Look Out Of Your Window Now! Astronomical events.

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Venus is now rapidly overtaking the Earth on the inside lane and becoming ever more crescent like. It will present its night side to us in early June. With a halfway decent pair of binoculars you should be able to see the crescent as it approaches conjunction over the next week or so (more or less inline with the Sun so not visible.)
https://www.spaceweather.com/
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
We have a naked eye comet over the next few weeks. Comet Swan, barrelling in from deep, deep space should be visible to the naked eye over the next few weeks. (Comet Atlas has discomnobulated itself and broken up.)
Details HERE
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Thanks to a clear deep blue sky after sunset I was able to see Venus quite clearly, even though it's now only a thin crescent. Moving up and left at about 45 degrees there is Mercury, always a bit tricky to see as it is the closest planet to the Sun. I had to use binoculars at first, but it became completely naked eye visible as it grew darker. And further up on the same track, a thin crescent Moon with the dark side illuminated by earth light !!
Quite a sight.
Venus: the Goddess of Love, but in fact an Earth sized world that is the very definition of hell.
Mercury: messenger of the Gods, a strange little world blasted by the Sun. An iron ball that may have been the core of a much larger world at one time.
The Moon, the US is talking about a manned landing in 2024 .. not that far away. That should be something to see with modern cameras.
 

The Hawk

Well-Known Forumite
Thanks to a clear deep blue sky after sunset I was able to see Venus quite clearly, even though it's now only a thin crescent. Moving up and left at about 45 degrees there is Mercury, always a bit tricky to see as it is the closest planet to the Sun. I had to use binoculars at first, but it became completely naked eye visible as it grew darker. And further up on the same track, a thin crescent Moon with the dark side illuminated by earth light !!
Quite a sight.
Venus: the Goddess of Love, but in fact an Earth sized world that is the very definition of hell.
Mercury: messenger of the Gods, a strange little world blasted by the Sun. An iron ball that may have been the core of a much larger world at one time.
The Moon, the US is talking about a manned landing in 2024 .. not that far away. That should be something to see with modern cameras.
Had a good look at Mercury a few nights ago; probably as good a view as I've ever had, apart from during a total solar eclipse.

Also been watching the very bright ISS passes, one or two supply ships and countless satellites (most, but not all, being the Starlink trains).

Tomorrow, at 21:33 BST (20:33 UTC) the Space X Falcon, carrying the Crew Dragon with two astronauts, launches from Cape Canaveral and shortly afterwards (probably around 21:50/21:55 ish) it should be visible as it passes over the UK in a roughly west to east direction.

The launch will be live on the internet (NASA TV etc.), so watch the launch, then wander outside to see it go over. Oh, and remember to wave to astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken; I'm sure they'll wave back.
 

The Hawk

Well-Known Forumite
Tonight's timings:

The launch is scheduled for 20:22 BST and you will be able to watch it on NASA TV.

The first pass over the UK will be at 20:43. Unfortunately, as this is before sunset, it is very unlikely that it will be visible from the UK. If you want to give it a go, look south/south-west.

The second pass will be at 22:16 and should be visible, providing you have an unobstructed view towards the south/south-west. It's going to be low down on this pass, unfortunately, rising to 12 degrees at maximum.

Finally, we have another touch and go launch, weather wise, and if this one is aborted, then we move on to tomorrow when, I understand viewing conditions may be more favourable from the UK.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
The first stage landed autonomously on the recovery drone ship 'Of Course I Love You.' (I have to say I'm glad I didn't have to say that name over the air back in the day ... :teef:)

Those drone ships perform a spectacular job of recovering major parts of the launch spacecraft. The names have been drawn from the 'Culture' books of Scottish science fiction writer Ian M. Banks, who had wonderful names for his ships (which were all actually sentient AI's who chose their own names.) I've read the entire series and lament that Mr Banks died so young for there had to be more of those books coming out of his imagination which was mind boggling.

Anyway nice one lads. Looked like engineering perfection. :)
 

Perrier

Banned
It was amazing to see .
just hope we can see it go over around 22.16 .
The ISS should pass over first then around 15 mins later dragon will be chasing it .

Ive a 300x telephoto lens on my canon camera , wonder if it would be worth trying to grab a shot ?
 

littleme

250,000th poster!
Rip Challenger Crew, today 1986

IMG_20200530_211809.jpg
 

The Hawk

Well-Known Forumite
It was amazing to see .
just hope we can see it go over around 22.16 .
The ISS should pass over first then around 15 mins later dragon will be chasing it .

Ive a 300x telephoto lens on my canon camera , wonder if it would be worth trying to grab a shot ?
According to my info, it's the ISS passing at a medium height between 22:11 and 22:16, followed by the Crew Dragon, very low down, between 22:16 and 22:18.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
What I found interesting was the displays presented to the astronauts. Couldn't help but think of Stanley Kubrick and his HAL9000 displays which he insisted at great cost had to be flat screen displays (no such animal back then) which meant animated back projections for each screen.

He wasn't far off the mark although the 'touch screen' idea hadn't been anticipated.
 

The Hawk

Well-Known Forumite
What I found interesting was the displays presented to the astronauts. Couldn't help but think of Stanley Kubrick and his HAL9000 displays which he insisted at great cost had to be flat screen displays (no such animal back then) which meant animated back projections for each screen.

He wasn't far off the mark although the 'touch screen' idea hadn't been anticipated.
A lot of science fiction is just scientists thinking ahead. As the great Carl Sagan said:
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
I got the ISS, that was easy. Very bright and about 40 degrees elevation. Didn't see the Dragon though, my view to the southwest isn't good at low elevations.
 
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