Dude...where are you, Indiana? Dammit. I want use of your telescope. Just for a night.

(November 18, 2010 at 12:47 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: Dude...where are you, Indiana? Dammit. I want use of your telescope. Just for a night.

Hi there. No, I live in Louisville, Kentucky. Our club's observatory is in southern Indiana, though I only use the facility to have access to an electrical outlet and dark skies (and to make a cup of Joe when I get cold). I own my own scope. I also use a site with a few close friends at Taylorsville Lake State Park, which is a much darker site. I take most of my photos there.

Here is a picture of my set up (that isn't me, of course), minus the astrophoto equipment:



If you are ever in Louisville when we have clear skies, let me know. I could arrange to take you and any friends and relatives over to the observatory. We have a full astrophotography set up plus a large 16" newtonian telescope for general use in the main observatory building. We also have a new general purpose building, which is used for storing other scopes (we have two other very large scopes in there, plus some smaller ones, all of which are for use by our members). That building is also used for a classroom, and is set up for presentations and planetarium programs. It even has a kitchen and his and her bathrooms (a necessity when you're in Hoosier wilderness).

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I meant to post a close up of the moon from my composite image. Here it is. Enjoy:

thesummerqueen Wrote:Dude...where are you, Indiana? Dammit. I want use of your telescope. Just for a night.

:-). You know women, always get what they want.......;-).

I actually have a great uncle in Louisville. If we ever get over there (my family apparently hates visiting each other) I'll push for hitting you up. Last time I got to look through a powerful scope, I was 8 or 9 at the LA observatory.

(November 19, 2010 at 9:56 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: I actually have a great uncle in Louisville. If we ever get over there (my family apparently hates visiting each other) I'll push for hitting you up. Last time I got to look through a powerful scope, I was 8 or 9 at the LA observatory.

We have some good scopes at the observatory. Only one is truly observatory class, but it hasn't been set up yet. It will be used at our Urban astronomy center for use by students doing certain kinds of research (we haven't decided what kind yet, but it'll probably exoplanetary research). It was donated to us by the U of L physics department wehen they installed a new one at their facility. Stop on by sometime.

Here is a Harvest Moon image I took back in 2006. Although the Moon has the appearence of being very bland and devoid of much color, note in this image the very subtle shades and colors that actually exists on the Moon. I took this image and enhanced it in order to bring out those subtle colors and shades, which are, after all, a hint of the mineralogical composition of surface rocks of the Moon. The result was the image below:


The bluish-colored regions contain a unique titaniam-rich basalt (from the mineral ilmenite), while the reddish regions are rich in iron and magnesium. The grayish and pinkish regions (which are primarily in the lunar highlands) are composed primarily of silicates and impact regolith. Photos like these have helped NASA to map not only the composition of the Moon, but the relative ages of its various features. I merely made these to show that it is possible for even ranks amateurs like me to produce useful information.

I just recently saw Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock Collector's Edition on DVD and in its special features is a ~half-hour or so video on Terriforming and humans living on other planets. The video was made in 2002 and the thing that caught my attention was that the man said that the moon was barren and had no water.

It's funny how much things change in 8 years considering how great a prospect of human habitation the moon seems now. Also interesting was the mention of Mars having frozen water on it and being terriformable and the best place for human habitation. This is true, but it caught my attention because we didnt' technically know that with any certainty until fairly recently with the extremely detailed images from orbit and the combined findings of virtually every probe we've launched there in the past 8 years - most notably pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, and probably one or two others I'm forgetting at the moment.

I honestly hope we (humans) accomplish much much more in the next decade because those two targets appear to be more and more temping as permanent living establishments with each new discovery and advancement in engineering.

Also interesting is the prospect of floating cities inside of giant air balloons on Venus, though I would honestly prefer the planet to be terriformed as well. It would be much more difficult than Mars (or the other terrestrial planets and moons) but not impossible.

(November 22, 2010 at 2:30 am)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: I just recently saw Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock Collector's Edition on DVD and in its special features is a ~half-hour or so video on Terriforming and humans living on other planets. The video was made in 2002 and the thing that caught my attention was that the man said that the moon was barren and had no water.

It's funny how much things change in 8 years considering how great a prospect of human habitation the moon seems now. Also interesting was the mention of Mars having frozen water on it and being terriformable and the best place for human habitation. This is true, but it caught my attention because we didnt' technically know that with any certainty until fairly recently with the extremely detailed images from orbit and the combined findings of virtually every probe we've launched there in the past 8 years - most notably pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, and probably one or two others I'm forgetting at the moment.

I honestly hope we (humans) accomplish much much more in the next decade because those two targets appear to be more and more temping as permanent living establishments with each new discovery and advancement in engineering.

Also interesting is the prospect of floating cities inside of giant air balloons on Venus, though I would honestly prefer the planet to be terriformed as well. It would be much more difficult than Mars (or the other terrestrial planets and moons) but not impossible.

The only real obstacle to intensive human exploration of either Mars or the Moon is public opinion, since that is where the funding comes from. I'm afraid that a lot of people don't share such visions. On the other hand, I've always held such visions to be of paramount importance for our future as a species. But that's just me.

(November 22, 2010 at 4:24 am)orogenicman Wrote: The only real obstacle to intensive human exploration of either Mars or the Moon is public opinion, since that is where the funding comes from. I'm afraid that a lot of people don't share such visions. On the other hand, I've always held such visions to be of paramount importance for our future as a species. But that's just me.

That's partially true but much of it has a lot to do with available technology as well.
Think about it - it still takes billions of dollars (or many hundreds of millions at the very very cheapest) to send things into orbit and there are a great many technologies that can very quickly make things much easier that aren't quite pratical yet.

Carbon Nanotubes, being the miracle material that they are, can pave the way for space elevators but mass production of those things isn't available and it's one of those things that's being heavily researched right now because of all of its possible applications.
There are others too that haven't been green-lit by NASA because of funding issues (coming back to public opinion) but it's still an expensive process just to enter orbit, not to mention any other large-scale projects (such as that required for a permanent human settlement of any kind on either celestial body).

The worldwide recession has also gimped just about every space agency in the world - ours especially and even worse since the last shuttle in our small fleet is now out of commission.

But ultimately, only two things are going to get a human settlement - a research station that functions like the ISS or any of the research outposts in the antartic in terms of purpose. The other thing is when the technology to enter space becomes cheaper by a factor of about 10~100 and private businesses can lead expeditions into space for the purpose of resource exploitation - and - just like in the 1500s and 1600s, people will follow the jobs, more jobs will follow the people, and governments can make permanent establishments following all that.
I think the latter has the best chance of making the kinds of settlements you hear about in science fiction or perhaps some intermediate between the two - but the biggest restriction actually relies much more heavily on technology, I think, than how much money we're giving NASA (which isn't enough in my opinion and it's a budget they just keep cutting, but despite being in the country hit the hardest by recession, most of their programs and future plans remain intact, except perhaps the most important ones. Yet, you and I have to admit, this is only a temporary setback and only because of the times.)
Think about it - we already live in a day and age when a private business managed to create a spacecraft capable of touching the edge of space for a very comparatively cheap price compared to the standard NASA shuttle launch.

So I remain somewhat optimistic. All we need to do is wait for Zephram Cochrine to do his thing (or other decent technological advancements in terms of space travel) and we'll be set for the kind of future I'd like to see. Sadly, it just means I may have less of a chance of seeing this future in my lifetime, but then again, I still have maybe 50 years to see things happen.

EDIT: Also, our success on the moon will depend heavily on the proximity and influence of Dracula's hidden moon castle and the Secret Nazi Moon Base.

I think the real obstacle is technology. The technology of lifting payload off the earth into transfer orbits to anywhere hasn't improved by any great margin since sputnik. Until an order of magnitude improvement is attained in this area, intensive human exploration of the moon and mars will remain so costly that it would be hard to justify its massive opportunity cost in the face of competing priorities of nations in competition. The next human extraterrestrial exploration will be same as the last and the only previous one - an ego boosting stunts by nations like china that would be discontinued once the flag is planted.

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I personally don't think space elevator will be practical. 1st, there is the issue of how do you get the necessary mass up there to anchor the top end of the elevator in the first place. 2nd, what contingency plans are there if the cables snap and thousands of miles of broken cables come crashing down and wrapping forwards onto the ground? 3rd, space elevator doesn't work for free, you need to compensate for the loss of average angular momentum everytime you hoist something up there. Otherwise the elevator, instead of sticking straight up, will start to gradually wind backwards around the earth.