Science imminent...

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » June 27, 2005, 11:15 am

Worth keeping an eye on NASA TV/the sky this Sunday evening - Next Monday Morning. Deep Impact's Impactor is scheduled to well, impact Tempel 1 July 4th at 1:52 am...possibly visible to the naked eye depending on a lot of unknowns...the Impactor which weighs 800ish lbs should smack the coma at a relative velocity of 23k mph...

Info updates at:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepi ... index.html

Big Badaboom...

Neost · Post by **Neost** » June 27, 2005, 12:43 pm

I just updated the database in my goto controller in hopes of having some view of this through my telescope. It is supposed to be visible through a good pair of binoculars so I'm hoping my scope will pick it up nicely.

Homercles · Post by **Homercles** » June 27, 2005, 1:05 pm

Any idea where in the night sky this is supposed to happen? In relation to a North American viewer?

Southern skies? Northern Skies? Easterly or westerly?

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » June 27, 2005, 2:23 pm

SW just above Spica in Virgo...

http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/hi ... 1522_1.asp

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 3, 2005, 11:01 am

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8436808/

There are more links to webcasts and such for viewing on this page.

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » July 4, 2005, 3:00 am

Bam...now that's nice navigating...

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 4, 2005, 3:02 am

Talk about precision. They had some nice preliminary pictures in the nasa.gov webcast. Now to see what they can learn from it.

Hoarmurath · Post by **Hoarmurath** » July 4, 2005, 3:03 am

Here is where we find out that Tempel-1 is sentient and we just pissed it off.

Very impressive, although I can't believe I stayed up to watch it, since I'm not really a space geek.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 4, 2005, 3:04 am

I was expecting something like a tiny chunk, but the explosion is more evident in the shots than I thought they would be.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 4, 2005, 4:34 am

Amazing accomplishment. Hopefully phase 2 will go well and we get some close up images of the results.

Neost · Post by **Neost** » July 4, 2005, 12:42 pm

couldn't really see much detail with my little telescope but it was easy to detect the brightening after impact. The biggest problem I had was tracking it consistently.

I need a better telescope.

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » July 4, 2005, 1:38 pm

Neost wrote:couldn't really see much detail with my little telescope but it was easy to detect the brightening after impact. The biggest problem I had was tracking it consistently.

I need a better telescope.

Build a newtonian...

...and buy a nice lil celestron mount/with tracking motor...

Or...
http://telescopes.com/products/Celestro ... 30993.html