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Old 01-02-2012, 11:42 PM
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Peter Ward
Galaxy hitchhiking guide

Peter Ward is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: The Shire
Posts: 8,446
Quote:
Originally Posted by mithrandir View Post
.........You might ask Peter Ward for his observations..........
You might

I've seen way too many stars ( and sun-rises ) in the one night

The rather thick triplex laminated screens we have up front does not help, but the limiting magnitude on a dark night is easily 6.5.

Also, stars (more than about 5 degrees above the horizon) don't twinkle at altitude.

Meteoric activity is very easy to spot, and I am sure I've seen more than one cosmic ray light up my retina (they look like faint, star-like flashes )

The coolest sight I have seen at night are blue jets that flash toward the zenith at the top of extremely active thunderstorms....very rare...(youtube link here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xVThAFfP0E ) .... I should try to photograph it with a decent camera before I retire.

Attached is a point-and-shoot image of Orion I took somewhere over Europe.
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Last edited by Peter Ward; 02-02-2012 at 05:28 AM. Reason: typo
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