Betty's Pub 20.1
Main Menu => BETTY PEARL'S PUB FOR SISSIES => Topic started by: Sisiam on July 16, 2015, 08:02:54 AM
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Thank you for the enhanced pictures, Betty.
You certainly make a picture worth more than a thousand words!
http://unclegadget.com/pski/index.php/topic,55.0.html
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Thank you. I'm surprised anybody here noticed. Most are so anti-science these days. Even on my facebook page, it's rare anybody clicks on, reads, or shares a science post except for my sister, & 1 old friend.
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Oh, here are the originals before I processed them. Nothing was added to them. I just sharpened them, removed image/ electronic noise from them, & pushed my edge sensing technology to the limit to see more details.
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The second one didn't come out as good. I rushed it because the original was so crappy & uninteresting, thinking a better one would come out soon. I didn't know it would be well over 24 hours before they released another picture.
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Here we go. I spent a little more time on it this time. Less enhanced color, but more detail.
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I myself can't seem to log-in on that site. I'd love to do some chatting over there.
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Hmmm. I'll check it out.
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I just tried to register there under a different name, email, through a different ISP so it didn't know it was me. It worked without a problem. I see no record of anyone registering there recently.
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I see no record of the ISP you used here visiting there within the past 24 hours. Did you visit there through a VPN or proxy? Some of them are used by a lot of spammers & hackers. If the board detected an untrustworthy VPN, proxy, or ISP it could prevent you from registering.
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Server problems there this weekend (server #3). So I haven't added anything there, & been too busy working on the problems to post anything at Betty's. Big headache!
Server #3 is not with the same company we get our 2 hybrid servers from for here & stories. Last fall, when the hybrid server had system-wide failures, I thought it would be a good idea to keep the third server with another company & start a back-up board there. It's a dedicated server, dirt cheap because it's a small one, probably running on an older computer & drives. So it's not powerful enough to handle the traffic we get here or at stories on a busy day.
When we get busy here & at stories, or have increased spam & hack attempts, server #3 serves a lot of our larger files, security , & other stuff to lighten the load on our hybrid servers. If server #3 is down or has problems, when we get busy or have extra spam/attack attempts, I have to set 1 or both the boards to "members only" views to lighten the load on them. With no or very little access to the boards by non-members, the hybrid servers handle everything well without server #3 when we're real busy.
Severs become good, then bad, sloppy, or greedy all the time. If you look at the top best server reviews from just a year or 2 ago, you'd find many of them today are rated as some of the worst, with an almost entirely new list of servers making the top 10.
Just like antivirus software, one doesn't look for the top rated ones, because in a year or so that changes. One looks for the server or antivirus that's the most consistent over the past few years at a good price.
This is another reason why sometimes we move our sites. Sometimes things go sour, & we have to go somewhere else. By also making a new or different domain or address for the sites, we also shake off a lot of the spammers, bots, & hackers for a while too. It's harder for them to follow us to a new address than a regular user. And just like your home computer, every year or so, it's good to do a clean install of everything to get rid of a lot of accumulated junk, corrupt or damaged files, & scraps of old software left behind loitering on the system, taking up space, & slowing things down.
So I may be moving server #3 or juggling around servers soon. Working on a deal because I can't afford what we already have. I don't make enough at my job, & we still don't get enough donations to afford big-ass dedicated servers for both sites. I do not want all my sites on 1 big server in case there's a problem. I like to spread it out over several servers so we're never 100% down when something goes wrong.
So for now, we can temorily live without server #3.
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Problem solved. I started out by first moving the stories massive amount of files & database to a brand new clean server & domain. On my slow DSL connection, & even slower upload speed it was a long task, & as usual, many files didn't download to my machine & upload to the new server without errors, data loss, & corruptions. So I had to do it over & over again for the whole thing a few times, then do over again for many selected files & folders. I also had to write tons the directory & referral paths to direct the right scripts & folders to each other, the new server, domain, & databases.
So stories is now at PearlCorona.com.
Phase 2. Except for a functioning backup/archive of stories, I wiped clean the entire server at BuffaloBetties.com. Then I repeated the same task I did to move stories, to move this place here to BuffaloBetties.com. The stories stored here, are not my regular backups, but a functioning preserved state of exactly what it was when I took it offline. Regular backups of the sites in case of failures & repair, get stored at home.
Phase 3. Except for a functioning backup/archive of the main board, I wiped clean the entire server for UncleGadget.com. I moved the backup site, 5dot4.com, that was currently serving PSK Research, security, & large files served for here, & at stories onto the UncleGadget.com server. It's now our new server #3. I canceled my account for our old server #3 for 5dot4.com, & the domain. Board #3 is now at http://unclegadget.com/psk
Board #3 won't be our backup board in case of failures anymore. The copy of the main board I preserved there will be activated as our back-up board if we have a system failure.
Mission Accomplished! I've been up for 45 hours!
Phase 4. I'll have to polish over & tweak a few things here & there. The interface from server #3 to the other servers is a little slower than it should be, so needs some tweaking & streamlining. But that will have to be done much later, because I'm totally exhausted. I've been working on, fixing, moving, & testing sites since Thursday, with very little sleep in between. Soooo tired.
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Well as usual you have done your thing to ensure your site operates fully and efficiently and we love you for it. Thank you for all the hard work and long hours.
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Thanks. Wound up not going to sleep until 4pm. So now my sleep cycle/bio cycle will be way screwed up for a few days. But I'm used to staying up late a lot lately, & catching a nap just before or after dinner to make up for it theses days.
So I guess it's business as usual again until more shyt happens... life is always full of obstacles.
Getting tired of official releases of new Pluto images at a rate of only1 or 2 pictures every 3-5 days, so I dug up non-official releases of images not available on most public sites.
The site: http://unclegadget.com/psk Pluto: http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=55
Please note, that due to server failures, I've switched PSK Research to another server, & put it on my UncleGadget.com domain this week for it, so it has a new address. Delete your bookmarks of our old 5dot4.com address because it will no long exist, & bookmark the new address.
Enjoy!
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They released more images of the comet from the Rosetta space probe. The newest images start on page 9 of the probe & continue through page 12.
Enjoy!
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=26.40
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I added some more cool images of Pluto, super enhanced by me & my own unique software. The newest images begin at the bottom of page 5 of the thread, & continue through to page 7 there. Enjoy, Astro Fans!
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=26
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Perseid & Aquarid Meteor Shower in Early August
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=58
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Pretty nice pics Betty, I always looked at the stars as a young boy from a hill over a nearby lake but as the city grew there were more lights to make it harder to see anything clear enough and I lost interest. I do sit out at night when we travel up north as it is always an impressive show in the northern skies.
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Yep, you gotta get far away from cities, towns, & civilization these days to see more than a few dozen stars. In my dimmer area of the city, I'm lucky to see much more than a dozen stars on a clear night. As a kid in the city, I'd see hundreds, & in the country just 40 miles west, thousands. Now the skies in that spot in the country are overwashed with the orange/pink glows of the town lights 10 miles away.
The only place I've seen skies as dark & full of stars like when I was a kid, is halfway across the state & way down by the NY/Penn border. It's in the middle of the wilderness many miles from even very tiny towns.
I find a simple set of $40-$50 7x50 binoculars brighten up & sharpen the stars enough in the city to be almost like the sky was years ago... although through binoculars, it's only a narrow view at a time. I don't recommend above 10x (like 10x50) or higher powers for simple hand-held binocular astronomy. Your hand can't keep the the view steady enough to enjoy casual stargazing at higher powers. Bigger heavier ones also are difficult to hold up for a long time. In binocular astronomy it's not about higher power, but boosting the light, sharpening the images, & bringing out more colors. Unlike telescopes, you have 2 image sensors (your eyes) to resolve the images, & twice the processing power (your brain is used to processing both eyes), so it gives you more a view & feeling like you're almost like out there.
Most lower power binoculars, esp. 7x50 & 10x50 offer a wide field of view, so you're seeing a larger portion of the sky through them. They also offer what called a longer "exit pupil". That's the distance you can hold them away from your eyes & still get a full view. If you're a glasses wearer you'll want a long "exit pupil" so you can still see through them well while wearing glasses. However, if your eyes aren't too bad, binoculars have enough focus range, to adjust the focus to compensate for your eyes without the glasses, but when you hand them to someone else to view, they'll have to re-focus them for their eyes. But it only takes a couple seconds.
If you have a very steady hand, & learn some tricks to prop yourself or the binoculars against to keep the view steady & not jitter, you may be able to get away with 10x50 binoculars. But 7x50 is best for just scanning stars & enjoying the colors. Stars all different colors & shades through binoculars. Anything less than 7x50 will be disappointing though, esp. near towns & cities. Even something easily viewed with the naked eye, the Pleiades, look totally dazzling through simple binoculars.
If you don't mind spending more they make some nice 20x70 & 20x80 giant binoculars that are fantastic for stargazing, with a marvolous view. You can even see some nebulae, galaxies, & star clusters with them. They can be found on sale for under $200 sometimes. But you will need a tripod to use them. Don't expect spectacular big views of the moon, Jupiter or Saturn though. They're best for stars. Avoid binoculars with zoom features, they tend to distort or blur the image for astronomy use.
People often ask what is the best scope to get. Your best one will be the one you use the most. A giant monster you had to save up for, that's too bulky to lug around much, takes too long to set up won't be your best if you hardly use it, or had to live without it long until you saved up enough for it. 7x50 binoculars can be kept in your glove compartment, backpack, side pack, briefcase, or tool box. Even those 20x70 & 20x80 binoculars, with a cheap collapsible $18 camera tripod can fit in a backpack with plenty of room to spare. Anyone can easily carry 20x80 binoculars mounted on a tripod with 1 hand.
You can see of the map of the world's lights at night below why all the stars & the milky way are missing.
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I should also note that using lower binoculars inside through a window when it's too cold outside to look at the stars, will show much less distortion caused by the window glass, screen, or specs of dirt on the glass. So if you're looking a birds, wildlife, or stars through a closed window. Low powered binoculars are better. In 7x50, 7x is the power, & 50mm is the main lens diameter. For the best image, less distortion through glass or screens, & brighter more colorful images of faint objects, don't go smaller than 50mm. Larger main lenses are more important than high magnification.
Avoid those binoculars with gold or ruby tinted lenses. They're terrible. They're just a gimmick that look cool to mask the fact they're selling you bad optics. Nobody who makes good binocular & telescope optics tints them.
$28 http://www.telescope.com/Binoculars/Standard-Size-Binoculars/Meade-TravelView-7x50-Binoculars/pc/-1/c/5/sc/67/p/113706.uts
$45 http://www.telescope.com/Binoculars/Standard-Size-Binoculars/Pentax-10x50-WA-Binoculars/pc/-1/c/5/sc/67/p/114003.uts
$56 http://www.telescope.com/Binoculars/Astronomy-Binoculars/Orion-10x50-Binocular-Stargazing-Kit/pc/-1/c/5/sc/72/p/101453.uts
$100 Tripod required http://www.telescope.com/Binoculars/Astronomy-Binoculars/Celestron-SkyMaster-25-X-70-Binoculars/pc/-1/c/5/sc/72/p/9172.uts
$111 Tripod required (best) http://www.telescope.com/Binoculars/Astronomy-Binoculars/Orion-20x80-Astronomy-Binoculars/pc/-1/c/5/sc/72/p/99638.uts
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BTW, camera & old video camera tripods will fit big binoculars (20x70 - 30x100). Do not buy a telescope tripod, the mounting is different.
More from another store
$27 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Meade-7x50mm-TravelView-Binoculars/40626575
$30 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Meade-10x50mm-TravelView-Binoculars/40880829
$94 Tripod required http://www.walmart.com/ip/Barska-20x80-X-Trail-Binoculars-with-Tripod-Adaptor/30224602
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These are the only small, lightweight portable "fuss free" cheaper telescopes that are worth the bother. Any fair useful telescope isn't cheap. Binocular astronomy is a lot cheaper, being more casual & recreational than scientific. If you're gonna waste your money on a cheap kid's "toy" beginner scope, you might as well just save the money & get some good binoculars. I didn't list any reflector telescopes because most of them are bulkier, require too much maintenance, regular cleaning & other "fuss". If you're already a hard-core pro-astro hobbyist, you won't need this list anyway.
$150 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Celestron-PowerSeeker-80EQ-Telescope-BRAND-NEW/45744826
$190 http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes-with-Altazimuth-Mounts/Meade-Infinity-80mm-Altazimuth-Refractor-Telescope/pc/1/c/10/sc/334/p/113688.uts
$220 http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes-with-Altazimuth-Mounts/Meade-Infinity-90mm-Altazimuth-Refractor-Telescope/pc/1/c/10/sc/334/p/113689.uts
$250 http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes-with-Altazimuth-Mounts/Meade-Infinity-102mm-Altazimuth-Refractor-Telescope/pc/1/c/10/sc/334/p/113690.uts
$290 http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes-for-Beginners/Orion-StarBlast-90mm-AZ-Telescope-amp-Beginner-Barlow-Kit/pc/1/c/10/sc/331/p/106874.uts
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I have several pairs of Binoculars and two tripods that I have been using for years to bird watch and look at the stars also. I inherited two very good pairs when my father passed away as the head of the family and the only one who bothered with this kind of thing.
I have been reading lately about how Earth will run out of water and other resources in the future and perhaps other planets and asteroids may hold the key to our survival. What if we found a Planet where everybody only wore dresses. Would it be so exciting to us anymore or would we just love it all the more knowing we could do it all the time?
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I think humans would be extinct or would have evolved into something else long before the earth runs out of water. However, if we're not careful, we may run out of clean, safe water. We already have & use technology to make our drinking water safe. Most of our drinking water goes to a processing plant & treated before for we drink it.
But nature, wildlife, & the food chain doesn't have that advantage. So once nature looses clean, safe water, we starve. And plants clean CO2 from the air to make oxygen. If the plants don't have enough clean safe water, we loose our breathable atmosphere too.
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I found a stereo picture of Pluto this week. It looks like two images of Pluto, but one is a single frame, whereas the other is a mosaic that is pieced together. If you merge the two images by crossing your eyes, you will get a stereo 3D image. I found the 3D image interesting, but I thought it appeared much too oblong, shaped more like a watermelon on edge rather than a sphere. I suspect this has to do with the different distances the two images were taken.
You can find the images and explanation here: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150806.html
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I can't cross my eyes enough to do it. It hurts my eyes to do it much. I can't do it at all without focusing on a finger close to my nose - which blurs the image. I'm currently using the 32" LCD/LED I rebuilt that I got broken almost for free.
Does it work better on a smaller screen? I have a 26" I got free & fixed, my original 23" monitor I bought before I got laid off, my 15" laptop, & a small used free 1995 ibook that I restored (I got as broken machine for parts, but got it running instead).
It's ironic now that I can't afford to buy them, my monitor size & quality has grown a lot because I get them almost for free broken, & managed to fix them cheap enough (parts cost).
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Yes, a smaller picture would mean you don't have to work as hard to cross your eyes. You can go with a smaller monitor, step further away from the monitor so the images appear closer, or scale the picture to a smaller size. Of course, that would reduce the resolution, so I would only choose it as a last resort.
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I tried scaling down & switching to the 26". Still could get it to work. And if I cross my eyes my vision still blurs too much to see any detail.
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I enhanced some more new pictures of Ceres, including the "strange" lights. Not so strange anymore in these newest images. The newest images start on second image at page 11 of the thread, & continues on page 12. Enjoy Astro-Fans!
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=37.50
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Did you watch the Perseid meteor shower on Wednesday night Betty? I was lucky enough to be up north in Owen Sound on Georgian Bay and just after midnight the meteor show was pretty amazing due in fact to there not being many city lights where I was staying. It lasted until about four in the morning and then it started to get light but I was surprised to see many small planes flying around all night perhaps trying to get some amazing photo's. I watched until about 2 AM and then went to bed but got up twice to pee ( old age) and the show was still going on. I have seen a couple of comets and some meteors in my lifetime but this show was the best.
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In my area I'm surrounded by tall old trees, & 3 story very tall former mansions, built in the day when every floor had 12-15 foot ceilings - they're as tall as 4-story buildings. So I don't have much open sky space around here. I sat at the side entrance on the steps for a while where I have the most view of the sky for a a while. I saw a few from there in my city location. But I don't breathe good in unfiltered, damp, dirty city air, so had to go inside after a while.
Inside, my windows face the wrong direction, & a lot of the view or the sky is blocked big trees, & buildings. But while I was making coffee last night, I shut off the lights to look out the kitchen window for meteors. Within a minute of shutting off the light I saw a rather bright orange one that lasted a couple seconds. So I sat there at the window in the dark sipping my coffee watching for another, but didn't see any more from there.
I saw a mouse scamper under the dumpster to our building in the back while watching. About 15 minutes later I saw a stray cat wander back there, so I don't think the mouse survived the night.
I'm hearing thunder getting closer, so there won't be any meteor viewing for me tonight.
Strong lightning between me & Lockport, Niagara Falls, or Toronto can knock out my DSL internet connection too. The Verizon DSL main hubs I usually connect to are in one of those towns. So line noise caused by lightning between them shut's it down.
Oddly, because Betty's is on akamai hybrid clouds servers, We see Betty's on an Akamai server right here in Buffalo. What's we're veiwing in this area is a cached version of Betty's updated from the original servers every few seconds on akamai servers right here in my town.
So currently I'm connected to Lockport, who connects to Toronto, just to connect to Akamai only a few miles away to view Betty's. But Betty's is actually originating 3,000 miles away. However, if someone lives closer to Toronto or NYC, they're viewing a cached version of Betty's on an Akamai server in their town. We don't notice it's a cached version because it updates the cache every few seconds, or every time something changes at the site (like when somebody posts).
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Got some more comet pictures from the Rosetta probe. Most of them are true color HD images this time, & there's LOTS of them. The newest images start near the bottom of page 13 of the thread, & continue onto page 17. Enjoy astro fans!
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=26.60
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Put some more new pictures of Ceres up. No more pix of the strange white spots anymore. Typical of NASA - They skip over the coolest, most important stuff, or just never release it to the public.
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=37.60
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They released some more new Pluto images. Some of them are the same ones we saw before, but these are higher resolution versions with much better detail, & there's a few more true color pictures.
Many of them at the NASA site don't look much better than my previously posted pix because I enhanced their lower resolution ones using my own homemade software & techniques. Using those same techniques on these higher resolution images gives us an opportunity to zoom in even closer.
The newest images start on page 8 of the thread, & continue onto page 13, including Pluto's moons. So don't forget to click on the next pages to see all of them. For those who missed it, check out the previous pages of the thread too.
Enjoy Astro fans!
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=55.35
Teaser:
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There's a lunar eclipse tonight visible in Western Europe & the American continents. Also the moon will be a supermoon tonight. That's where the moon is extra large & extra bright because it's orbit brings it a little closer to Earth.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/23/world/supermoon-eclipse-irpt/
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Looking forward to the Blood Moon Eclipse tonight. I quite often look to the night sky when out of the city so I can view the wonders of the heavens. I have often done this since I was about 10 or 11 and was pretty sure I saw a UFO back in the 60's.
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They've release some higher resolution full color images of Pluto's moon, Charon last week. I enhanced them to show more detail.
Enjoy astro fans!
Go to, http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=55.65
Teaser:
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WOW that is an amazing image, thanks for the post Betty.
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I never did get to see the Blood moon or the Eclipse as it was very cloudy that night almost until it was over. I saw just a small shadow at about 2:30 AM and then it was gone. Pretty sure I won't be around for the next one.
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Yeah I saw some clouds so didn't bother either. None of my windows face that way so if there was a brief break in the clouds I wouldn't see it from my place unless I went outside to the other side of the building.
Although I'm certain they've taken tons of pictures or Ceres over the past month, they only released just 1, & it looks like just a slightly higher resolution of a previous one, so I enhanced & posted it.
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=37.65
Scroll down to the last 2 images in the thread.
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I also just put up the newest comet images from Rosetta - - enhanced of course. Not nearly as fun as the previous true color pix though. The newest images start the bottom of the thread (page 17), & continue on page 18.
Go to http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=26.80
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They're calling him the most famous astronaut in the world. Huh? Although I keep up with space & science I hardly heard of him until his music video became famous this week - - which was recorded over 2 years ago, but only now started spreading around the social media. When I think of the most famous astronauts, I think of the first ones in space, or to the moon, not who made a music video. They say it was recorded in space, but because there is no piano in space yet, & I hear piano in the video, a lot of it was not recorded in space. All or most of the soundtrack was obviously recorded & mixed on earth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo
From the looks of the video it appears he lip-synced the song, & the music was dubbed into the video later. Analysis of the audio shows no sound of air circulation & machinery cooling fans in the background that would have been present if any of the audio was recorded anywhere on the station in high quality audio. I don't believe there is even a microphone on-board capable of the quality of the vocals in the recording. It may be his voice, but it was recorded on earth, & lip-synced in space.
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He was at one of our schools two weeks ago playing for the kids and showing his photo's. An amazing guy for sure and certainly more personable than any other astronaut. He sat down with the kids and explained about weightlessness and what it is like living in the space station etc. He comes across as your next door neighbor and chats and jokes like he has known you for years. Wonderful example for the kids.
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They released some more pictures of Pluto. They're supposed to be higher resolution versions of previously released images, but compared to my previously enhanced pictures, they don't look much better. So I enhanced them using my own techniques, & unique homemade imaging software to bring out more detail. The newest ones start about halfway down on page 11, & continue on page 12 of the thread. Be sure to see the previous images there if you haven't yet. You won't see clearer more detailed images anywhere else, thanks to my own exclusive enhancements.
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=55.70
Enjoy Astro Fans!
Spoiler:
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Just added the best of the enhanced Cassini space Probe pictures. It's 6 pages long so don't forget to check out all the pages on the thread. Enjoy Astro Fans!
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php/topic,64.0.html
Teaser:
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Hey Betty, I got a good look at the three planets lined up on Friday morning at 5 AM. Venus, Mars and Jupiter were all in align for a few hours and with binoculars I could see Jupiter's rings. They will not be close up like that again until 2020 so I am glad it was a clear morning.
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You mean Jupiter's moons. If the moons are close to the planets edge they may seem like part of a ring system. Although Jupiter has a very faint ring, it was only visible to the Voyager spacecraft, & can't be seen with telescopes on earth. I don't believe that even the Hubble telescope was able to see it. Cassini didn't see it passing by on it's way to Saturn.
Saturn is barely visible with binoculars briefly just after sunset very low in the southwest before it sets below the horizon. I don't know if its moons would be visible in the glare of the sunset sky, but you should barely see its rings through 7x50 or better binoculars & even small scopes. Don't confuse it with orange Antares nearby twinkling to it's left.
There will be many alignents before 2020, just not these 3, this close, that will last almost a week. They were even closer this morning but I missed it because all my windows face north. I believe there will be alignments with Saturn & a couple planets within a year.
7x50 to 10x50 don't really blow things up that much, but brighten up & sharpen up stuff in the sky a lot. You get a veiw through them like you would of the sky 50 years ago far from the glare & wash-out of city lights. Even in the country these days, civilization's electric lights drown out the high contrast view of the sky & it's many stars. Simple hand-held binoculars restore that view a little.
Because they brighten objects in the night sky, they also bring out the colors more. Unlike the sci-fi movies that show all the stars as white dots, most stars are various shades of blue, yellow, orange, or red & very colorful. Very few stars are actually pure white. It's only a brief time in a star's life when it's pure white as it transitions from a young blue star to a yellow middle aged star.
Binoculars also are very portable, can be easily carried around, or left in the car or backpack. But anything above 10x50 needs a tripod because it's too hard to hold the view steady at higher magnifications. Even at 10x50 I find it difficult to get a steady veiw unless I prop myself or the binoculars against something. My favorite are 7x50 because they're easier to hold steady & offer a very wide bright field of view. You can see a wide angle of stuff through them rather than looking like you're viewing the sky through a tiny narrow tube.
They're also handy for daytime use, to see distance scenes, nature, birds, other wildlife, or people.
One can get a good set on sale for under $45. Avoid ones with gold or ruby tinted lenses. They're a sales gimmick & will actually make the view worse. They're usually tinted to hide the poor inferior optics. Also zoom binoculars don't work well for astronomy because they distort & dim the image too much.
I have a set of huge 20x80 binoculars I rebuilt after the fire, but they'll never be as good as before the fire anymore. Something that size is absolutely impossible to use without a tripod, but a simple camera tripod will work as long as it will handle the weight. They offer a much wider field of view than a telescope but not as wide as 7x50 ones. Sometimes it's not about magnification or science, but just getting dazzling wide views of the sky.
I was fortunate my 20 year old 7x50 Pentax binaculars were in my downtown office during the fire so weren't damaged. It's showing its age after years of hiking, biking, & camping, but still offers an incredibly sharp clear bright image of the sky. I tested almost a dozen of them before I decided on buying them.
They're my most used binoculars.
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Orion is near the eastern horizon around 9pm. High above Orion is orange Aldebaran. Above Aldebaran is the Pleiades cluster (look for the blue stars), about the size of your fingertip at arm's length. You must see the Pleiades in binoculars. It's beautiful!
Don't expect to see the Orion nebulae in Orion's belt & sword with binoculars unless you live far from lights so the sky is very black. You'll only see the center of the nebulas as a fuzzy star in the city & suburbs. Even my 20x80 ones couldn't do better with it. But some star clusters can be seen in the city.
Forget about galaxies in the city & suburbs. You have to get far away from city & town lights to see them. It's not a magnification issue, it's a brightness issue. They're too faint to be seen when electric lights on earth wash out the sky. The effect is that the sky is brighter than the object that you're trying to see.
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"Best Chance" view of Orion from a very dark suburban location with binoculars.
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The Andromeda Galaxy is our closest galaxy & on a collision course with us. Long before our sun dies, the gravitational forces of the collision will tear our solar system & most of the galaxy apart. Most life in the galaxy will be wiped out but will trigger the birth of new suns, so the cycle begins all over again. There's never a god around when you need one except to do cool parlor tricks.
The first picture is a naked-eye view from very dark country skies many miles from city & town lights or in the middle of a desert. You probably don't ever remember seeing it on camping & country trips because it's on the other side of the sun in the summer, so it only now is becoming visible in the night sky very late at night. As winter comes, it will rise sooner.
Your best views will be in mid-winter when it's too damn cold to be outside long.
The second one will be your best views through binoculars at a dark suburban site.
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I've enhanced some more images of Ceres. In this set I concentrated just on interesting features & objects, rather than a little bit of all the pictures. Some of these were posted before, but I used different enhancements so other features stand out more. The newest ones start about halfway down the thread, & continue onto page 6 of the thread.
I've also included some very mysterious images of the asteroid Vesta at the end.
Enjoy Astro Fans!
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php/topic,37.28.html
Sample from Vesta:
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Yes of course you are right Betty, I must have been tired when I said that but I did mean the moons. Your photo's are great and wonderful to see. I have two pairs of binoculars and the best pair being ones I inherited from my dad. He was an avid bird watcher and the stars as well.
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I bought a cheap kids-style 60mm telescopes in the early 1970s. It boasted up to 400x maginification with it's barlow lens & other cheap eyepieces, but at that high a magnification with only a 60mm lens it would be a very dim blurry image, & very unsteady even on it's tripod. It was a long-tube design too, so was a very narrow field of view. Still, I was able to get a pretty fair view of Saturn, it's rings, & moons. I was able to see Jupiter & it's moons, but only just barely make out Jupiter's cloud lines & spot on a good day.
At about 150-200x it gave excellent views of the big bright moon, craters, & mountains to the point it almost looked like you were there flying above it. I picked up a Bushnell 10x50 binoculars about the same year from K-mart for around $40. I didn't read or hear about any binocular astronomy back then. I just thought it would be a good idea to point it into the sky one night. Boy was I surprised on how it brightened & sharpened up the views of the sky in the city. And the colors were so much more vivid.
My first trip to dark country skies with them, I was totally dazzeled at the view. It was like looking out a window of a space ship right out there... especially with the wide angle of view offered by most 7x to 10x binoculars. Those binoculars & the scope were lost in the fire.
Our first scope as a kid was a POS. It was one of those small hand-held collapsable scopes with only a 20mm objective lens. Pointing it at the sky gave a dim, blurry, & distorted view. It had a very narrow field of view. It was like looking down a very narrow long pipe, so it was almost usless for looking at landscapes too.
As a kid I built my own scope using an old very wide rectagular magnifying glass & an old movie projector lens as the eyepiece. It probably was only 10-12x, but boasted an extremely wide field of view, & brightened up the night sky a lot with a 4"x3" lens in the front. It wasn't quality optics, so stuff wasn't very sharp, & had an edge of rainbow color around the stars & planets. But it beat that crappy 20mm scope at 50x.
I begged my parents for even a basic beginners astronomy scope but never got one. I don't think I ever got anything I asked for on Christmas or my birthday... and I wasn't asking for expensive stuff either. I think they just went to the store & picked up whatever POS that was on sale for the kids that the store sales people were pushing hard.
They lied to me too. I was told a scope for astronomy would cost thousands of dollars. As soon as I was able to afford one on my own, I was able to get a fair beginners scope & excellent binoculars for under $100 for both at K-mart.
My first use of binoculars happened when I used a roommate's 7x35 binoculars that used to belong to his father. They had pretty good optics. They gave excellent daytime views of the landscape, nature, & birds. But at night those 35mm lenses only brightened up the sky a little bit. Although better than naked eye views or the sky, it was no big deal. I had no idea that moving up to 50mm binoculars would make such a spectacular difference until I got them. I bought the 50mm ones because I liked my roommates ones for hiking & camping, so wanted my own. I didn't intend on using them for astronomy, until I discovered the vast improvement in the sky views with 50mm lenses.
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By popular request, I'm re-posting of my collection of Mars anomalies specially enhanced with my own homemade imaging software & techniques. My enhancing has improved & upgraded over the years, so although these are enhancements of older original images, the modern enhancements were just done & brand new. These newly enhanced versions have never been seen anywhere before. They're a PSK research exclusive. Nothing has been added or photo-shopped into the images. What was already there was just enhanced or noise filtered, or both to see the details better.
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php/topic,66.0.html
Enjoy!
Sample:
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Reports of a UFO over California this past Saturday turn out to be a test fire of a Trident missile. Since the picture is just a bit greater than the size Betty wants, I'll provide these links instead.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap151111.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3310577/Photographer-captures-awe-inspiring-pictures-nuclear-capable-Trident-missile-streaking-San-Francisco-fired-coast-California.html
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Thanks. I didn't see the ones from the bridge & the highway before. It sure looks pretty.
After our server changes in July, we've expanded our image attachment limit. They can be 700p wide by 600p tall. They can be up to 70kb in file size. But if you post more that one picture per post, the total of all pictures can't be over 150kb in file size. You can post up to 6 pictures per post as long at the total of all of them don't exceed 150kb.
You can resize or crop an oversized image with free irfanview in a minute. There are similar free programs to easily do it on a mac or android, without going into the complexities of photoshop-like software. Save the finished image in about "75" image quality jpg to look best & still reduce the file size more. If the file size is still to big, set the image quality to 65 to compress it more, but you'll start to loose quality. 60 is OK if the picture wasn't that good to start with or is just a drawing & graphics, like a cartoon or map, rather than a real photo.
If it's a non-sissy topic & image you can post it at our PSK/unclegadget site. It has the same image limits except they can be up to 800p wide & 600p tall.
At all sites however, if I see an image in a large file size & is uncompressed, even if it don't exceed the limits I may compress it if I know it will make it look no different at a "75" quality setting & shrink it's file size. You don't always have to make an image's dimensions smaller to make it a smaller file size, you just use more compression. 75 is the ideal compression quality number where you won't notice any difference from the original. Once you go down to a quality setting of 65, the compression is noticable. Use 60 only when you really have to, or for some drawing & graphics compression.
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Some people are still calling it a UFO, or claiming it's a top secret craft & not a Trident. But I've seen a few zoomed in images where you can see the craft. It looks like a man made rocket of some kind, but most certainly is not a Trident missle. Tredents are short stubby missles. This is long, narrow, & not the right shape (in the close-up photo). The shockwave shape in the air is wrong too. And although near the edge of the base of the missile, right in the center may be blue in a small spot on a Trident, most of the flame & exhaust, is yellow, orange, & very smokey. This craft has almost an entirely blue or purple exhaust, which is not consistent with a Trident missile.
A military test? Yes. A Trident missle? No.
And why the hell would they have military missle tests over or near populated areas? They have the whole ocean, deserts, unpopulated parts of coastlines, & huge military bases spanning the size of small states to play in. What moron thought this was a good idea? If something goes wrong, even an unarmed missle full of fuel can do a lot of damage or kill millions in a big city from the explosion & fire. Typical military -- assume no responsibility or consequences for their actions, & are totally unconcerned about civilian safety.
Also, why didn't they warn somebody that there would be a test so millions wouldn't tie up emergency services by calling in the sighting? They say it was a classified test so they couldn't warn about it or the Russians & Chinese would watch it. Some of the pictures of it below are from Arizona & Nevada, not just from California. So I think the spies saw it anyway. Tridents are 1970s technology. The spies already know about it. Except for some modern electronics (as found in most phones & video games), & some minor mechanical changes, it's basically the same 1970s machine.
BTW for those shaking their head at the USA war machine, keep in mind, the UK builds the nuclear warheads for the Trident missles, & in exchange the UK has Tridents too.
In the first photo is a real & modern Trident. In the third photo, is a closeup of what was seen over San Fransisco. Not the same thing.
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The first one is another image of a real Trident.
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The military claim another reason they didn't notifiy the public before testing the missle was that they didn't think anybody would notice it. They say it was a little brighter than they expected because it was just after sunset so the sunlight was reflected off of it. What sunlight? I see stars. Blue sunlight? It's a blue fireball coming out of the rocket, not reflections, & it should never have been tested over cities!
Some people actually thought we were getting nuked from Korea or China!
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The first one is another recent trident launch. Short stubby missle, no blue or purple flame & exhaust.
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Quote: "I quite often look to the night sky when out of the city so I can view the wonders of the heavens. I have often done this since I was about 10 or 11 and was pretty sure I saw a UFO back in the 60's."
I think everybody in those days saw a UFO at least once. Back in those days the skies were darker so you could see more cool stuff up there. It was a more fascinating view back then. In those days there was only 3-5 TV channels to choose from on TV, no video games, or home computers, so it was a regular pastime on a dark clear night to spend some time looking up. The more you have a clear view, & the more you look up, the more likely you'll see something. Even that small dot moving across the sky with some small binoculars, in a real dark location can turn out to be something amazing... or just a plane or satellite.
That was also before the public was brainwashed into thinking you're crazy or goofy nerd for looking up. God forbid if you admitted to seeing something unusual in the sky after about 1975, you would have been seriously teased by some because the brainwashing of the public was so thorough. But this isn't new that whoever is in charge keeps what is the truth away from the public or tries to prevent intelligent discussion about it. It's been going on for centuries. It was against the law for Copernicus, Galileo, & others to say what they saw in the skies, even though the ones who made the laws knew the truth. They roll their eye & mock anyone for seeing something unusual in the skies today, but just a few hundred years ago you could be tortured & burned at the stake for seeing Jupiter's moons, or Saturn's rings.
The dumber they keep the people about the truth the more control they have over the people, & the more the people put their faith in the controllers.
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Quote: "I myself can't seem to log-in on that site. I'd love to do some chatting over there."
Try again. It does work. It worked before too, but now is on another, better server. The old unreliable server #3 has been replaced with a better one in mid-July. It is a separate server, site, & domain though, just like stories is, so requires a separate registration to join. Also if you refuse cookies from a site, you won't be able to login to it. If there's been any changes to a site, you may have to get new cookies from the site. Some browser settings don't always accept new cookies from a site, you may have to delete their old cookies to get new ones.
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I just finished enhancing another batch of Mars Anomalies. I've have tons of them, so there's a lot more to come. Nothing was added or photo-shopped, they were just noise filtered & enhanced to bring out a little more details or shapes that were already there.
The newest ones start near the bottom of the thread, & continues onto page 6 of the thread.
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php/topic,66.21.html
Enjoy mystery fans!
Sample:
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They just released some more pictures of Pluto. They say these are the highest resolution images yet, but they look just like the last ones, with a few looking worse than their previous versions. But there are a few interesting ones too. The newest images start at the end of page 13 of the thread, & continue onto page 14. But check out all the pix at the gallery thread if you want to see the best ones.
You can go to NASA's New Horizons website to see all the original images in their original form. But they won't show as much detail as ours. PSK/Unclegadget exclusively has the best Pluto images in the world because I use my own image enhancing techniques & my own homemade software to process the images.
http://unclegadget.com/pski/index.php/topic,55.35.html
Preview:
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Posted some more specially enhanced pictures of Mars anomalies. The newest ones start halfway through page 6 of the thread, & continue on to page 8.
Enjoy mystery fans!
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php/topic,66.35.html
preview:
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They released some more images of Ceres after the probe made it's closest approach yet to the asteroid. Why are the closer images blurrier or have less detail than their older more distant images? Leave it to NASA to muck up the pictures again. Anywho, I've posted the more interesting newest ones. Not quite as fun as the old ones, or the cool color pix of Pluto, but it's still fun to look at another world. The newest images begin on the second post of the thread, & continue on page 7 of the thread.
Be sure to check out some of the cooler previous images on the previous pages too.
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=37.35
Enjoy!
Preview:
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They released some very close-up pix of Ceres. Unfortunately, they seemed to skip over the most important areas,
& released a lot of bland B&W images. Perhaps they're being withheld until they can be touched up & airbrushed.
Before you roll your eyes, NASA, & the ESA openly admit that they edit, touch up, or air brush almost all images from space before they're released to the public.
Anywho, here's the best ones so far. You can see much bigger, blurrier, colorless versions of these at their website, but you won't see as much detail as in our exclusive digitally enhanced versions.
The newest images start about halfway down page 7 of the thread, & continue on page 8.
Enjoy!
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php/topic,37.42.html
Preview:
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Solar eclipse March 8th at sunset: Although NASA reports this eclipse will only be visible in Asia & Australia, my super computers & simulations indicate we will see the moon just barely brush against the bottom edge of the sun & it's corona in the USA. Here's a video I made of my simulations. The simulation shows the approximate glare of the sun. You wouldn't actually see more than the very edge of a shadow of the moon touching the sun. But it's a good reference to see where the moon will be.
It's a video shot off the computer screen with my phone. For some reason the Linux simulation software will not let a capture directly from the screen. It's 3 clips combined. The first clip will be the east coast USA view, the second is the west coast view, & the third is the view from Australia. To view just a sliver of the moon touching the sun at sunset on the east coast, get on high ground like a hill or on a building, where there's a low western horizon at sunset, & hope for a very clear day. So far they're saying partly cloudy & 58F for that day in my area.
I completely forgot about the eclipse because they said we wouldn't see it in the USA. I was running astronomy simulations for the next week for other stuff, when I noticed the moon hitting the sun next week. I rechecked my coordinates, & indeed the very edge of the moon will cross the very edge of the view of the sun as seen from the east & west coast. The west coast will see a little more though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQRgEl10d7o
On March 23 there's also a penumbral lunar eclipse where the moon passes through just the outer part of earth's shadow.
In in a total or partial lunar eclipse, the Moon is either fully or partially immersed in Earth's shadow, but you will only see a subtle darkening of the southern part of the moon's disk in this penumbral eclipse.
Eastern and central states get to see the whole event, for Western Australia the Moon rises with the eclipse well under way.
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Here's a video & screenshot of a simulation I made on my computer of a rare alignment of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Saturn, & Mars as they would have appeared 2 mornings ago. But Mercury would not be seen because it was buried in the glare of the sun. Pluto was also in the visual alignment, but you'd need a real big, powerful telescope to see it. It was cloudy that morning so I told my computers to actually run an accurate view of it. So I watched the sunrise that morning on my TV in HDTV warm inside on a cloudy day. It may be a simulation, but a pretty accurate view of what I couldn't see. I can run a simulated HD view of what any part of the sky would look like from any part of the world from any time from a million years ago in the past to a million years from now, & run the motion of the sky at any speed from normal to 10,000 years a second.
The HD imaging was shrunk & compressed down considerably for web use though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ekBryEZpg
The moon is nearing the sun, & by this morning is too close to it to be seen. The eclipse is tomorrow on the 8th. In the USA we should see only a slight edge of the moon touch the edge of the sun & corona near sunset (west coast a little more than east coast. But our friends in Asia, Australia, & Hawaii should see a lot more of it in their afternoon (see my previous post here for a phone shot of the simulation I made).
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Of course 5 planets, Pluto, the moon & sun aren't really in alignment this week, but merely appear to be aligned from our perspective of them on earth. Jupiter, earth, the moon, & the sun will be in perfect alignment tomorrow during the eclipse. Venus, Mercury, & the sun are almost in alignment, but at a right angle to us.
What is unusual is so many planets on one side of the sun at the same time, with only Uranus, Neptune, & Pluto on the other side. I'm sure astrologers are having a heyday with this.
Here's a picture of where the planets are right now. Sorry about no Pluto. This is an online clip from an external site. Most planetary & star maps have opted not to put it in their pictures, or the ones that do are only ones that also include most asteroids down to only a few miles across. Also I could never understand in most of these charts, why they show the earth almost as big as Jupiter & the sun, where they usually show Saturn as the biggest thing in the solar system. Earth is just a small dot compared to Jupiter. You can fit several earths in just it's red spot. And Jupiter, the largest planet is just a spot compared to the sun. You can fit one or more Jupiters in most sunspots.
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Here's a time lapse simulated view of this week's night sky that I made on the computers. An entire night squeezed into a little over 4 minutes. It's in 2 parts. The first half is a view of the southern half of the sky as viewed from the northern hemisphere for the whole night. The second half is the view of the northern sky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iIFYzq1Xlo
Here's a few clear still shots of the simulation. Or course you have to be far from bright city & town lights so the sky is black to see these views, like far in the country. In the bright city you'll only see a few of the brightest stars & planets, unless you're using binoculars. If you're in a less lighted suburban area, you may see a few more stars. Even tonight in the early part of the night, the moon will be out, & its glare will drown out some of the stars.
I miss these views I used to get as a kid, when the city lights weren't as bright, weren't on all night, & you didn't have to go far for dark country skies. That's why I run the simulations to enjoy my stars again. You can bring a little of that view out in the city by viewing the sky with simple 7x50 binoculars. 10x50 will work too, but it's so hard to hold the higher powered ones steady enough to enjoy for long. The binoculars brighten up the view of the sky, & enhance the colors more, but at those low powers nothing up there will look much bigger. at 10x50 you might barely make out Saturn's rings, & a couple of Jupiter's moons. But you'll sure see a lot more stars, clusters, & colors with them.
Must see the Pleiades star cluster with binoculars. They're beautiful. It sets early in the west this time of the year just before Orion sets. So if you don't catch it soon it will disappear until near the end of the summer when you'll see it rising in the east.
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Saw many stars in the sky Wednesday night as it was pretty clear up here but I never really checked to see what they were. I know there was Venus, Mars and the North Star but I really didn't have time to look for other specific ones. I did see a shooting star in the North about two weeks ago on a very cold clear night.
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From our angle Venus is too close to the sun & almost impossible to see, because the pre-dawn sunlight drowns it out. However if you're somewhere with a very low horizon, & it's an extra clear crisp horizon, you might be able to just barely see it just before dawn. Because of its proximity to to the sun, it will always only be visible after sunset in the west, or before dawn in the east, or invisible because it's too close to the sun. It will never be high in the sky, or visible in the middle of the night.
Long before dawn though, Saturn rises, being the second brightest thing in the sky (not counting the moon). Jupiter, the brightest thing in the night sky (except the moon) rises as the sun sets, & sets as the sun rises now. That's probably what you saw low in the east after sunset. It's bright & high in southern sky by the middle of the night. Mars, not far from Saturn from our view is brighter than usual because it's closer than it's been in 2 years.
The north star is actually quite faint in cities because the city lights drown it out. It's actually too faint to see in my bright area except on a rare occasion. The big dipper is a little brighter. Very late at night, bright Vega is in the northern sky. Very bright Sirius is low in the southern sky just after sunset, just below & to the left of Orion. Last chances to see Orion as it sets a little earlier every day, so from our view, soon it will be too close to the sun to see. But by the end of June, you should catch a glimpse of it rising in the east just before sunrise.
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Yes Betty, I see Venus in the early morning sometimes just before daybreak up here. I am on the edge of the city so there are not too many bright lights out here and open countryside just a 1/4 mile away. I was hoping to see the Northern lights this winter but have not as yet. I think I have only seen them maybe two or three times in my life, the first being when I was 8 years old in the Atlantic ocean on my way to Canada from England. We were a few days away from Newfoundland and you could hear the crackle in the air as they were overhead like static electricity. Very impressive for an 8 year old boy on a big ship in the middle of nowhere.
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Our place in the universe.
We are so small compared to the rest of universe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1-H1_6OACY
Yep. I have 2 YouTube channels now. Just like the other site, PSK Research is also a Betty's channel, but for non-sissy stuff. I just started the channel recently so there's hardly anything there yet.
Here's another recent video there,
What part of the population are you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2vAoH9Gqck
And of course, we have our own sissy channel,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-noN--r7_wREFSWwV0XB_w/videos
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We have some more images of Ceres. This time it's a lot. Thanks to our exclusive imaging enhancement software, you won't find these same pictures anywhere else sharper & clearer. The newest images start on page 8 of the thread & continue onto page 12. But don't forget to check out the previous pages if you missed the older ones. Enjoy Astro Fans!
http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php/topic,37.49.html
Preview:
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NASA came out with a stunning 4K UHD video of the Aurora. Unfortunately there was an animation of an airlock & stuff in the beginning, with more nonsense end, making the fun part of the video only 4 minutes long. Then they sped it up too much to enjoy it. In my version, I cut out the silly stuff, & slowed down the cool stuff so it's almost 9 minutes long. The UHD version didn't look all that sharp either, so I enhanced it, & converted it down to 720p HD. They say my version is actually clearer than the UHD version. The 5 minute audio was also tweaked to extend it to about 9 minutes. Enjoy science fans!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z8RWIcbtQ8
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A bright meteor over New England was seen in 9 states & even Quebec. In this version, I enhanced it, & run it in slow motion. Nature's fireworks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLWIx4WOGaM
As usual, our hi-tech radar, meteor, asteroid, & aircraft detection system failed to see this one coming.
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I made this cool enhanced space slideshow in HD. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAzUdzmTN-4
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A whole night's view of the planets & stars compressed into 3 1/2 minutes. This is the view from the northern hemisphere, facing south. Early in the night Jupiter sets in the southwest as Saturn, Mars, & the moon - - close together in this view, rise in the southeast. A very large almost full moon sets in the east after sunrise. Click on the full screen view & watch it in beautiful HD!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFJC6nu6PHg
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Happy Canada Day & Independence Day! Many of us will be looking up at fireworks over the next few days. Don't forget to notice the stars too. This is also vacation season. Camping or hiking trips, & sitting around a campfire is ideal for stargazing. Once you get out of town, far from city lights, the background sky is blacker, & your eyes adjust to the dimmer light after a while. So you'll see many times more stars & they'll appear more colorful.
Bring some simple 7x50 binoculars. Not only will it enhance your views of distant scenery & nature on your trips, but will also brighten up the stars so you can see more of them with better color. 7x50 is ideal for handheld binoculars because you can comfortably hold them steady. You loose a lot on higher magnifications without a tripod for them because it gets too jittery. "7" is the magnification. Great for scenery, but really won't make sky objects stunningly bigger. "50" is the diameter in millimeters of the front lenses. The bigger they are, the brighter they make faint objects & bring out more color.
I have some big, heavy 20x80 binoculars I rebuilt after the fire. But they're impossible to use without a tripod. Because they're heavy, you need a solid tripod too, not a lightweight camera tripod. If you got an old camcorder tripod in the attic, you can mount most big binoculars on it nicely. Even at 20x you won't get stunning big views of the moon or planets. But stellar views will be amazing. Far away from city lights you will see some galaxies & star clusters with them. On a good night I've seen a galaxy & a few star clusters right downtown in the middle of the city where the sky background would normally be too bright to see them.
My first experience with binocular astronomy was with 10x50 binoculars about 45 years ago, that I got for around $45. But even at 10x, it was hard to hold them steady without propping up myself or arms against something to steady my hand & body motion to see things clear enough.
For stunning views of the moon & even a fair look at the planets you'll need a telescope on a tripod that will give you at least 60x magnification. For viewing stars, galaxies, clusters, & nebula you don't need high magnification, you need a bigger front lens to gather more light & brighten the images. On reflector telescopes, you need one with a bigger primary mirror, not high magnification.
Your best telescope or binoculars will be the one you use the most. That big heavy scope is useless if it's too inconvenient to get out, set up, or carry around a lot, so hardly gets out of the closet. 7x50 or 10x50 binoculars you can easily take anywhere. You can easily scan the skies with them for the fun & beauty of it with no astronomy knowledge.
This is the view of the night sky for the first weekend of July from approximately 10pm to 4AM, but will look similar for about a week. It's split into 4 parts. First, the northern sky view, then the southern sky view, which offers the best summer viewing. Part 3 is the eastern sky view, & then finally the western sky view. Each part shows the entire night of the sky in a little over 2 minutes. These are EXPANDED views. That means stuff near the top of the screen will be almost overhead in real life. These views are for people living anywhere in the northern part of the northern hemisphere of the planet. The stars will be in the same spots at the same time next year too, but the planets & moon won't be.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgg449MavdU
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I just made & posted an animated view of the night sky for the weekend of July 16-17, 2016. It will look close to the same several nights before & after too. Next year on the same date, it will also look the same except the position of the planets & moon will be different.
This is a view of the motion of the sky observed from anywhere in the northern hemisphere of the planet, from about 9:30pm to 5am, compressed into about 2 1/2 minutes.
But it's 4 different 2 1/2 minute views mixed together making the video over 10 minutes long. The first view is the view facing south. Facing south gives you the view of the most stars & planets, that is when we're facing galactic plane is, & solar plane. In the summer, we're also facing the center of the galaxy at night. In winter, we're facing away from the center when looking south.
The second part of the video is the view looking north, to see the most commonly known constellation, the Big Dipper. Composed of bright stars, it & Orion (in winter) are the only constellations bright enough to be seen entirely in brightly lit cities at night. The edge of it's bowl points to Polaris, the North star. Facing the north star means you're facing true north, not the magnetic north your compass points to.
The third part of the video is the view facing west. The last part of the video is the sky view facing east.
Enjoy astro fans!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdThmIUoTrM
This is in true HD, but low a bitrate so should play on slower connections. Be sure to click on HD/720 on you're options at the lower right of the video frame. If may default to 360p, but it's only kinda fun to watch at 480p or better.
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Happy Moon Day!
On July 20, 1969 people first set foot on the moon.
It's also my Mom's birthday, she would have been 87 by now, but we lost her 15 years ago.
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I recall seeing a number of papers replacing "Monday July 21, 1969" with "Moonday July 21, 1969"
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The largest glacial collapses ever recorded live. Awesome! Glaciers well over the size of Manhattan, & ice blocks over 600 feet tall rising out of the ocean. This is in 2 parts -- enhanced, & super enhanced with color boost in slow motion.
Since the year 2000, we've lost more global ice than in the past 100 years!
http://unclegadget.com/pski/index.php/topic,83
(edited, enhanced, & remixed by me)
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N.America & Canada will get a rare solar eclipse on Aug. 21. But totality will be just a narrow band stretching from Oregon, to S. Carolina. Still, here in NY state & Southern Ontario we can expect about 72-73% coverage of the sun during the eclipse. Most of the rest of Canada will see at least 50-60% coverage. That's very rare for us northerners. People in SW Canada may see 80% to almost 90% coverage!
The 2:33pm time for the max (75%) solar coverage of the Aug. 21 solar eclipse is wrong for western NY state & southern Ontario though. That's the time of totality along the same longitude down south, in the middle of our time zone.
Because of the tilt of the earth, the tilt of the moon's orbit, and because the earth is not a perfect sphere (it's a slightly flattened ball), plus our altitude, & the large area of our time zone, the max coverage of the sun in our area (72-73% coverage) during the eclipse will happen at 2:17pm.
I checked it with 3 different sets of software, & they all say 2:17pm for Western NY state & SW Ontario. In our area, the eclipse will begin around 1pm, & end around 3:30pm.
Total eclipses, where the sun is totally covered, are extremely rare in our area. There will be solar eclipse of about 90% coverage in our area June 10th, 2021, & a rare total solar eclipse (where is gets dark as night) in the region on April 8th, 2024.
The last time we had a solar eclipse of near 75% was way back on 1984, & almost 60% in 1986. We had an almost, but not quite total solar eclipse in WNY with 90% coverage in 1932. The last total eclipse in the region was in 1925. So it can take a lifetime or more to see just 1 total eclipse in around here.
After 2024, we'll have 60% coverage in 2040, 90% solar coverage in 2048, 75% coverage in 2078, & another total eclipse in 2093 -- 76 years from now.
We get at least 1 partial lunar eclipse (where the moon dims) a year. But our next total lunar eclipse will be Jan. 20th, 2019.
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Article:
http://unclegadget.com/pski/index.php/topic,85.0
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Latest Juno spacecraft pictures of Jupiter. You can see bigger images at the NASA site, but you won't find sharper clearer ones than these that I enhanced myself. Because they are sharper, they're also zoom-able without losing too much sharpness. Just zoom the image or our whole page to make it a little bigger.
http://unclegadget.com/pski/index.php/topic,86.0.html
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:o
Wow! Imagine what the view from the moon would be like .... !
Thanks Betty ..
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That close to mighty Jupiter the gravitation forces would be so great, it would wreak with some serious earthquakes... but gotta love the view. Just like our tiny moon make the tides rise & fall, Jupiter would cause mountains if ice & rock to rise & fall. That's why there's no meteor craters on moons very close to Jupiter or Saturn. The surfaces are constantly changing. The radiation the would be deadly there too, even with heavy shielding.
Imagine the scale of this stuff. 1,300 Earths can fit inside Jupiter. The Red Spot is 40,000 miles across, Earth is only almost 8,000 miles across. So you can fit 5 earths end to end across the spot. And Jupiter is just a small marble compared to the sun. Like comparing a marble to a basketball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EixrkUnBUZs
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Cool meteor showers all most of the month. Watch the night sky!
http://unclegadget.com/pski/index.php/topic,58.0.html
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Don't forget to check out the eclipse today. In my time zone in western NY state & southern Ontario, we'll only have about 74% coverage of the sun, so it won't get dark as night. You can compare the brightness change to a 100 watt light bulb & a 25 watt one, or with modern lights, a 20 watt light compared to a 5 watt light.
It may get dark enough in our area to see Jupiter in the southeast, & Venus to the west of the sun.
In my area you can expect some coverage from 1:30-3:30pm, with peak coverage around 2:30pm. At my house the peak will be exactly 2:17pm according to my software, but will vary a little just a few miles from me.
Do not stare at the sun. But contrary to the nay-sayers, & worry-worts you can glance at the sun occasionally for brief times. The animals, birds, & us do occasionally glance up at the sun, or we drive with the sun in our eyes & do not go blind. Today will be no different.
My friends & I have glanced up at every partial solar eclipse in our area. At 62 years old I still have 20/20 vision in one eye, & 20/30 vision in the other. But I do need reading glasses to focus on small print & objects nearby. That's age-related. As one gets older the eyes lose their flexibility to focus on close-up objects.
So, yes you can take quick glances at the sun, just don't stare at it. Do not take a picture of the afternoon sun without a solar filter. It may damage or burn out the camera. You can cover the camera lens with foil, & put a small pinhole in the middle. This will act as a tiny iris over the lens to reduce the light so you can take a picture. A couple clear-label CDs or DVDs over the lens may reduce the light too. Ordinary sunglasses will not reduce the light enough to take a picture or to stare at the sun.
The eclipse will happen slowly over a couple of hours. So you don't need to stare at it. You won't miss anything by just taking occasional quick glances at it.
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It's happening right now in the NW USA & SW Canada.
https://www.nasa.gov/eclipselive/#NASA+TV+Public+Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwMDvPCGeE0
It's also on CBS & ABC. Channel 7 also has a WNY view in the corner.
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Seven years from now, in 2024 there will be another solar eclipse, which will cross the US from south to north instead of west to east. Starting in Mexico, it will pass through San Antonio TX on its way to Rochester NY, then to northern Vermont and New Hampshire and on to Maine, grazing Canada along the way. It looks like the 2017 and 2024 paths will cross in Carbondale IL, whose inhabitants will luck out as the only place in the US to get to see both eclipses.
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Rochester will be on the edge of totality, so it will be short. Buffalo will be right in the middle of that one making totality about 4 minutes long! It's a big wide one!
The orbits of the planets & the moon aren't curricular. They're oval & off-center. So this next one will be more remarkable. The north American continent & Europe are actually a million miles further away from the sun in summer. The tilt of the earth towards the sun is what makes us warm in our summer, while making things cooler for our friends in New Zealand, Australia, S. America, & S. Africa.
The moon will be really close in 2024.
I love science & nature.
Map:
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Did you see the photo allegedly from the space station, with the milky way above the earth? Please tell me it's photoshopped or at the very least stacked! Or I would have thought the glare would have obliterated any detail of the galaxy?
:o
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That's faked. The glare of the corona around the moon, & the glare of the earth would have by far outshined it. You need to be in the darkest, clearest country or rural skies to even see the milky way.
Although, in space, it's exceptionally clear, to expose the camera's sensor long enough to see the very faint milky way, the brightness of the corona & the earth would have whited out the entire frame.
The position of the sun is wrong too. This time of year The middle of the milky way is low in the SSE as the sun sets. Even in space, they'd be on far opposite ends of our field of view, at more that 110 degrees apart. In the picture above, the field of view isn't wide enough, & the scale isn't small enough to fit the view of the galaxy & the eclipse in it at the same time.
Also the eclipse was blown up dozens of times larger than it would be seen in space to that scale of earth, while the milky way was shrunk considerably compaired to that scale of earth. The moon, 240,000 miles from earth, dosen't look bigger from 100-400miles in orbit. It looks just as big as it does here on the ground.
So not only is it very fake, the view & position of everything is scientifically totally off. Whoever put it together flunked science.
If one could dim the sun down dimmer than the moon, & brighten up the galaxy considerably, here's a view of the milky way, stars, planets, the moon, & the sun as the would have been in northern countries, provinces, & states at around sunset today (Tuesday). The position of everything in the picture is accurate.
Note the size of the moon compared to the milky way. Being just a couple hundred miles closer to it in orbit, when it's 240,000 miles away, wouldn't have made it look bigger. A zoom lens could made it bigger, but would have also made the milky was & earth look much bigger too.
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My sky view looking south at around 10:30pm The sun & moon set long ago. Although the picture is accurate, it is not real. I made it using software. The milky way was brightened considerably. It's not even normally visible to the naked eye except in very dark rural country areas, with very clear skies.
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From our view anywhere on earth, or low earth orbit, the sun doesn't appear that close to the milky way center this time of the year. It gets close Nov. to Feb, crossing the center around the new year.
Here's the computer-generated view of what was in the sky around noon on our Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 25, 2016). Of course in reality, the sun would have out-shined everything, so you would have only actually seen just the sun, even though the milky way was there.
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On Nov. 29, 2016 the moon joins the picture but there was no eclipse. The view in the faked picture, the sun wouldn't have been seen in that position of the galactic center for millions of years.
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The sun, from our view on earth, or in low earth orbit will eclipse the galactic plane at 11:23am E. USA time, Christmas eve, 2017. The picture below is accurate for that time, but you won't see anything but the bright sun.
Every November or December some fake news prophet or astrologer (usually on Facebook because they're are more naive) will claim this rare alignment happens only once every 10,000 or 60,000 years, & predict disasters from it. Nope. This alignment happens once a year, every year.
If you draw a line from the moon, through the sun, & all the planets, it doesn't line up with the galactic plane. That's because our solar system's plane is on its side compared to the galactic plane.
One theory is that our solar system was part of other smaller galaxy that was captured, collided, or merged with the milky way. Another theory is during the early formation of the solar system, it was actually a binary system. The 2 suns collided flipping the forming solar system on its side.
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eclipses 2001-2020
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Eclipses 2021-2040
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Lunar eclipses
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Thanks for the photo's and the Info Betty, I always try to catch something like this or the Meteor showers etc. since I was a young boy. Back in the day I had two very good SLR cameras and telephoto lenses. I could take great photo's of the moon, stars and the Northern lights etc. and used some in my projects at school. Hard to find film, batteries and a shop to develop the prints now in my area.
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Lockheed Martin unveiled it's spaceship design to get people to Mars in 10 years. Looks like it's gonna cost at least a trillion dollars.
http://unclegadget.com/media/marsmission.mp4
(3.9mb, 3 minutes, SVCD quality)
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They have competition from Elon Musk. He says he can get there by 2024. It will be interesting to see who gets there & back first... in one piece & still alive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdUX3ypDVwI
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Since the new year until last night, there's been a lot of bright meteor sightings. They are probably associated with the Quadrantid meteor shower, which peaked January 3. The Quadrantid shower though, is not particularly known for a lot on meteors, or very bright ones, but has been known to produce just a few large bright meteors occasionally before.
Usually meteor showers produce very faint "falling stars", most of which can only be seen in dark rural & country skies. The meteors are usually about the size of a grain of sand to a small pebble. These bright sightings were probably meteors 6-10 inches in diameter.
Since the New Year, we've had frequent bright sightings from Virginia to Quebec, as far west as the northern mid-west USA, & as far east at the UK & Finland.
These are those that were caught on video.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LZ-WqXOGlo
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Space X heavy launch - full classical chill version.
They estimate that the car, along with the dummy astronaut in the driver's seat, may remain orbiting the sun between the earth & Mars for at least a billion years.
The "Heavy" rocket series are the most powerful rockets since the Saturn 5 rockets that were used for Apollo. They or something like them will be the rockets used to get people to the moon & Mars. Also, the 3 rocket boosters of the rocket tried to make 3 separate rocket-powered soft landings back on earth (not by parachute into the ocean). 2 succeeded (in the video), but the soft landing of the final & center stage failed... still quite a feat!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02A2I-_o5lU
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One of my heroes, Stephen Hawking died last night.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43396008
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For those who missed it, here are the 2019 lunar eclipse pictures. All of these were enhanced or sharpened by my own homemade software:
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more
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Eclipse through a window covered in frost at -4F outside with a wind chill of -24F
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They finally released a better picture of Ultima Thule from the New Horizons space probe. I'm sure there will eventually more to be released someday.
Scroll down to near the bottom of the thread/page to see the most recent ones.
http://unclegadget.com/research/index.php/topic,99
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Psychic Predictions for 2019 & Beyond
I'm little late on this stuff this year.
http://unclegadget.com/research/index.php/topic,101.0.html
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Hubble took a new image of the Southern Crab Nebula.
http://unclegadget.com/research/index.php/topic,104
Preview:
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Hubble just photographed some of the oldest & farthest galaxies.
Note: The server for our "UncleGadget.com" website, domain, & its mail servers has been giving us problems. It also carried PSK Research. I've moved the PSK Research pages to a new server, & gave it it's own web domain name. It's still the same identical website though. None of the previous articles & pictures there were lost during the move.
http://pskresearch.com/research/index.php/topic,105.0.html
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This is the star view of the sky at night for early June 2019 for northern latitudes that I made.
It's a brightened view of what would be seen under very dark almost black skies far from the glare of electric lights in the country, or from a moderately darkened view with 7x50 binoculars (good binoculars make the stars look brighter).
It's split into 4 parts. Each part is an animated view of a different part of the sky from sunrise to sunset compressed down to almost 5 minutes long. The first part is a view facing south, followed by north, then east, & west.
The time stamp on the bottom is in 24/hour military time. So 3:00 is 3am. but 21:00 would be 9pm, & 22:00 is 10pm.
The position of the stars will vary just slightly as the month goes on. with the stars rising slightly earlier, & setting slightly earlier, later in the month, but the view will pretty much be the same throughout the month... except the moon, which goes through an entire cycle every month.
This also makes a relaxing screen saver to run any time of the year.
https://youtu.be/9u7VCMc2gzk
19 minutes, & 73mb file size for the HD version. You may have to click on the gear thingy at the bottom, then click on HD to see the HD version. If YT feels your connection isn't fast enough, it may try to run it in only 360-480p.
Preview:
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Sadly, because Youtube has switched to separate audio/video streaming for 720p and 1080p, the download utilities that I know about require you to buy their "premium" version to download high quality. Otherwise 480p is the best you get. :-(
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Are you talking actually downloading it in 720p or just watching it in 720p? I wasn't aware YT technically allowed any of the videos to be downloaded. I use workarounds, tools, or browser add-ons to download from YT, Facebook & other sites (like news & streaming sites).
https://www.techradar.com/reviews/4k-video-downloader
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-downloadhelper/lmjnegcaeklhafolokijcfjliaokphfk?hl=en-US
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloader-player/
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If I especially like something on Youtube, I sometimes download it, and several of the videos I have downloaded and like to re-watch are no longer available -- in most cases the person got tired of Youtube and closed his/her account, or has now restricted it so only certain "friends" can view it anymore.
And it's browser add-ons. I have two. One simply says "upgrade to pro or download at 480p", the other puts an annoying QR code in the upper right hand corner of the video unless you have purchased the upgrade.
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It's a cat & mouse game with YouTube & browsers because they & most streamers don't want you to download anything except through a premium or pay service. So we're constantly switching browsers, extensions (add-ons), & tricks to work around the game. Whatever works today may not work tomorrow.
The ones I mention above seem to work best for me with Waterfox. I probably use the 4K Video Downloader the most when I can get a link to the actual video rather than just a link of the page where the video is located. I'm also using an old version of Downloadhelper to avoid their watermarks & other marking nonsense.
If all else fails, you can use a screen recorder program & just record the screen while the video is playing in full screen. I use free OBS Studio. You better have a robust dual core or better machine or recording screens in full screen & motion will drop a lot of frames & bog down the system.
360-480p doesn't look bad if it's good quality. I see a lot of crappy 720p that looks worse than quality 360p. I've also seen quality 480p look better than some 1080p. A lot of people & services streaming or posting 720-1080p deliberately dull the video, & compress the crap out of it so the actual quality & detail it resolves can be achieved with just 360-480p.
Big numbers sell so they put out 720-1080p. But to save on space, load times, & bandwidth, the image has been dulled (sometimes darkened too), & compressed so it's worse than quality 480p.
When you figure many line scalers built into decent TVs, or graphics hardware, don't just double the existing pixels to fit small video the screen, they actually add pixels that are the average of the pixel before & after it. So a good 480p video can really look like 720p, if everything else in the system is good quality too.
Maybe for July, I'll make another star video in high quality 480p only rather than just quality 720p, to show there's very little difference if it's done right. The 720p video there that is shrunk to 480 or 360p is done by google automation, & it's sucks. So if you look at 720p in 480p mode on YouTube, it is not good quality 480p.
Not only that, but to save on bandwidth & upload times on my slow DSL connection, I've already custom compressed my videos as far as it can go without losing too much quality. But google re-compresses what I already compressed to the limit, so they really muck up the video a lot.
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SpaceX will launch a Falcon Heavy rocket tonight carrying 24 satellites for the Defense Department and the ashes of 100 people, including those of actor James Doohan, who played "Scotty" on "Star Trek."
Elon Musk called the launch the most difficult yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5KUZlJkbJY
The primary launch window opens at 11:30an. EDT tonight, & closes at 3:30am. EDT. But launch is expected at 2:30am eastern USA time tonight.
A live broacast of the event will be here:
https://youtu.be/WxH4CAlhtiQ
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This is a view of the night sky facing south from the northern part of the northern hemisphere for early July (July 4th view to be exact). This is a view from very dark country skies or through some decent 7x50 binoculars. Near bright city lights & pollution you'll see far fewer stars.
For a view facing the north sky, please refer to our north view from our June stargazing video that I posted last month. The view facing north has changed very little over a month.
This is the view of the whole night from after sunset to just before sunrise compressed into just under 5 minutes. Mars & Mercury are too close to the view of the sun, so the sun outshines them & they are not visible. You may be able to catch of Venus rising just before sunrise before the glare of the sun drowns it out.
Bonus -- In this view , I've added the real motion of orbiting satellites darting across the sky. If you look close about 2/3 of the way up on the screen, you'll see a very faint string of stars that stay still & that don't move east to west with the rest of the stars. Those are geostationary satellites. They orbit the earth at the same rate the earth spins, so stay over the same spot above the earth 24/7.
https://youtu.be/TX9mcJ67DUQ
Preview: