I'll just say that if I ever have the opportunity to provide this experience to kids, I would do everything I could. I realize that schools have to worry about the liability thing, but it shouldn't overshadow this missed opportunity(pun accidental but intended). I didn't even know about the ecclipse untill they said not to look out the windows, which just about everybody did.

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Mongo like candy!

I don't know the source of the original quote, and I am paraphrasing here, but you should never let one's schooling get in the way of one's education [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Rob

I got to see one. Apollo 17. I was very young. My parents put me and my sister in the car to sleep because of the launch delays, but came and woke us up in time to see the takeoff.

Tom

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: thkaufm on 2002-01-11 22:16 ]</font>

I missed West, but I did see (and photograph) Kohotek(1973f).

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kaptain K on 2002-01-12 06:49 ]</font>

Thirty years ago, I hitchhiked through New Mexico and stayed for a while with my aunt and uncle. Just as I was getting ready to leave, they casually mentioned that one of their neighbors had a backyard telescope that we could have used, and he just happened to be the guy who discovered Pluto.

My jaw dropped. I ended up being able to talk to Clyde Tombaugh on the telephone, and we exchanged some letters, but I never met him.

The last Leonids! Heavy clouds for a whole month, here in my corner. No chance.

I actually managed to see Hyutake from sea while working a two-week Caribbean cruise! So, basically, I got paid to take a cruise and see a comet. Jealous much?

And let me tell ya, I don't think I'll ever see anything as stunning ever again.

I saw Hyakutake in all its glory from the Everglades while the moon was rising in a total lunar eclipse. Think I had a pretty good show there also [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Rob

First, to Donnie B. You betcha I was lucky. I was young and stupid, but I think I knew it was dangerous even then. But I certainly didn't know HOW dangerous it was. I'm lucky I got out of there with my sight intact. If you think about it, you can fry ants in a second with a magnifying glass, so using a telescope would be magnitudes more powerful. Yikes. Still, I can picture it in my memory right now. I can clearly remember seeing the granulation of the surface. Awesome!

Second, a report on Mercury spotting. I got a little bit lucky on Saturday when my last class got cancelled, so I was able to get home early enough to try to spot it. It took me a few minutes, but I finally saw a very faint spot just above the horizon of buildings. It was very hazy on the horizon, so Mercury was almost invisible to the naked eye, and only a little better in binoculars. Uranus and Neptune were right out, as there was absolutely nothing else visible in that area of the sky.

I wanted to try again on Sunday at the party I mentioned, and I got everyone there a little curious about it, but a quick peek outside at dusk showed too many clouds, so we had to give that idea up.

Oh well. I'll try again in a few months. At least I know where to look for Uranus and Neptune now.

On another note, following up on Grapes' tip, I checked the skies in late April and May, and there is indeed going to be a very nice arrangement of planets in the evenings. All 5 visible planets will be arranged out after sunset, and in one of the most beautiful areas of the sky as well. The best view in my opinion will be May 6th, with Mars, Venus, and Saturn all bunched up together and Mercury at about it's greatest elongation. I've taken a screenshot of the arrangement here: http://www.occn.zaq.ne.jp/cuaea503/i...eveningsky.jpg

May 14-16 also looks very good. The planets get strung out a little more, and the Moon skips through as well. Man, I'll bet it will be awesome. I can hardly wait.

Mark your calendar boys and girls. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

I wonder...

I hate to shatter your illusions, but I doubt that what you saw was the real solar surface granulations. More likely is that you saw some of the internal structure of your eye.

I have experienced this during an ophthalmologist's exam, done with my pupil chemically dilated. The eye doc (don't want to type ophth... twice!) used a very bright light to examine my retina (he mostly kept it off the center of vision, but it was painful nevertheless). I could see a lot of strange things, including squiggly patterns of capillaries and a very notable granular structure.

I really doubt that, if you took a passing glance into the eyepiece, the image was properly focused. Or that your retina would be capable of detecting the difference in brightness between the various parts of the solar surface.

If the glimpse you got was so well-focused that you saw the real granulations of the sun's surface, I doubt you'd have vision in that eye today.

But I guess I could be wrong...

Anyone planning to see the transit of Venus in 2004? It will not be visible in North America until the very end.

I will now. I don't know about 2004 but maybe 2012. I've heard that one isn't optimized for North America either. We seem to always get suckered out of the good stuff. I wouls have no idea where to go, though.

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Mongo like candy!

David Hall

Go out tonight and check out Mercury. It'll be low and to the right of the moon, just when it's getting dark. You can't miss it. It's mag. 0.

Also, when I looked at the moon in binoculars, I could see the star delta Capricorni just to the right about three degrees (probably a little less than half the field of view). On the other side of the star was Uranus. It was lined up between two other stars, and I kept fiddling with my binoculars, because I was seeing Uranus as a double. Turns out Uranus is mag. 5.9 and 44 Capricorni is mag. 5.89, 3 arcminutes away from it. Kinda cool.

On July 10, Venus passes within one degree of the bright star Regulus, in Leo. A few days later, the 12th/13th, the crescent moon joins them.

In early December, Venus will pass close to Mars, in the early morning sky.

<font size=-1>[Mars info]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: GrapesOfWrath on 2002-06-28 09:37 ]</font>

I travelled from Sydney Australia to watch the 1999 Eclipse in Cornwall, England to keep a childhood promise with my father and watch it together.

Saw some nice thick cloud that day. That's all!

Motto? It doesn't help to plan things 30 years in advance...

I apologise on behalf of the British weather.
However, remember that we have to live with it *all the time*. Whereas you get sunshine, presumably lots of it all the time and clear skies to boot.

Oh - am I an Apprentice yet?

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Garlic Bread?!?!

Sorry, that takes 101 posts--one more.

When I recognized the eclipse to come some 25 years ago, I lived some 200 km south of the path - pretty far at that age. Now it happened that I came to live at the center of the path since 15 years and when the eclipse happened, Karlsruhe was one of the few places with the right hole at the right place at the right time in the clouds. I did one mistake: I tried to photograph it, film it, watch it through the telescope and try to teach my children in this minute of totalitary - instead of simply sitting down and enjoy it...

I watched all the moon landings (couldn't pry me away from the tv) and I remember viewing comets West and Kahoutek. I caught Halley from Myrtle Beach SC and viewed Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp in Germany.

I think two of my most memorable viewing experiences involve meteors. Late one evening in 1978, while camping in the mountains near Denver CO, a "hisser" passed directly overhead.

More spectacular was a small fireball I observed in NC sometime around 1993-94 that came close to impacting (*sigh*). I was quite colorful and gave off a lot of flaming sparks. Based on the remnant smoke trail's relation to the trees in the area as I drove around, I figure it was less than a mile away.

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Cheers...Loreto

Am I the only one who remembers Ikeya-Seki?

I watched it rise over the mountains east of Las Cruces, NM on the morning of perihelion...the tail stretched almost to zenith. And my wife-to-be and I saw it at noon that day, using the corner of a building as a occluder, standing out beside the sun like a small streak of fire. Awesome sight.