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Space Science and Astronomy thread

Been digging in to the history of Skylab over the weekend. Wasn’t aware of its difficult launch and the repairs needed by the first crewed mission straight after. A fascinating watch!
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got the bairn a decent pair of binoculars for her birthday last week, genuinely surprised at how much she's been excited by them. to be honest i'm amazed at how good they are myself, we could make out the moons of venus (i think) with them just from our back garden at the weekend.

other than an hour or two's drive into northumberland & kielder, is there anywhere local in tyne & wear that are half decent for stargazing? fairly sure when she see's a clear sky on the way home from school soon enough she'll want us to go and find somewhere decent to look at the sky...
 
errant said:
got the bairn a decent pair of binoculars for her birthday last week, genuinely surprised at how much she's been excited by them. to be honest i'm amazed at how good they are myself, we could make out the moons of venus (i think) with them just from our back garden at the weekend.

other than an hour or two's drive into northumberland & kielder, is there anywhere local in tyne & wear that are half decent for stargazing? fairly sure when she see's a clear sky on the way home from school soon enough she'll want us to go and find somewhere decent to look at the sky...
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Sorry to disappoint, but Venus has no moons.

Jupiter has four so depending on the binocs' strength it could have been them.
70s traveller said:
Jupiter has four so depending on the binocs' strength it could have been them.
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I'll correct myself: Jupiter has a total of 92 confirmed moons but four main larger ones.
 
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errant said:
It'll have been that, she's the expert on these things... 😉
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Whatever it was she saw she'll be hooked (like I was). Telescope on the way next I seem to think because whichever way you look up there something interesting shows up.

Joking aside, start saving up...your lower para in the op tells me she's on her way.
 
errant said:
got the bairn a decent pair of binoculars for her birthday last week, genuinely surprised at how much she's been excited by them. to be honest i'm amazed at how good they are myself, we could make out the moons of venus (i think) with them just from our back garden at the weekend.

other than an hour or two's drive into northumberland & kielder, is there anywhere local in tyne & wear that are half decent for stargazing? fairly sure when she see's a clear sky on the way home from school soon enough she'll want us to go and find somewhere decent to look at the sky...
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I’ve got a couple of places in Teesdale I use as they’re far enough away from the bright lights to reduce light pollution.

There’s a few places in the North York Moors which have the same feel but I’ve not tried them with a camera or telescope.
 
errant said:
got the bairn a decent pair of binoculars for her birthday last week, genuinely surprised at how much she's been excited by them. to be honest i'm amazed at how good they are myself, we could make out the moons of venus (i think) with them just from our back garden at the weekend.

other than an hour or two's drive into northumberland & kielder, is there anywhere local in tyne & wear that are half decent for stargazing? fairly sure when she see's a clear sky on the way home from school soon enough she'll want us to go and find somewhere decent to look at the sky...
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Here's a dark sky map and site for the North East
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I've taken delivery this morning of an SV Bony 40mm eyepiece and the visual quality over my Sky-watcher telescope kit eyepieces is quite astounding. I hadn't thought it possible but it is. The Sky-watcher 10 & 25mm are decent but now that I've seen what the new arrival produced at ground level I couldn't believe it. It's totally opened my mind to what improving other components could do.
 
Hetty said:
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You could see some of these with an iPhone camera / naked eye. Great stuff.

Did wonder on the night how many people would be along Kielder or the Derwent Water with their astrophotography gear. I quite fancy getting into that but wouldn't know where to start.
 
Hetty said:
Disappointing

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I watched the landing live. It was very noticeable (unsurprisingly) how the atmosphere in the control room went from nervous excitement to confused dejection once they lost contact and realised it hadn’t gone to plan. Second time they’ve tipped over on the surface too. 😞
 
MunkyHeed said:
I watched the landing live. It was very noticeable (unsurprisingly) how the atmosphere in the control room went from nervous excitement to confused dejection once they lost contact and realised it hadn’t gone to plan. Second time they’ve tipped over on the surface too. 😞
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If only they had a device built in that the could prop it up again
 
errant said:
got the bairn a decent pair of binoculars for her birthday last week, genuinely surprised at how much she's been excited by them. to be honest i'm amazed at how good they are myself, we could make out the moons of venus (i think) with them just from our back garden at the weekend.

other than an hour or two's drive into northumberland & kielder, is there anywhere local in tyne & wear that are half decent for stargazing? fairly sure when she see's a clear sky on the way home from school soon enough she'll want us to go and find somewhere decent to look at the sky...
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The wildfowl park at washy has an observatory. Sure it's Sunderland astronomical society
 
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