Sydneysiders, go to the Observatory. Me and the gf went last night, the clouds cleared up just in time, and it was great.
It's an awesome thing to see, amongst other things, Saturn and its moons (it looks exactly as it is depicted in junior science books, you can see its rings). They've got a telescope whose motor is controlled by a computer program; and the astronomer just clicks on things that he can show you on that night.
Random fact; did you know that when galaxies collide and swallow each other up, the individual planets/suns hardly ever actually collide? It just screws up their orbits and stuff!
5 comments:
Did you go at night? What'd you see? And what's the yearly meteor shower? I'm aware that there's always always heaps of meteors but didn't know there was a particular time with a lot of them. Anyway, this year they're getting some bigger telescopes in
http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/blog/?p=474 , you should come
Some knob said that he checked the forecast, and it's going to rain in July.
Haha, I dunno, but 3 of the 5 people I've asked "have you been to the observatory before" have responded that yes, they have, but "DURING THE DAY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I don't know, perhaps they thought that things would still be visible during the day. I guess the moon is. Unfortunately we didn't get to see that, however I'd say looking straight on at a full moon would be pretty cool. My friend's got a telescope but only uses it to see whether or not there are waves down at his local beach
Haha.
Have you heard about the recent laser attacks on planes? Groups of 6+ have been co-ordinating green lasers on pilots trying to land. Funnily enough, the scientist at the observatory had a green laser light....
I've always loved a good observatory, ever since I got to go to the big one in Los Angeles as a kid.
The cosmos is an amazing place. We don't comprehend the half of it. It is at once thrilling and terrifying to realize that we don't really know if the universe has a beginning or a boundary.
Heya ECD, I share your fascination and agree that we don't know about a lot of what we we see out there. However we've strong evidence to suggest that the universe both had a beginning, and has no boundary.
I'd like to go to the LA one, I'm sure it's good. But then there must be better ones closer to home?
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