Fact Stargazing Live!

[Scouse]

Comical action involving Dara O'Brien, "Professor" Brian Cox and the other fat bloke off Sky at Night (Chris Lintott) looking at space. N'shit.

Turning out to be laughably amateurish and very interesting at the same time

My girlfriend says to tell you it's like Lambing Live but in Space.

That makes me want to cry


Edit: Oh. BBC 2. Right now. And tomorrow night. And maybe Wednesday. And they're asking us to find our own planet - but when I went on the webpage it had crashed

 

[caLLous]

My mother was a sheep farmer. DO NOT let her watch lambing live you will never hear the end of it. :'(

"They don't show you the part where they have to skin the dead lamb and then put the skin inside-out on the orphaned lamb so the mother accepts it" Really, Mum? Really?

 

[Scouse]

"They don't show you the part where they have to skin the dead lamb and then put the skin inside-out on the orphaned lamb so the mother accepts it" Really, Mum? Really?

It's a disgrace. You should show the kids teh troof!

I'm gagging to watch the part of Stargazing Live where they skin Brian Cox and then cram Dara into his remains

And I bet Wij is too. The dirty bastard

 

[old.user4556]

Turning out to be laughably amateurish

They have to keep it reasonably dumbed down for kids and the poorly educated.

 

[Gumbo]

They have to keep it reasonably dumbed down for kids and the poorly educated.

Wait!!, Gwadien's qualified already?

 

[Scouse]

They have to keep it reasonably dumbed down for kids and the poorly educated.

It's not so much the dumbed down (well, it is that too, but that's expected) - it's the fact that it looked like they really hadn't thought the show through.

Brian Cox is showing his inexperience in live shows - he needs to learn when to shut the fuck up and let other people do their thing.

Still, fun to watch. Roll on tomorrow

 

[Wazzerphuk]

This is their second series though...

 

[Zenith.UK]

I watched it with my eldest.
I've already got plans for a "proper" telescope setup with motorised equatorial mount, hi-res cam and doing the whole astrophotography thing for ourselves. The timeline was originally in 12-24 months. I think I'm going to try and accelerate that to no more than 12 months.

I think the alternative is to ask Dad if I can buy his LXD75 8" Schmidt-Newtonian at a knockdown price. Or just just get the motorised mount and ask if I can borrow the scope more often.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Live in London, can't see shit!

 

[old.user4556]

Brian Cox is showing his inexperience in live shows - he needs to learn when to shut the fuck up and let other people do their thing.

For example?

 

[Scouse]

For example?

He seemed to be answering questions asked of other people tbh. Jumping in at every opportunity.

Don't get me wrong, he's a good poster child for physics. But he's no Carl Sagan.

And cool Zen. Post some pics when you do it

 

[old.user4556]

I'd much rather my kids grow up wanting to be like Brian Cox than Wayne fucking Rooney, so from that perspective I think he plays an edible 'cool science bloke' that will hopefully ignite and fuel a passion for science, filling a hole that the likes of Hawking can't.

 

[rynnor]

I watched it with my eldest.
I've already got plans for a "proper" telescope setup with motorised equatorial mount, hi-res cam and doing the whole astrophotography thing for ourselves. The timeline was originally in 12-24 months. I think I'm going to try and accelerate that to no more than 12 months.

I think the alternative is to ask Dad if I can buy his LXD75 8" Schmidt-Newtonian at a knockdown price. Or just just get the motorised mount and ask if I can borrow the scope more often.

Dont bother - not in the UK - even the 8 inch will only be good for the moon and planets.

If you want to get decent images use one of the rent a scope companies - far better results.

 

[Tuthmes]

You already got the Sky at Night (which is pro), what the hell you need this show for?

 

[Zenith.UK]

Dont bother - not in the UK - even the 8 inch will only be good for the moon and planets.

If you want to get decent images use one of the rent a scope companies - far better results.

Why rent a scope? The whole point is the satisfaction of doing it yourself.
Haven't you ever experienced a truly dark sky?

It's not so bad if I drive up to the Denbigh Moors.
http://g.co/maps/8js7z
Park up at this layby, then trudge offroad a couple hundred metres. It's far enough away from most urban areas to avoid the worst LP, high enough to be above ground mist, and open enough to have almost complete horizon to horizon viewing. There is some LP from the coastal towns to the north but if the air is dry and clear then it isn't so bad.

My parent's place on Mull enjoys utterly clear dark skies with NO LP whatsoever. I've already told the story in another thread about Christmas Eve 2009 when I was staying with them for the holiday. I woke up around 2am (1 hour after the moon had set) and looked out of the window. It took me some time to get dark adapted but there was not a single artificial light source within miles that I could see. I was able to see shadows of trees, the snow on the ground and the silhouette of the mountains to the SW... all by starlight and skyglow alone.

If you're doing deep-sky photography, you try to reduce the amount of LP as much as possible by choosing good locations. You also use a broadband sodium LPS filter to get rid of the worst LP (Lumicon or Astronomik are highly rated), a quality camera with a low noise CCD (e.g Meade Deep Sky Imager) and a laptop to store the images and stack them.

 

[rynnor]

Why rent a scope? The whole point is the satisfaction of doing it yourself.
Haven't you ever experienced a truly dark sky?

There arent any truly dark sky sites in the UK - there are some that are relatively better than others but they all have a level of light pollution. Its a sad fact that you need bigger better telescopes now to see what you could see on inferior scopes in the past.

For deep sky photography you need a bigger telescope than you'll be able to afford unless you like pictures of smudges.

If you go the rent a scope route you get access to kit you could never afford in sites that are in proper dark sky areas - unless your a secret millionaire its your only real alternative for decent deep sky photos.

Theres still a lot to learn even using a robot scope - image processing and enhancement is an art in itself.

 

[old.user4556]

Apart from the dark sky park in Dumfries and Galloway?

 

[rynnor]

Apart from the dark sky park in Dumfries and Galloway?

Its about as good as youll get in europe which has chronic light pollution.

Nearest truly dark skies a few hundred miles west in the atlantic or down in parts of the sahara.

 

[Tuthmes]

Using semantics is the new way of winning the internets.

 

[caLLous]

I don't know what the definition of a "dark sky" is (apart from the obvious meaning of the words) but stand outside my front door on a clear night, adjust for a minute or 2 and there are gajillions of stars to see. Gajillions I tells ya.

 

[old.Tohtori]

I always wondered if the black of the space comes from shadows and un-lit trash in there. anyone know?

 

[rynnor]

Using semantics is the new way of winning the internets.

It may seem like it but when your trying to image dim objects even a tiny amount of light pollution is a big problem. In europe its best to stick to imaging the planets and their moons rather than chasing the unobtainable.

Really all I'm trying to do is to avoid people spending thousands (which is very easy to do once you start looking at decent imagers etc.) and still not getting what they wanted.

I nearly went down that route but I consider myself to have had a lucky escape! Go to a star party and try out some other peoples kit to see whats really possible in your area.

 

[old.Tohtori]

In europe? Come to finland, see the galaxy. Or better yet, norway(they've got even more remote locations).

 

[rynnor]

See the map on the first page of this - note how bad most of europe and north america are...

http://users.tkk.fi/~jteikari/Teikari_LightPollution.pdf

 

[old.Tohtori]

Yes yes, as i said, come to Finland

Go to freakin lapland(our north) and you'll get zero.

 

[Scouse]

Using semantics is the new way of winning the internets.

Well, considering semantics is the study of meaning your sentence could say "using the correct meaning of things is the new way of being right"


But either way, I think Zen n' his kid'll have a great time at Denbigh.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Well, considering semantics is the study of meaning your sentence could say "using the correct meaning of things is the new way of being right"

Using pedantics is the new way of winning the internets

 

[Scouse]

It's only pedantic if you don't think that being accurate or correct is worth anything...

 

[old.Tohtori]

Accurate, yes, correct...hmm...women

 

[Tuthmes]

Well, considering semantics is the study of meaning your sentence could say "using the correct meaning of things is the new way of being right"

Ahh yes, but there are different levels of beeing correct and words can be interpretered differently. Ie. a truly dark sky would have no shiny stars (or anything) at all.