By Jove! Jupiter to make closest approach to Earth in 70 years next Monday Next Monday, September 26, Jupiter will be the closest to Earth it has been for in 70 years. At its furthest, the planet is around 965.5 million kilometers (600 million miles) from Earth. Next Monday day, it will be approximately 587 million kilometers (365 million miles) away, thanks to both Earth and Jupiter’s positions in …
Yes, it's just you. Give me a good apo for planetary any day. And a Dob is completely useless for photography. Or anything else really - they give you cheap aperture and nothing more. For casual visual observation they're fine but if you want to take measurements or put numbers on things you're much better off with some other form of mount.
Personally I much prefer the eyes on Visual aspect of using a scope (for which Dobs are fine).
I see loads of others spending mega bucks of Astro Photography kit, letting the thing run on it's own for hours (whilst asleep in some cases!), then spending hours on a computer stacking pictures, to produce a picture which is never going to match those produced by Hubble or the JWT.
Each to there own I guess.
Harken! Has my Dob-troll detector gone off?
A $5000 APO and a massive equatorial is great but, for the average Joe who couldn't give a jot about "measurements or put numbers on things", dobs are quick, easy to use and cheap to transport to a dark sky site to enjoy great views.
Harken! Has my Dob-troll detector gone off?
I suspect mine went off first. The anti-Dob sentiment isn't that they're intrinsically crap, just limited. However the Dob lovers tend to insist they're the only game in town.
As here for instance. If planetary viewing is the game you want clear, unobstructed aperture. That makes any Newt among the worst options, the spider inevitably scatters light and cuts contrast. A cat such as an SCT works a lot better, a well corrected refractor better still. It's the kind of job where the Dob lovers insist visual sightings of things like the great red spot or Cassini division are somehow out of reach for an amateur astronomer. It's complete crap.
As for the numbers I suppose that's a personality thing. I find mere "Oh look that's pretty" gets dull as ditchwater after a while. "How bright is that star?" "What's the separation of that double?", "Can I get a parallax measurement?” or even "Can I get there by coordinates instead of attempting to star hop in these NELM 3 skies?” preferable.
I've got an old 6" F8 equatorial with SILVER graduations on the ring (made by Carver - grade A mirror - nothing better available in the late 19th C) with the bomb aimer from a Junkers to drive the equatorial mount but I cant pop it in the car boot to drive to the top of the lane when the mist fills the valley round the house. I could get a drive for it that allows it to do equatorial stuff but I've got bad lungs and dont spend the sort of time looking at stuff that needs an equatorial mount and there is no fucking way I can take pictures that match anything available on line courtesy NASA and two million others. Its also got a computer drive thingy on it which can find any thing in the sky, and several things under the earth, at the touch of several buttons. I can see more in 10 minutes with it than several hours freezing my tits off as I did with great pleasure with my old grandad who worked with Moor mapping the moon and many equally cold nights with my dad.
I think the old Carver scope actually gives better images than the Dobsonian - it doesnt need resetting every time you use it, but the Dobsonian with GoPro (IIRC) is a lot more fun for having a look around for an hour or two before you freeze to death. OK you cant really look at the moon with it without going blind but I'd got me grandads and moores maps!
I was walking outside this morning and looked at the sky and saw what I thought was a massive star but then I realized it was Jupiter! I love looking at the moon and the stars every evening, or early morning, and thinking about how our ancestors thousands of years ago would have detected the solar system organization.
with Jupiter in direct opposition, looks like "around midnight" would be the best (on average) viewing time. or 1AM with daylight savings time applied. I have a terrible view towards the east, though, but very clear looking west, so maybe 4 AM for me looking west (so it would be lower in the sky, and I won't fall over trying to look up with binoculars).
For those with a nice clear view of sunrise, I would imagine 10 PM would work well.
Song "I Can See For Miles" from The Who should be playing in the background reading this article.
And how many times would you have to loop "I Would Walk 500 Miles" by Kenny and the Scots before you get to 365 million miles?
Also, does this maybe explain the increase in insanity of the world? All those Jovian moons beaming bozo rays at people that are about 2X as strong based on the relative distances of Jupiter at its closest and furthest points?
all comedy aside, the planets exert tidal forces on the sun. The sun is a nuclear reactor and density is a factor in fusion rate. Even a minute alteration of density could change reactivity enough that the fusion rate is altered in a noticeable way, related directly to the positions of the planets relative to the earth, especially large ones like Jupiter. (this would affect the sun's output that is heading towards earth according to the relative planetary positions, rate of motion, and a few other physics things). Throw in the gravity well of the galactic baricenter and that of the universe, and it might explain a lot...
Thinking about that, maybe there is at least a *teensy* bit of truth in the whole astrology thing, minus the wackier mythology.
bombastic bob: "Thinking about that, maybe there is at least a *teensy* bit of truth in the whole astrology thing, minus the wackier mythology."
The time of year you are born determines the weather you initially experience, whether you are taken for long strolls in the summer sunshine, or kept in away from winter storms. Also the pollen count, respiratory diseases etc. that you encounter in your first few months of life. If born in Autumn, at the start of the academic year (September to December/January) you are physically and emotionally much more advanced than those born in August, but put into the same academic year group. (A child born in September has 11 months more development than one born in August, about 23%.) A potentially significant advantage at school, in forming friendships, physical education / games etc.
In his book 'Life Time', (ISBN 978-0-241-52930-0) Russell Foster states that the circadian rhythm determines a great deal about how our bodies respond to stimuli over the day. Red blood cells are made overnight and released in the morning, some drugs are better absorbed at different times of day, the immune system is most active in the morning. Most babies, if I recall correctly, are born in the early morning.
So, birth time of year and time of day can have a potentially significant effect on your life. (But I doubt the positions of Jupiter, Mars or Venus in the sky are at all important.)
If born in Autumn, at the start of the academic year (September to December/January) you are physically and emotionally much more advanced than those born in August, but put into the same academic year group.
I was born in late autumn but started school early, so I was younger than nearly all of my academic cohort, but I did just fine, thanks. Indeed, better than 95-99% of my peers, depending on the subject and how much credence you give standardized tests.1 Anecdote, certainly, but I have to say I'm not particularly persuaded by this argument.
(And, of course, September through November2 are autumn only in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere.)
1I don't give them much, personally; I think they're a lot more effective at evaluating test-taking skills than evaluating subject-matter knowledge or cognitive abilities.
2I don't hold with this nonsense about declaring the seasons "officially" changing on the equinoxes and solstices. Seasons are climactic, not a function of the calendar or of the length of the day. And meteorologically, in the US at least, the weather patterns associated with the seasons map better to the whole months – winter being December through February, spring March through May, and so forth – than to the mid-month solstices and equinoxes.
Surface gravity on the sun: 28g (fsvo "surface"
Surface gravity on Jupiter: 2.5g (ditto)
Radius of Jupiter: 70,000 km
Distance from Jupiter to Sun: 740,000,000 km
Gravitational effect of Jupiter at Sun's surface: 2.5 * (70,000/740,000,000)^2 = 0.000000022g
Ditto, as proportion of Sun's own gravitational field: 0.00000008%
Yeah. That'll make a huge difference. Astrology is bollocks.
Coinciding with this moment is a phenomenon called “opposition” that means Jupiter will not just be close to Earth, but ready for a close-up
It's not really a coincidence, opposition is precisely when you would expect the closest approach of any of the superior planets. Sure, eccentricity of orbits can separate the two slightly but the effect is minor, especially when talking of an unusually close approach.
apparently Jupiter is close to its apogee, and to some extent, Earth to its perigee, which would make us even closer than for most oppositions.
According to one source, Jupiter's apogee (closest to the sun) is in January next year.
Earth is furthest from the sun (perigee) in July of every year.
Do the maths a bit and it puts us at a pretty ideal closeness to Jupiter.
1. Jupiter is the very bright "star" currently visible in the east / south east sky in late evening, say 9pm - midnight. (It's still visible of the rest of the night, of course, but I assume most here are tucked up in bed dreaming of optimised data sharding strategies or router configurations at that time of night.)
2. The amateur pic does indeed show the what can be achieved with a relatively high-end hobbiest telescope these days, but the levels of light pollution, airborne dust and of course clouds and haze gave a huge effect. You won't get an image like that from a back garden in a huilt-up area, no matter how expensive your gear :)
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