Saturn, Mars, Regulus, Lunar Gathering and Moondust Telescopes

Saturn, Mars, Regulus and Moon Saturday July 5, 2008


Saturday July 5 just after Sunset there was a real pretty celestial gathering of Saturn, Mars, Regulus and the Moon and almost all in a straight line, very nice.



6% of Full Moon Friday July 4, 2008


Getting a little antsy here, running out of major conjunctions to watch for, the next one isn't till August 2, 30 minutes after Sunset if you look low in the west you will see Saturn, Venus, Regulus and the crescent Moon all gathering, further off to the right you will also see Mars, technically not in conjunction with, poor little Mars, kinda in a wannabe conjunction, I'll make sure to get Mars in the image with the rest of them.



Recipe for one Hubble size telescope mirror, 130 pounds of epoxy, 3 pounds of carbon nanotubes, one gram of aluminum, oh yea, and 1300 pounds of lunar dust. NASA Astrophysicist Peter C. Chen has a dream to build a big telescope on the Moon with the main ingredient being Moondust. They have already successfully constructed a 12 inch mirror by using Moondust simulant, epoxy, aluminum and carbon nanotubes.

With the Moon's weak gravity they are saying it might be possible to build telescopes with mirrors as large as 50 meters across, or 20 times the diameter of Hubble, that is one big scope, but that's not all folks, no, not only do you have a big scope, but on the Moon there is no atmosphere, nothing to distort the light path from far away stars and planets, because of these two facts they figure, they being people other then me, they could actually analyze the chemistry on planets around other stars for signs of life. In my dreams, to be an Astronaut, on the Moon, riding on that cool Moon buggy, to look through a fifty meter telescope, to see little green aliens on a distant planet, sigh, here I am stuck on Earth, well at least I have my cat........ and a blog.

I'll leave you now with a gif of the 13% of Full Moon, taken July 5, 2008