Carl Sagan: Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion

Posted by admin on March 6th, 2010 and filed under planetary | 14 Comments »

Carl Sagan explains Kepler’s laws of planetary motion.

Clip from COSMOS: A Personal Journey.

Duration : 0:5:53

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What is the most precise way to analyze planetary aspects?

Posted by admin on February 28th, 2010 and filed under planetary | 1 Comment »

I sometimes feel that some aspects contradicts the other. Since i’m new to this stuff, i need your advice. So, can anyone recommend any good websites to learn about aspects in detail?

I’m going to start with the second part of your question first.

There are several really good sites that are great for beginners. The one most people recommend is http://www.astro.com ; they have excellent tutorials for aspects. Also, Bob Marks astrology http://www.bobmarksastrologer.com/ is one of my favorite sites for researching houses and aspects.

Now, for how to analyze aspects…that’s not such an easy question to answer. It’s a matter of preference to what is most important to you, but very generally, I would recommend working your way through your aspects starting with the most prevalent placements (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars) first. Those are your personal planets and, being closest to Earth, will have the most "pull" on you.

Also, I really don’t consider aspects has having a specifc "precedence" when I’m reading a chart. I look at the whole thing first, see what jumps out at me, then focus on those areas that are of importance at the time…ie, if I want to look at communication issues, I focus on Mercury, for example.

Also, below is a link that has some helpful hints for a new chart reader from some of the more experienced people here.

Using Planetary Camera to figure out number of galaxies in universe?

Posted by admin on February 26th, 2010 and filed under planetary | 1 Comment »

I counted about 80 galaxies in the Planetary Camera of the Hubble Deep Field. The Camera is 35 arc seconds by 35 arc seconds in size, and the entire sky has an area of 41,253 square degrees (degrees), how do I calculate how many galaxies are in the universe? How do I set up the equation?

1 degree= 3600 arc seconds

Well there are 60 arcseconds per arc minute and 60 arcminutes per degree. So you just have to do the conversions.

Using your information the Hubble Deep Field is:

35 / (60 * 60) = .0097 degrees across and,
.0097 * .0097 = .00009409 square degrees

There fore there are
80 / .00009409 = 850249.761 galaxies per square degree, and
850249.761 * 41253 = 35,075,353,385.057 galaxies in the sky. Obviously this is a very rough estimation, but kinda cool nonetheless.

Professional estimates of how many galaxies there are range into the hundreds of billions. The descrepency can easily be attributed to a miscount (the Hubble Deep Field is huge and there are tons of galaxies there), there may be denser areas in other parts of the sky, etc., etc.

Starcraft2 planetary fortress rush

Posted by admin on February 25th, 2010 and filed under planetary | 25 Comments »

Check out my new video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu6x-p94DEs

Duration : 0:2:36

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What causes an aging giant star to produce a planetary nebula?

Posted by admin on February 24th, 2010 and filed under planetary | 3 Comments »

Is it becuase it is dieing?

Stars like the sun eventually become red giants (actually asymptotic giant branch stars – which comes after the red giant phase – but its still basically a red giant).
At this stage the surface of the star is somewhere close to 1 astronomical unit from the center (i.e. where we are), so the surface gravity is very low (same mass of the sun, but much further from center of gravity).
Consequently the surface gases can easily achieve escape velocity. At the same time, the star is a little unstable and pulsates.The pulsation helps push material away from the star’s surface. Once pushed, according to Newton’s 1st law, the gas atoms keep going away from the star. The gas cools as it drifts away and can form some dust. So during this phase, a star like the sun develops a "circumstellar" cloud of gas and dust (actually the dust accelerates theprocess through radiation pressure). Once the star runs out of fuel (which at this stage is helium burning to make carbon) and the outer part of the star is too thin to support itself, the remaining star collapses and heats up.

As the star heats up it can excite the gas that was ejected into the circumstellar cloud. This cloud behaves like a neon light – the electrons in the gas are excited and then de-excite by emitting photons – so we see a beautiful colorful nebula and a tiny white dwarf central star.

The colors are indicative of what atoms and ions are in the gas cloud.

Contrary to what some textbooks still say – planetary nebulae are not spherical – they are more or less donut shaped or hourglass shaped. The causes of this are a matter of controversy in the Planetary Nebula research community

What is an ideal eyepiece for high mag planetary viewing?

Posted by admin on February 22nd, 2010 and filed under planetary | 3 Comments »

I have an ED80 (so called APO) at focal ratio of 7.5. What short focal length EP would you suggest? Target: Saturn and Jupiter. Maximum usable magnification — approximately 160x. EP example 3.5 mm.
Would you prefer an "ortho or ultrascopic" design, or would you consider a wide angle "hand grenade" Nagler or other high quality EP?

As C.A.A. said, the Tele-Vue Radian eyepieces are good choices if you can afford them.

If you are on a budget (like myself), then consider Orthoscopic eyepieces and a quality Barlow lens. Why a Barlow? Because at higher magnifications Orthoscopics (as well as the standard Plossel eyepieces) have small eye lenses and short eye-relief (the distance required for the eye to take in the entire field of view).

I own an ED80 too, so hopefully this will help. I usually use an Antares 3x Barlow lens (similar to Celestron Ultima) with a 12.5mm Orthoscopic for 144x (equivalent to a 4.1mm eyepiece) on nights of so-so seeing.

For nights of good seeing I will use the same barlow lens with a 9mm Orthoscopic eyepiece (equal to a 3mm eyepiece) for a magnification of 200x. Yes, this is somewhat more than the theoretical maximum (normally a no-no), but I have had sharp views of the Moon and planets even at this magnification. Not necessarily any more detail than at the theoretical limit but a more satisfying image scale for me. The ED80 has sharp enough optics (mine does anyway) to do this.

Planetary Assault Systems – Function 1

Posted by admin on February 22nd, 2010 and filed under planetary | 14 Comments »

Planetary Assault Systems – Coad Warrior 1

Label:Peacefrog Records
Catalog#: PFG001
Format:Vinyl, 12″
Country: UK
Released: 2000
Genre:Electronic
Style:Techno
Written by: Luke Slater

Duration : 0:6:27

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Sign or Planetary Aspects that Make a Man always willing to Do what the Woman Tells Him to?

Posted by admin on February 20th, 2010 and filed under planetary | 7 Comments »

Like he would do anything to make the woman happy. Like he’ll do the chores for her, he’d buy her anything, like give everything she tells him to. More like he only lives for that woman.

first ask yourself

How does a planetary orbit work in a binary star system?

Posted by admin on February 18th, 2010 and filed under planetary | 3 Comments »

I’m thinking specifically of the Alpha Centauri system and its planet.

For a stable orbit, the key is that the orbits can’t be too close to each other. So the planet could orbit close to one of the stars, while two stars orbit each other at a much greater distance. Or, the two stars could orbit close to each other, while the planet orbits much further away. Otherwise the orbits will be unstable and the smaller body (the planet) would probably get ejected from the system.

I’m not sure what the particular case is with Alpha Centauri. Perhaps someone else can answer that.

any websites where u can find periods where certain planetary formations occur?

Posted by admin on February 16th, 2010 and filed under planetary | 1 Comment »

say if i want to find moon conjunct jupiter, saturn oppose mercury, jupiter sextile sun, and it’ll tell me which periods these planetary formations all occured at the same time. any websites like that?

Hi Snow

Here is a god website if you have interest in Astrology and what to know what is happening in the now , today, in the present.

http://www.drstandley.com/astrologycharts_twelvehouses.shtml