Skywatch

[Bo D]

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR335U6#a=1

Here is a nice slide show of it....pretty cool 

Those two guys in slide 2 ... using a film negative strip .... they're blind now.

Slide 33 - USING BINOCULARS!!!!! 

[Henry Hawk]

Those two guys in slide 2 ... using a film negative strip .... they're blind now.

Slide 33 - USING BINOCULARS!!!!! 

I wondered about that, it does not seem like a safe way to do it...(the negative strip that is)

[The Troll]

It was too cloudy here.  Saw some cool imagery online though.   How exactly did you project using binoculars?  I don't think I would have thought to try that even if the weather had been clear.

  You can take a piece of card board and put a pin hole in it.  Put it up to the window and darken the room.  Take a piece of white paper or poster and let the light from the pin hole land on the paper.  position the paper back and forward from the pin hole until  a picture of the sun comes into focus.  It work just great on an eclipse the sun one time.  You can all see a picture of the outdoors.  This what they used in old time paintings and taking picture with any camera.   

[Bo D]

  You can take a piece of card board and put a pin hole in it.  Put it up to the window and darken the room.  Take a piece of white paper or poster and let the light from the pin hole land on the paper.  position the paper back and forward from the pin hole until  a picture of the sun comes into focus.  It work just great on an eclipse the sun one time.  You can all see a picture of the outdoors.  This what they used in old time paintings and taking picture with any camera.   

Yeah. That's the first thing I thought about. But trees block the sun on the west side of my house, and as you noted, this only works well in a darkened room.

[Palehorse]

Did anybody watch the Venus transit Tuesday? I used a pair of binoculars to project an image on my garage door. It was way cool! I wanted to take a picture but I couldn't hold the binoculars steady enough to get a decent image.

I've used that method anywhere I was when there was a solar eclipse; but alas I did not do so on Tuesday. . . I was at work. . . 

I actually learned about it in High-school. My earth science teacher was a space-nut and when there was an eclipse one day when we were in school, he took us all outside with about a dozen pair of binoculars and some large boxes. We projected it into the box and it was way cool. I've done it ever since. 

If you have a "spotting scope", (and if you hunt odds are you do), that will work just as well. And they typically come with a tripod. 

[Locutus]

French astrophotographer Thierry Legault captured this view of the Hubble Space Telescope passing over the sun's disk during this week's transit of Venus. The circles highlight the Hubble on multiple exposures taken every tenth of a second during the telescope's 0.9-second transit.

[Locutus]

^^  Way cool!   

I'll bet Olias didn't see the Hubble with his binoculars. 

[Palehorse]

French astrophotographer Thierry Legault captured this view of the Hubble Space Telescope passing over the sun's disk during this week's transit of Venus. The circles highlight the Hubble on multiple exposures taken every tenth of a second during the telescope's 0.9-second transit.

Yet another awesome image! 

[Henry Hawk]

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has encountered a new environment more than 11  billion miles from Earth, suggesting that the venerable probe is on the cusp of  leaving the solar system.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/18/nasa-voyager-1-spacecraft-nears-interstellar-space/#ixzz1yF1o2iWA

[Bo D]

^^  Way cool!   

I'll bet Olias didn't see the Hubble with his binoculars. 

You're right about that!

[libby]

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has encountered a new environment more than 11  billion miles from Earth, suggesting that the venerable probe is on the cusp of  leaving the solar system.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/18/nasa-voyager-1-spacecraft-nears-interstellar-space/#ixzz1yF1o2iWA

That is truly mind-boggling -- everything is built on speculation built on premise, and the only way any of us here will ever know anything more is if we do come back, if we live multiple lives, and someday, in the future .... 

[The Troll]

  Truly amazing.  Venus a planet that is similar in size to earth going across the face of the sun.  It just goes to show us how small we really are in a second rate solar system at the very edge of the Milky Way Galaxy a small galaxy in the endless universe. 

  Just think our past religious leaders thought we were the center of the universe and almost killed Galileo for saying we were not.   

[Locutus]

That is truly mind-boggling -- everything is built on speculation built on premise, and the only way any of us here will ever know anything more is if we do come back, if we live multiple lives, and someday, in the future .... 

I would actually love to be able to come back at some point in the future and see what's in store for the human race, and see if we've progressed beyond some of the Neanderthal thinking that's ingrained into so many people. Hopefully, the future for the human race holds something other than extinction. 

[Bo D]

....... Hopefully, the future for the human race holds something other than extinction.

I'm a bit of a pessimist on that point. I think we have cheated on the laws of evolution to the point where our species in general is in decline. Just look around you.

[Locutus]

I'm a bit of a pessimist on that point. I think we have cheated on the laws of evolution to the point where our species in general is in decline. Just look around you.

Yeah, I agree.  I think Exterminator has alluded to some of those same points in the past somewhere around here. 

We also know that even if we don't off ourselves in the meantime, we're eventually going to have to find a way off of this planet or those that are around at that time are going to have a serious suntan, no drinking water, and no oxygen.