more thougts on looking at the night sky

[oker59]

just looking at the hydes cluster and sourounding space, you see ever more looser star groups(i'd have to look into whether some of these others are names), till you arive at the big dipper which just happens to be a group of related stars(at least according to proper motion; we'd suspect they have common chemical relationships if we could ever go there to find out; don't know if they have spectral analyses that sophisticated).<br /><br />It's kind of neat to see such a progression from youngest/most compact to the big dipper stars which are pretty close to being dispersed throughout the milky way galaxy to where you couldn't detect proper motion resemblances.<br /><br />I don't know of anybody suggesting that we can make out stars from our original open cluster based on either chemical/or proper motion

 

[qso1]

Actually, spectral analysis is the tool that helps astronomers determine much of the chemical nature of stars and the similarities that are found within some stars. Check out the link below.<br /><br />http://solstation.com/ <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

Grabbing your "thoughts" part of the title, and I know I've said this before....but:<br /><br />That's one of the things I like most about being a meteor observer.<br /><br />This involves spending HOURS under the whole sky. The idea is to watch as much of the sky as you can to detect motion.<br />However in the meantime, you really become part of the whole sky above you. It's quite spiritual.<br />As the seasons progress, I am always amazed as the new constellations rise over the eastern sky in the morning. Instead of Gemini being 10 degrees or so long, in the mind instead it's so big it's hard to recognize.<br />BTW, I'm not stupid. When plotting meteors, I don't want to have any preconceived notions about where things are in the sky. I just plot what I see.<br />So I go out of my way to not know where things will be in the sky. To me, it's more fun to look, get tuned in, and figure it out.<br />Of course, I will know when something is out of place. That means a wanderer (planet). And again, since I try not to know in advance what I might see, I have to guess by brightness and color. I'm pretty good at it. Venus, Jupiter and Saturn are the brightest; Jupiter and Saturn have distinctly different colors. Mars is of course red, and with all the "Mars as big as the full moon" internet rumours, I always have to know it's brightness, position and next opposition <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <br /><br />It's nice to connect to the sky. If more humans did it, we'd be far better off, IMHO.<br /><br />MW <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[newtonian]

MeteorWayne - Indeed I also find night sky watching to be spiritual - and the invitation to do so is also ancient and here:<br /><br />(Isaiah 40:26) 26 “Raise YOUR eyes high up and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one [of them] is missing.<br /><br />Interestingly, in the above verse God's dynamic energy is a translation of the Hebrew word 'oh-nim', which is plural. Power is a translation of ko'ach.<br /><br />The more we study stars and their origin and motion the more we realize how much power and energy is involved, and especially recently we postulate the existence of still another (plural) form of energy: dark energy. (note verse 22 in the context refers to the stretching out of the heavens, which scientists now consider has multiple causes from plural forms of energy including dark energy.)<br /><br />Whenever I view the night sky, now with increased knowledge of how much energy went into the creation of our universe, it leaves me with a spiritual awe.<br /><br />To me the following is true:<br /><br />(Psalm 19:1-2) 19 The heavens are declaring the glory of God; And of the work of his hands the expanse is telling.  2 One day after another day causes speech to bubble forth, And one night after another night shows forth knowledge.<br /><br />Indeed, the more we study the sky, the more knowledge we take in and the more we want to talk about it!

 

[oker59]

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/knows.html

 

[doubletruncation]

I love looking at the Hyades and the Pleiades - it's so neat that you can see both of the incredibly important star clusters at the same time in almost the direction on the sky (+ the Orion Nebula cluster a little later). I think they are probably my favorite naked eye sight in the sky - I can spend an hour gazing at them. The beautiful 100 million year old stars of the Pleaides - the dinosaurs might have seen them (don't know out relative distances then) though they may have had other even more stunningly bright stars that are now no more. Alcyone is already climbing off the main sequence, soon to be followed by Atlas, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta and Pleione - in another 100 million years all the beautiful B stars will be gone. The Hyades - six times older but about three times closer. With beautiful Aldebaran setting halfway between us and the cluster - the stars are obviously redder and older; they were around when the first multi-cellular organisms appeared on the Earth, the very first creatures with eyes might have looked up and seen them with bright blazing massive stars that are now long gone. But still they are fairly young at only 600 million years, all the stars that you can see in the Hyades with your naked eyes are brighter and hotter than the Sun - many of them will die long before they reach the age of our Sun. They are in our backyard - only 130 light years away, but too far for us to see any of the sun-like stars (they'd have to be less than about 50 light years away). The stars are still spinning rapidly - more than three times faster than the Sun is. They're spinning so rapidly that they're covered with enormous spots covering more than 10% of the star - and you can detect the stars' brightness changing in time. They have flares and outbursts that we can detect in the x-rays all the way from here - any planets they might have would have incredible Aurorae! As you move up to Auriga you can find three beautiful gems - M36, M37 and M38 - w <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[oker59]

now that was a lot of good stuff; i've noticed some other clusters around the pleides and hydes clusters, so it was nice to read somebody else's account of them(jeez, I feel like I havn't read the literature; i've always taken the observational astronomy for granted over all the cosmology and unified physics theories).<br /><br />I'll have to use this post as a reference and look up these things!