This is super cool! I was kinda hoping it would hit soonish. 2032 feels like it might as well be 3032 with how things are going. Hopefully this doesn’t mess up any of the world’s plans for lunar bases.
Unfortunately we’ll never get to visit them in person if Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz has anything to say about it:
We are about to jump into hyperspace for the journey to Barnard’s Star. On arrival we will stay in dock for a seventy-two-hour refit, and no one’s to leave the ship during that time. I repeat, all planet leave is canceled. I’ve just had an unhappy love affair, so I don’t see why anybody else should have a good time.
To think how hard it is to confirm these planets, for such a relatively close star. When we have already confirmed so much about objects at far greater distances.
Hard to comprehend these achievements from our individual perspectives. 👏
I wonder if Kepler or others would have found these planets had Barnard's Star been in the areas searched? I.e., very small planets in close orbits around a dim star is a very difficult target, period. This also means that the thousands of systems we now know about certainly have far more than the few bodies we've detected because we can only see the biggest ones well.
This is a great question. It’s like asking when a rock is too small to be a planet. I suspect there were be a definition eventually that mirrors the planetary definition – something like “spherical(ish) and clears its orbit”. The issue is that Mars would lose its two moons under that definition.
So we might end up with something like “moons” vs “natural satellites” and Mars will just have to suck it up.
I biked out to a park yesterday with my big binoculars but I’m still waiting for my tripod to show up so I just checked out the moon some. Thanks for posting.
The Pleiades and Hyades should still be fairly high in the sky, and make great targets for binoculars. I’m also VERY partial to the little beehive cluster in Canis Major (go to the first barely visible star down from sirius, along the dog’s spine, and move directly right from there). If they’re strong enough, the Orion Nebula also makes a great target. The regular beehive cluster is alright; it can be tricky in the city, but you should juuuust be able to see what kinda looks like a faint, blurry star just left of the angle of you make a right angle between Pollux and Procyon. There’s also a few binary stars that make good targets right now. You should be able to split the first bright star out from the cup in the handle of the big dipper into three stars.
Got moved to tonight at my spouse’s request, didn’t get out until 2100.
Seeing was good, not the clearest I’ve seen, but not bad. The stars seemed overall dimmer than usual, but not shimmering or twinkling. Light pollution was definitely slapping though
What I managed (using 12" f5 dob, 30mm wide field eyepiece in 2x Barlow):
M65 and M66. Took me two or three tries to starhop to them. I did not manage to visualize NGC 3628, but m65 and M66 appeared as vague foggy shadows, oval in shape, both tilted to point upper left and lower right, the right above the left. Very difficult to visualize directly, almost had to visualize exclusively via averted gaze.
Bode’s Galaxy: this involved more dumb luck than I’d like to admit. I tried to starhop here by using the bear’s neck stars to form a pointer to a dimmer bunching of stars that would point to the galaxy. I tried probably four different times until I got on the same group of stars and slewed a bit right and maybe a degree down. Bode’s Galaxy has a more circular appearance than 65 and 66, the core is brighter, and it’s beefy enough to tolerate direct gaze. Still a faint fuzzy, but it left me in less doubt about whether I was just imagining it.
What I missed:
Jupiter, Rosette Nebula, everything in Canis Major, Orion, Gemini, and Monoceros: just didn’t get out in time and my views got blocked =(
NGC 2419: The moon stole the show here, unfortunately. It wasn’t directly blocking my view, but it was bright enough to wash out my view in this area
M97 and M108: Tried maybe six different times and got nowhere fast. Not sure why, but trying to star hop here just showed me a bunch of fairly unremarkable stars and that’s all. Maybe I needed higher magnification?
astronomy
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