OK, I'm still trying to understand Almatheia (or Almathea). But I'd like to embellish your mythology: Almatheia was the goat, who as you said, suckled baby Zeus. Zeus gave Almathea the power for its horn, when broken off, to be filled with all the food and drink is owner wanted, thus it became the 'horn of plenty,' and cornucopia. The nymph is another version where she fed Zeus with goat's milk.

No, it's not in Saudi Arabia, but you're getting warmer! OK, it's 66.1 tons.

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Sunset

Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge. In alle Täler steigt der Abend nieder
mit seinen Schatten, die voll Kühlung sind.

Hobo

hoba

or something

If I'm right Farmerjumpadon can have it instead... I'm going to bed....

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So I am back, and we lost 2:3 to them Brasilians - well, no shame to loose against those....

But then I seem to have lost my guess for the astronomer who discovered S Andromedae.... uuuh, hu #-o #-o #-o

As I thought, the one about the reddest body was solved while I was away It is indeed Amalthea. The redness comes from sulfuric and ferric dust deposited on it from the volcanoes on Io. It was the last Solar System body to have been discovered by eye (instead of photographic plates), in 1892; and the first satellite of Jupiter to be discovered after the four Gallilean moons; unsurprisingly, it is the largest of the Jovian moons after the Gallileans, at 276 km, potato-shaped; here' s a picture:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/amalthea_vg1.gif

With a pricier amateur equipment (think upward of 8") you can resolve it in a good sky on the right time (I am a beginner, I could'nt yet).

And finally, Amalthea was the nymph (I hadn't heard about the goat, the horn and cornucopia - nice to learn that one!) who nursed Zeus when he had to hide from the voracious appetite for children that his father Kronos (Saturn) had.

Here's to you, champion_munch and eroica =D> =D> =D>

As to the asteroid, no idea ops:
I think I'll have to wait for the next question.... 8)

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Ha! Yes! mickal555, you set me on it!

The Hoba meteorite was found at a farm near Grootfontein, Namibia, in 1920, weighs 60 tons, and is 3 m in diameter. It is the biggest meteorite ever found. I remember my aunt telling me about visiting it - large thing in the middle of nowhere, and the guide who led them there was actually the grandson of the finder.

Well, I did not find the biggest meteorite in Germany, but I can offer one that was found in a search after it was actually observed shrieking across the sky in 2003 - there are three fragments, so far, between 1.9 and 2.5 kg. from the location of the find, it is called the Neuschwanstein meteorite. Now does that make up?

Neuschwanstein meteorite
Neuschwanstein castle

Do we wait for mickal555 to get out of bed again or will someone else jump in?

Edited for the URLs.... and some spelling ops:

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Hours later....

Since everone seems to have gone to bed :-$ (or dinner or Baseball) - what about an easy one:

There is a single Messier object that has a causal link with a recorded event in human history: Which M, what kind of event, which year?

Of course mickal555 has priority putting forward the next question - but until he wakes up, maybe you just solve this and move on...

A very good night, everyone.

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Lucky for Brasil, but that Ballack...If Germany wants to send a gift to the US... :P (sorry, couldn't resist)

I just want to say something about this mythology business, since it's come up often enough with the stars. You will rarely find two variations of these myths to be the same; their sources are Homer (the Illiad and the Odyssey), some tablets found on mainland Greece, Hesiod, Pindar, the Greek tragedy playwrights, such as Sophocles, and Ovid's "Metamorphoses." When invaders from the North in Greece mixed with the traditions of Crete, their beliefs in the gods were a bit different, and so you have this mixture of several cultural traditions. The end of the Minoan-Mycenean was a dark time, and Homer's "Illiad" and "Odyssey" was the beginning of a cultural reawakening, and these are important, especially, as they were the first we know of those stories being written down, since the Greeks formed a true alphabet at that time. The islands and Athens societies had different traditions. You will not find exact accounts of the battle of the Titans, where Zeus and Kronos's (or Cronus) regurgitated children fight against their father and the Titans. Some of these myths do mirror some real history--the $100 word is etiology--but all we have are different versions of similar stories. No one is right.

My point is, Sophocles has it that horn of Achelous was exchanged with the horn of Almathea, which was this "horn of plenty," the cornucopia pictured throughout much artwork. Ovid, in Latin, has it that Almathea was a nymph or Goddess of Plenty. I tend to adhere to the Greek versions of these myths, because they were earlier, and too, I feel they are grittier. So, naturally with all these Latin versions of Saturn, et al, it is as much a cultural choice of what story to choose now, as it was then. But again, one is not necessarily more right than the other (the short explanation, it's all pretty ~arggh~ complex).

It seems like there should be some consistency--if it's a Greek name, use an earlier Greek story, if it's a Roman name, use Ovid's version, but alas, it's all academic.

---------

Arneb, yeah, you got the biggest meteorite, the Hoba West! Mickal gets points for prompting. =D>

I only know that and the US one: Willamette, which is from Oregon, US, and is in the American Museum of Natural History. It's 10-feet long and 5-feet high, and 15.4 tons.

Just trivia I picked up in a book:

The Australian one, as C-Munch said, is Mundrabilla found in Western Australia and weighs 13.2 tons. Mexico, the 3rd largest found (it also has #11), is called Bacuberito and weighs 29.8 tons. Greenland gets #2 at 33.5 tons, and is called Ahnighito (The Tent). Argentina has one at 14.3 and is named Campo del Cielo.

Arneb's question still stands:

There is a single Messier object that has a causal link with a recorded event in human history: Which M, what kind of event, which year?


Time to get ready to view the trio...good evening all.

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Sunset

Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge. In alle Täler steigt der Abend nieder
mit seinen Schatten, die voll Kühlung sind.

Well that'll me

M1- the crab nebula, it was a supernova and it was recorded in 1054 by the chinese I think...
.

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M1 is bound to be it.

I'll interrupt with another question till you get back...

In the early days of spectroscopy, what was the dominant element in which stars were made according to mainstream astronomers? What woman astronomer took ridicule for suggesting hydrogen?

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

I'm thinking Helium, but I have no idea. No idea about the woman either. :-?

And, yeah, I'm pretty sure that Arneb is referring to M1.

with regards

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I like this description of imagining what seeing M1 would have been like. It would have been cool-this "Guest Star."
Seds.org M1

George's question:

In the early days of spectroscopy, what was the dominant element in which stars were made according to mainstream astronomers? What woman astronomer took ridicule for suggesting hydrogen?

C-Munch answered:
I'm thinking Helium, but I have no idea. No idea about the woman either.

And, yeah, I'm pretty sure that Arneb is referring to M1.

__________________
Sunset

Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge. In alle Täler steigt der Abend nieder
mit seinen Schatten, die voll Kühlung sind.

Iron?

Cecilia H. Payne-Gaposchkin was the woman in question.

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Well, you can go ahead and ask another question.....no idea how long George'll be, but we can continue that question when he gets back if you're wrong.

Thanks for the link Melusine.

with regards

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Is that apparent magnitude or absolute?

Either way I have no idea. :P

with regards

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I believe -5.6 is the generally accepted figure but an individual with perfect eyesight with execellent seeing in a dark sky could probably manage -6 or possibly more (or is it less for a negative number #-o )

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Ooaahhhhh! Now I get that question. #-o

The number is around 6, getting up to 6 and a half in prestine conditions.

with regards

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M1 (crab nebula), 1054, guest star that was the SN that created M1 - of course!

I think eroica must be thinking of a specific star and be thinking in terms of absolute luminosity. It might be a star which appears quite bright bcause it's close but is dim in absolute terms. He can't be thinking of something like apparent magnitude - going down from 5.6 to 6 alone would mean thousands of additional stars - and I hear they have mag 7 nights in the Chilean Andes!

No, think of something close but small, and thus, easily visible.

No idea which star that could b e, though.

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I'd guess that might be 61 Cyg