudmanTX

Well-Known Member
Once I had the joy of looking at the summer Galaxy through 10x binoculars from a truly dark site. Under dark skies all the faint tatters and gaps show up that are washed out in even the best photos. I came away with a lasting impression that I was looking at a storm more violent than a hurricane with a volcano in it ... raging more slowly than our firefly consciousness can see. Imagine an enormous hurricane that lasts not days but billions of years ...
i've imagined that many of times.

I started looking at the sky at an early age. Still do to this day, some nights i got out front of my house. Take my stand and lvl it, mount my telescope and sit back listening to Bach or classical on the radio. Have a smoke and relax. For the times i've sat there, it made me realize something, that in reality that all human beings are is this:

35249_ab6fd1c3c53194bfed6a01f4c2270fca_large.jpg

a tiny grain of sand to everything else....
 

BudmanTX

Well-Known Member
sorry man, not beautiful
i know, think i put it there as a shock value more than anything. Anniversary of Chernobyl, and it destructiveness to everything around it. Even though reports have come in that the animals are finally coming back to it. It remind me of the awe of what the atom is and what it can do. I always ask myself a question when i see things like that, what has it inspired my mind to think of: Horror, beauty, silence, maybe a simple demon to humanity, maybe humanity isn't smart enough to harness power like this.....

eh i'm babbling now.......just thinking out loud...
 
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