What are /r/spaceporn's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

here ya go honestly I don’t recommend it. I got it as a gift and while it’s getting the job done for my first telescope and I can’t thank my wife enough for it, I’m going to upgrade to a bigger dobsonian when I get the chance.

> Just because you downvoted me doesn’t make me wrong.

No, what makes you wrong is that every grocery store sells these in aisles that look like this, so your ethnocentric notion that an American would need to measure it in order to know how much is, is the thing that is being pointed out as wrong.

2 liters literally line a set shelves at eye level In american grocery stores. Chill the fuck out with your assumptions. Americans overwhelmingly know the mstric system, we just don’t give a fuck, there is a difference.

You claimed Americans don’t know what a liter is. I’m point that out as wrong. You used “soda can” a way to defend that.

FWIW, i can’t downvote you six times. It’s not just me who thinks you’re wrong.

> I have already stated several times that not all scales have volume measurements, I included the weight if someone wanted to use something like a kitchen scale to get a visual representation of what 1.5L is by using weight. What do you not understand about that?

I understand perfectly. You don’t seem to understand fucking no one needs a scale to know what a liter is.

Shit dude, read the post you’re responding to.

Yes, if you were a million miles away and looked back through a very powerful telescope as the moon crossed in front of the Earth this is what you would see.

I was able to simulate this view at the exact date and time in Space Engine

I could be wrong but I'll leave this here for someone more knowledgeable on spaceporn to opine...

In French it's "la face cachée" (the hidden side), which makes more sense.

> dark (därk) adj. dark·er, dark·est

> ...

> (9.) Concealed or secret; mysterious:

There you go.

We're working on an interactive simulator, Universe Sandbox ², that lets you terraform Mars (and other moons and planets). Combining gravity, climate, and material simulations... you can actually spray water or atmosphere directly onto the planet.

A screenshot of Mars with added water, and nearly the same angle as the OP image above, can be found under What's New in Universe Sandbox ².

Let me enlighten you. It's this app that you can use along with this app extension for reddit that allows you to change your wallpaper every x hours and set it to top posts on any image based subreddit you want. Right now I've added all posts on /r/spaceporn, /r/mostbeautiful and /r/nocontextpics that are over 2500 karma.

Life is amazing.

http://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=2&lat=5396499.63301&lon=590622.69407&layers=B0TFFFTT
1. go stand in one of the dark areas, away from any bright lights
2. look up for about 30 minutes to see milky way.

you might want to check if you can see the milky way from the time and place you will be standing using stellarium.

From here http://gizmodo.com/5909215/this-is-the-definitive-photograph-of-planet-earth

"The images... ...combines four light wavelengths, three visible and one infrared. The orange you are seeing here is the vegetation... ...The 3 reflected sunlight bands can simulate a conventional red-green-blue color picture. The near infrared channel is a vegetation indicator, since plants reflect near-ir as well as green"

Aside from that, anybody notice the straight purple lines over Kenya and North East India?

I've been doing this for a while but it's not crazy complicated although it does take a DSLR or mirrorless camera, although some point and shoot cameras are good enough. The short version of it is, wait until the moon is not full (the best is when it's a new moon), go to a very dark place (a couple hours outside any major city), figure out where/when the galactic center of the milky way is using stallarium then go outside in the right place/right time. Once you're out you need to focus your camera on infinity, set it to the largest aperture your lens has (smallest f stop), a shutter speed around 10-30 and an ISO above 1600.

This one specifically was shot a few days after the full moon but before it rose above the horizon, using a Nikon D600 and a 24mm F1.4 lens at F1.4/20 seconds/ISO 4500). This was actually a panorama stitched from about 6 images to get a wide field of view and a larger resulting image.

A great resource on how to do this is http://www.lonelyspeck.com/

> Desert near the oasis city of Al-'Ula, Saudi Arabia Source: Nasser AlOthman - 500px

Space engine is the best. Wallpapers for all eternity. Seriously, everyone go download it if you like space, and if you really like it support the guy making it, too!

http://spaceengine.org/

Also did I mention it's free?

Not sure if you've seen/heard of this already, but there's a pretty good miniseries produced by Tom Hanks that ran on HBO about 20 years ago. It follows the Gemini missions through the Apollo program, but unfortunately it's not streaming anywhere (not even on HBO Go/Now). In searching though I just found it's being released on Blu-ray next month.

From the Earth to the Moon

Taken from this source: Pluto and Neptune are on a 3 to 2 orbital resonance with libration (back and forth motion illustrated by the moon), so they will never come within 13 Au (about 2,700,000,000 km) of each other. Furthermore, Pluto has an inclined orbit relative to the orbit of the other planets in the solar system, while Neptune does not.

An image came out a couple of days ago of Pluto and Charon, but because the spacecraft is still quite far away from them yet, the picture is shit. Still cool that we're able to get pictures from that distance, though.

It's not.

> This image was created in photoshop and is based on public domain images of the Helix Nebula and Carina Nebula taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

As such, I can't find any beauty in it.

Well, the US makes up 47% of Reddit users, the rest of the world makes up just over half combined. It's going to be relatable to the largest demographic by a long shot because the next highest number of users by country is the UK at 7%.

https://www.similarweb.com/website/reddit.com/#overview

This doesn't look anything like Lichtenberg figures (which I assume you're talking about). For one thing, the lineations don't seem to have any origin point. Also, they would get thinner the further you go from the source, which doesn't seem to be the case. It looks to me that it might be some other natural rock formation, like serpentine in peridotite, but I don't think it looks electrical at all.

Source: geologist

Thank you! I used Photoshop, and the textured brushes are by Grzegorz Rutkowski I like them because they give a painterly look. He has them for free here I think he also has another more recent set that really mimics oil paint as well.

I actually don't know of a 4" from Orion. They make a 4.5" that runs a little over $200 on Amazon. There's also this 5" Jones-Bird Reflector from Celestron. Quality seems ok for the price, but collimation is tedious.

http://www.eclipsewise.com/oh/tm2019.html

Edit: you can also see what it will look like from your location with an astronomy app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simulationcurriculum.skysafari5

By taking radio observations of the jet separated by a decade, astronomers have determined that the inner parts of the jet are moving at about one half of the speed of light. Well 'impressive' might not be the right word

Which is named after the area pictured. I just spent too long looking for the answer to, "why?" The best I could come up with is: Germans.

It is, but only in the newest version. Check out the rest, you might like another one http://osxdaily.com/2012/06/12/15-beautiful-new-wallpapers-from-os-x-mountain-lion/ they're top notch, despite the fact that they come by default.

Try Orbiter.

Been around a lot longer than KSP, has a fairly big community, lots of mods built around realistic past/future missions, lots of mods for high resolution textures, etc. The learning curve is higher than KSP though, so this might be a good program to 'graduate' to?

If you go somewhere really dark, under optimal conditions the sky can look like this, but even that to an extent is due to the camera. Also the aurora is quite brilliant, but a completely different phenomenon. The other question is how false color pictures get their color - they're not making things up, it's just that they take a picture in the infra-red and ultraviolet and map that to the visible spectrum. If you could see in those extended spectrums I think it would be possible to find a place that's somewhat like this.

Why wait for someone else to simulate it, when you can just throw things at the Earth, until it explodes? Or destroy anything else, including everything.

https://universesandbox.com/

Seriously, it's one hell of a fun simulator. And there's another simulator, if you are not into destroying the Universe, but just curious about it. Giant catalog of objects and incredible fun as well.

http://spaceengine.org/

Both are at least on Steam.

Heavens Above is great because it has a ton of different satellites in its database, but I find the NASA site Human Space Flight to be a bit more convenient and understandable for the ISS only. I made the link assuming you live in the US, but you can click back and go to another country. Find a time with a good, long pass (ignore ones with a max elevation under 20 degrees and a few minutes, they will probably be blocked by trees and buildings on the horizon), and couple it with a free astronomy program like Stellarium. Put your location into both of these, and then before the ISS pass you can change the time in Stellarium to the time the ISS goes over (and turn on the satellite option) and it will draw a line for you letting you know precisely where to look.

I wrote this quickly, so please let me know if it didn't make sense and I'd be happy to clarify. Seeing the ISS is incredible, and I'd love for as many people as possible to be able to experience it.

edit: just so you know, you are only able to see things in orbit right before dawn or right after sunset. ISS passes come in waves, so for a period of a week or so it will only go overhead at, say, between 5 and 6:30 AM, then it will shift to daytime when you can't see it, and then it will shift to passing overhead at dusk from 7-8:30 (and then shift to the middle of the night when you cant see it again). Just throwing rough times out there. So if there are no good passes listed for the next two weeks, check back in a week and a half and you will probably get some great ones. Do not miss the ones that go right overhead! (elevation above 60 degrees or so) It is worth it to wake up early and see the morning passes, because you will get to see Mars and Saturn at this time of year. Stellarium will help you find the planets, also.

From the picture, it looks like she's using this one. It's $12,999 on amazon. I just bought a car for that price.

This, I'd imagine.

After setting up for this shot, I waited another hour for the Milky Way to rotate closer to the falls and get a better alignment. During the time exposure, I light painted the falls and the canyon with a large studio strobe. Planning, calculations, and building lighting equipment for this shot took almost two months. You can learn more about how I photography my Milky Way "NightScapes" HERE.

Convection is almost certainly a driving force that helps maintain the high wind speeds, but it's really not necessary to explain the general patterns of turbulence we see on Jupiter.

There's a famous category of very simple climate simulations known as the "shallow water equations" that includes only a single layer that can vary with height. By definition, you can't really have convection here, since there's only a single layer and so you can't have material from a deeper layer pushing up into the top layer and transferring heat.

Something really cool happens if you also add rotation into the mix - essentially adding a term in the shallow water equations that represents the Coriolis force: turbulence and jet streams naturally arise on their own. Figure 1 in this paper shows just such an example, and it bears an awfully similar resemblance to the patterns we see on Jupiter.

You can start adding lots of extra aspects to the model to try to get even closer - lots of extra layers all stacked on top of each other, heating from the Sun, precipitation and cloud formation, convection - and that's how most modern climate models are constructed, including the ones that predict your weather. The fact that you can get these patterns without all those extras, though, tells you it's something more fundamental than convection generating these turbulent patterns.

Image Credit & Copyright: Rafael Defavari

>Explanation: Our Milky Way Galaxy arcs over a desolate landscape in this fantastic panoramic night skyview. The otherworldly scene looks across the arid, eroded terrain of the Valle de la Luna in the Chilean Atacama desert. Just along the horizon are lights from San Pedro, Chile, as well as the small villages of Socaire and Toconao, and a torturous winding road from the city of Calama to San Pedro. Taken on October 18th, the five panel mosaic also features the four galaxies easily visible from our fair planet's dark sky regions. At the far left, satellite galaxies known as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are framed by their terrestrial namesakes. Much fainter and at the right, beyond the Milky Way's central bulge, is the Andromeda Galaxy. The most distant in view, Andromeda lies some 2.5 million light-years away.

More info:

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1965-104A

> Along with the ablative heat shield, thermal protection during reentry was provided by thin Rene 41 radiative shingles at the base of the module and beryllium shingles at the top. Beneath the shingles was a layer of MIN-K insulation and thermoflex blankets.

Also, first full paragraph in page 65:

https://books.google.com/books?id=7k1sawDR-kEC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=rene+41+gemini+expansion&source=bl&ots=w6k98_a-pD&sig=Nx54vxE6mU7ZlyGXxxDeWBDttyk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_xrsVPK5DsiQoQTHvoKIDw&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=one...

Source

Kinda similar to a previous post I did: http://www.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comments/2hi1u0/delicate_arch_and_the_milky_way_i_did_the/ I operated the massive spotlight to light the foreground.

I also helped with https://500px.com/photo/90352867/moonrise-at-balanced-rock-by-royce's-nightscapes

Hey since your such a space nerd you should try http://spaceengine.org its a realistic virtual Universe where you explore the universe without any limits. Its free on the website free buts its a older version and newest one is on steam for 25$ which is updated with a bunch of new textures etc. and it supports the creator. Try the free version and see how you like it!!! Here is a tutorial he you want to learn how to play it https://youtu.be/bvmEHmWdzmY

I might be wrong, but space does unfortunately not appear very vivid to our human eyes. There is a free, but mindblowing game called Space Engine that lets you visualize and explore the vastness of a representation of the observable universe. You can adjust the rendering parameters such that they emulate the light-sensitivity of our own eyes. When you do that, everything looks very faint and muted (but still cool!). Kinda like observing the Milky Way IRL does. I could provide some screenshots if you don't have the ability to try it yourself.

You can tell by how long the shadows are that it is near sunrise/sunset. The light temp gets warmer at sunrise/sunset, so it may be reflecting the natural light at that time of day.

*You would also need to have your monitor using the sRGB color space to see the colors as they are portrayed from the edit in CS6 that NASA's photo team used. (They have all this in the EXIF data if you are wondering where I found it) Some monitors are not using sRGB, or displaying a slightly off version of it.

Awesome shot.

Also it's not "Super". Straight from Neil De grass Tysons feed.

"eiltyson] Resist the Hype: The size of today’s “Super” moon is to next month’s full moon as a 16.07 inch pizza is to a 16.00 inch pizza http://dlvr.it/CHD0S5"

You're correct. I can link the recipe later when I have time. For now: http://IFTTT.com

Edit: as promised, here's the recipe I'm using

Hey man thanks for remembering! I appreciate your advice.

So GOTO is something to consider when upgrading from my first setup. Got it. For beginners, it's best to go for something a little bit more complicated to learn, correct?

I've looked around in Amazon, but I couldn't find anything on 8" Doby. Could you give me a full name or link it for me, please? I'm going to be in the US next week and I will order it there and then fly back with it to home. Is that something you see any problems with (if properly packaged of course)?

How about the 32mm 2" widefield? Is this it?

I started with this one. A celestron 130slt. I know people don’t like the computerized ones but in my opinion, for an amateur, it’s really great. Amazon has a warehouse deal for $320 right now. It’s a great telescope for beginners. I even took some pictures of the moon and stars. You can see the rings separated from Saturn but you cannot tell that there are two rings if that makes sense.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0007UQNNQ/

nothing special just amazon tripod for a phone spent about 30 bucks on it

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09YRN7LM2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is a telescope on amazon that would do everything you're looking for currently. It is on sale.

Professor Dave is fake news, always has been. Professor Dave is what happens when you don't do your own research for years first and become a meme.

Start researching here from a book by physicist Anthony Peratt: https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Plasma-Universe-Anthony-Peratt/dp/1461478189

That really puts it into perspective! Do you have a YouTube channel? I'd love to link to the video in my open-source app about the JWST, if you would allow that?

I made this using Krita with this drawing Tablet (which is kinda cheap but works wonders) on my PC. I can also help you if you have more in-depth questions about art, you can DM me if you have any!

I have to second u/Oh_Sullivan with the enjoyment of the eye catching water effect. Unbelievable.

For anyone who liked the image, I use IFTTT on my Android phone to change the background to the daily NASA "Photo of the Day". Yet I didn't know this was a Observatory launch until now. Rad!

“Our Universe”! I loved that book as a kid, and a few years ago I bought it on Amazon for the nostalgia. Great illustrations! This one (presuming we’re talking about the same one): https://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Picture-Atlas-Universe/dp/079222731X

Astromania Bahtinov Mask Focusing... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MEG5D8W?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

This will drastically improve your images. My setup goes like this: Level my star tracker using the bubble on the wedge, aim scope roughly at polaris, balance camera roughly and aim it at bright star, use the bhatinov mask to get perfect focus by focussing with the live veiw screen and taking 3 second test shots with the tracker on until the spikes are perfect, then i take off the mask very very carefully and move the camera on my targetwhile not bumping the lens, then i balance the imaging train for real, and finally i polar allign. You will also want one of these to help move the camera itself back a bit to help with balance.

P200 Quick Release Plate - UTEBIT Aluminum Alloy Camera Tripod Base Plate with QR Clamp Adapter with 1/4" and 3/8" Screw Hole Compatible for Manfrotto 501HDV 503HDV 701HDV 577/519/561/Q5 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y4QSL8M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_C405ANYEPT3GW17SRRYP?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

J. P. Metsavainio produced the images for a David J. Eicher and Brian May book called Cosmic Clouds 3D. The book comes with 3D glasses to see the images in 3D. The glasses would be required for a print book. Rotating the images as a gif works great on a computer and is certainly easier than using glasses.

This is a spacecraft I 3D modelled based on a recent mission launched by Astroscale. Just for the context, this is a technology demonstration mission for removal of orbital debris and was launched quite recently.

I have seen different techniques to represent Multi-layer Insulation blankets on scale models and this was my first time trying on a full model. I used wrapping plastic, double sided tape and superglue on some spots. I will try to use this more often as I quite liked the overall result. The rest of the model was printed using approximate filament colours for the solar panels and instruments.

If anyone is interested and want to try 3D printing it, the files are available for free on Cults3D.

(I hope it is ok to share the link to the model here, otherwise I can remove it)

Google's algorithm was changed quite a while ago so that it would by default have a "safe mode" turned on. Porn is then categorized by this algorithm, and only searched out of safemode. Any explicit queries such as "boobs" "pussy" etc - any even with safe mode off you'll still have to be VERY specific because google claims it'll result in more accurate results.

I mean if someone is searching "boobs" I'd assume they are usually searching for porn. Bing doesn't dumb down any image searches and will return what you would probably expect.

I'd still always use google personally to find what I need because I'll typically abuse their algorithm

Here is an older article wrote about this

I really wanted this to be true.... I did. But it’s not. And this shit detracts from the true beauty of space. Source: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/rocket-on-mars-martian-photo-3d-1325271800?irgwc=1&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=TinEye&utm_source=77643&utm_term=

Increasing the saturation of a color does infact change the color. An oversaturated photo of a person might show their face to be bright red, that doesn't mean their skin is the same color as an apple.

Here's a good article about how saturation works in photography;

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/learn-about-color-a-guide-to-color-saturation-in-photography

Who said I was unimpressed? I own nearly ever book on relativity and it's a goal of mine to become intimately familiar with it. I consider both special and general relativity to be a crowning achievement.

I was just providing some context and also reducing "hype" around special relativity. Once you lay down some axioms, it basically flows from there. It is a historical assessment that someone else would have had special relativity pretty soon if Einstein had not. General relativity is another story and requires mathematics that even Einstein had to learn (see https://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Italian-Mathematicians-Levi-civita-Relativity/dp/1470428466/).

They had Kip Thorne and others on set during production to get the science as accurate as possible. Book on the whole thing.

I've been working on Stars and Planets for a while now and would love to get some feedback. It's a free app on Android and iOS. It connects to an online database that has almost 4.5 milion stars(mainly from SIMBAD), over 4000 exoplanets, 200 circumstellar disks, 38 black holes, 11 magnetars and around 2500 pulsars. Planets are updated daily from multiple sources(exoplanet.eu, NASA), without needing to update the app. Planets are generated based on this data, so each time you enter that particular system, they will look different (more/less water/lava, different continents, etc).Orbital data is adapted in some cases, for example in a multiple star system if we have semi major axis info only for the deepest pair of stars, the parents will have a calculated value of 3-4 times more than that.

I did a bit of image hunting, and I do believe I have found the original photographer for the image you're using.

https://unsplash.com/photos/fUnfEz3VLv4

I did an overlay in photoshop, and while your image obviously has had some color work done to it to make it pop a bit more, it's clearly derived from the above photo. Here is your image overlaid on top of the original.

https://i.imgur.com/2RmPzW3.png

I'm going to guess that you'd be able to continue using the image you have if you get permission from the original photographer, since anyone can download the original and the person who modified your image probably never obtained any sort of authorization or permission to make it, meaning the rights to that image would still belong to the original photographer.

At worst, you'd only be able to get permission to use his original, but I (or someone else of your own choosing) could always do some color work on it to make it pop like your original choice.

Desert near the oasis city of Al-'Ula, Saudi Arabia Source: Nasser AlOthman - 500px >Cameranikon d800e Lens14/24 Focal Length14mm Shutter Speed30 s Aperturef/2.8 ISO/Film1600

The Pillars of Creation will always be one of my favourite space images! So much so, I worked with NASA’s merchandising department to create a puzzle of the Pillars! Check it out if you are into puzzles! I’d love to hear your feedback!

Puzzle - Pillars of Creation

It is a hard core space sim. It's primarily for realistic space flight but it has a large modding community that I was part of. I haven't played it much since the 2010 version but 3D terrain was added a few years ago.

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/

Roughly the mass of the Earth for a black hole at that kind of scale, not Mount Everest.

Try this calculator with 1 Earth mass; it's a little over a third of an inch for the Schwarzschild Radius, so about 0.7" diameter.

Technically you only have to compress it to 9/8ths of that size since the internal pressure required to hold it up against self-gravity itself would itself then contribute enough self-gravity to make the Schwarzschild Radius exactly that much bigger.

Thank you So Much Everyone, I Used Xiaomi 10i With Google Camera Installed and I Used below app to find a spot with Complete Darkness

👇 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pa.lightpollutionmap

So. What is acually the limit of our solar system? The outermost planet? Ok, Neptune, distance to the sun is approx. 30 AU. Pluto, for sentimentality? Ok, average distance 40 AU - this seems to have been intended. Or, Sedna? That would range between 76-937 AU. The inner parts of the Oort Cloud? 5,000 AU. The outer parts of the Oort Cloud? 100,000 AU.

Sticking to the 40 AU of Pluto, both Voyagers are well beyond Pluto at 149 AU and 124 AU, respectively (https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/). At the same time, well away from 1000 AU. So, yes, space is big.

Recommended simulation: http://spaceengine.org/download/spaceengine/ Free up to version 0.9.8.0.

It is an add-on for the universe simulator SpaceEngine.

I have published it here: Red Giant Sun

Glass domes :P

This camera is set up on the roof of the Poker Flat Science Operations Center, which is the base for optical science on the range. The domes house all the optical equipment so they can see the sky without being exposed to -40 degrees. The camera is actually inside one of the domes itself. Here's a better picture of the roof and domes.

Nice catch! I think I caught 2 when I shot a time lapse video last night.

Those a sort of low quality shots I batch edited them when they went through lightroom to make the video so the original images aren't pretty.

I used a centrifugal force calculator here: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/centrifugal-force

Using 2.784e+30 kg for mass, 16 km for radius, and 716 Hz for angular velocity, I get 323821562486 m/s^2 centrifugal acceleration, which is only about 32.4 billion m/s^2 so I think you used 16000 km for the centrifugal force. The surface gravity using the same numbers is 72.5 billion m/s^2 or about 2.23 times greater than the centrifugal force.

This simulation of the Milky Way is based on this artwork from NASA.

> The galaxy's two major arms can be seen attached to the ends of a thick central bar, while the two now-demoted minor arms are less distinct and located between the major arms.

But yeah... four arms total; the two minor arms don't really show up (we should fix that).

Disclaimer: I created Universe Sandbox.

There is an older software like this called Celestia that runs on any hardware, even computers that are not a fraction as fast as yours. While not as pretty as SpaceEngine and lacking some of its features, it still looks great and is just as fascinating. It's free and open source:

https://celestia.space/

It can be expanded by mods, which add high-res planetary textures, fictional and real spacecraft, etc.

Not sure if you have an Android phone or not. But there is an app called Sky map which uses your GPS and gyroscope to help you identify objects in the sky. Planets, stars, constellations, etc. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.stardroid

I believe it used to be an official Google App but I believe it is open source now.

haha its warhammer 40k stuff and it just struck me as it would be funny to treat it as gospel truth :D

Its not really a book, theres more like 200 of them by now. Although certainly not hard sci fi I like it much much more than star wars.

so i don't know if I was going to get started in it all over again i might try this book, this fan made movie, or like maybe one of the computer games or something

Most intro to astronomy textbooks should cover this stuff. I've used this one to teach Astro 101 for non-science majors - so very little math - and it seemed pretty good. If you do know a fair bit of math (up to and including calculus), I would highly recommend this one.

Alternately, wikipedia is surprisingly accurate on the astronomy basics, so just poking around and diving deeper on terms you don't understand can also work, and is a lot cheaper.

Yeah, it’s a moon.

https://www.amazon.com/VGAzer-Levitating-Moon-lamp-White/dp/B07H1G1J61/ref=mp_s_a_1_2_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=floating+moon+lamp&qid=1624598669&sprefix=floating+moon&sr=8-2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyUkFUUU...

This is what I have. It’s pretty basic and easy to use. I also suggest getting a bluetooth or some kind of remote for taking a picture with your phone so there’s no shake from tapping your phone.

https://www.amazon.com/Celestron-81035-Smartphone-Adapter-Discoveries/dp/B07J2GGFQB

What kind you need may depend on if you have android or iOS, but if you go to Amazon an search for Bluetooth camera button for (insert operating system) you’ll get some good options.

There are really cheap lights on Amazon that have a range of colors, with adjustable temp and brightness, maybe look into those. I paid only $30 for mine a few weeks ago.

This one.

I have a HX400V too and I found that Sony's app Imaging Edge Mobile works fine for my phone and camera.

Although the app doesnt appear to work with all Android phones (I have no idea whether there is a similar app for iOS) the basic options like zooming and taking pictures worked for me.

>Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX400V

It looks like there are shutter release cables for this camera https://www.amazon.com/Commander-Shutter-Release-Cleaning-Replaces/dp/B01CJ5UD4G

I'm wearing my shirt today. No one knows what it is.

Thank you for the compliment! My phone is the Samsung Note 9. I used the Celestron NexYZ 3-Axis Universal Smartphone Adapter to hold my phone steady.

Here is the link to the adapter.

https://www.amazon.com/Celestron-3-Axis-Universal-Smartphone-Adapter/dp/B07D7V3B8M

Also get a Intervalometer https://www.amazon.com/JJC-Control-Shutter-Release-Connection/dp/B06XBRCB1N so you dont have to kept clicking the shutter button as you will be taking tens or hundrrds of photo so you can leave it out and it will auto do you just set how many photos or how long. To do stacking very well without a star tracker you got to do more than 30 minutes of photo i like to do a couple hours because the more photos you do the better it will be. Also mess with the expousre time i do about 10 seconds each photo but do a some of test shots then zoom in a bit to see if your stars are trailing or not.

Skywatcher Mercury-707 (70 mm (2,75 inch), f/700) refractor telescoop zilver

https://www.amazon.nl/Skywatcher-Mercury-707-refractor-telescoop-zilver/dp/B0017GXFXU/ref=asc_df_B0017GXFXU/?tag=nlshogostdsp-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=430648842394&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14402994179461007372&hvpone=&hvptw...

Yeah it looks pretty nice for that price. Lol I wish It was as simple as going camping. I'd have to go camping about 3 states away before I got good dark skys haha around here its just all cities and they just chain together like 1 massive city.

This is one of the lenses I've been thinking about getting: https://www.amazon.com/Rokinon-135mm-Telephoto-Digital-Cameras/dp/B00T48CEEE/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=rokinon+135mm+nikon&qid=1594834737&sr=8-3

I wish self-published writers weren't basically forced to use Amazon, but such is the state of our reality. Here's a link for anyone interested, along with the back blurb for the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Points-Origin-S-Fein-ebook/dp/B07CXV6VW6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

"Amero wakes from an eerily familiar dream in an unfamiliar bed.

Within hours, he is forced onto an experimental craft and jettisoned across the galaxy alongside a mysterious, potentially homicidal man named Hann.

Finding themselves in a strange yet familiar spacetime, the men are told by suspicious entities to hunt for Points, strange objects no larger than one's thumb, which are spread across the cosmos by unknown means.

The purpose of the hunt is unknown. The purpose of the Points is unknown.

All Amero wants is to return to his dead-end life. All Hann wants is to hunt down and destroy those responsible for his predicament.

It will take a journey to the end of time itself and beyond the boundaries of every universe to know the truth--to witness the light behind the veil...for better or worse."

No, scientists do not know how exactly life came to be on Earth.

This visualization is actually part of a documentary titled "Birth of Planet Earth", which discusses what we do know about the origins of Earth (and life).

It may be showing in your local planetarium, or you can watch it on Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/Birth-Planet-Earth-Thomas-Lucas/dp/B07WLR5RT2

https://www.amazon.com/Meade-Instruments-Infinity-Refractor-Telescope/dp/B00LY8JCII I got the 50mm one. I'd say it's pretty good for the price!

1) DSLR with wide aperture, wide-angle lens 2) tripod 3) patience 4) starstax 5) Lightroom

Optional: Remote shutter for the DSLR Friends to keep you company in the lonesome dark Extra lenses

You don't need to go big on a DSLR purchase. You could go with something as cheap as a nikon D3300. What you require is a good lens. Something like a 10.5mm f/2.8G lens or what I have- a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8G should do the trick. Pm me if you need help. I can link you to some photos I've personally taken though I'm not at all a professional.

I had the opportunity to see the shuttle land in California when I was growing up there and to watch it launch when I was attending college in Florida. I recently read an outstanding book on the Shuttle program I would recommend to anyone who is interested.

This was shot from a Bortle 4/5 (green/yellow) zone about 35 miles from Salt Lake City. I used a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer mount that works fairly well with mid-size lenses, I was able to get up to 5 minute exposures with this lens and camera combo. For focusing I use a Bahtinov Mask that I bought off Amazon, only $15-20, I set the camera to a 30 second exposure, ISO 6400, wide open aperture and then put the mask on, turn on live view and find the bright star in the sky. I zoom in as far as I can in live view on the star and then adjust the focus until the diffraction spike pattern is correct. This mask fits my smaller lenses: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013S1VZ8I/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Is this one I found on amazon decent? I'd like a nice telescope but I don't want to pay 600 dollars for one.....yet.

I hope your interests lie with astronomy, not astrology. ;-)

I don't read too much of the latest astronomy books published as I'm too busy researching, but always love Carl Sagan's stuff for the writing quality. More recently, if you like exoplanet books, I thought this one was pretty fun.

The Aurora Tree

Can be found on google images via Aurora Tree search.

There is an app also to view many similar pictures (Where this came from) at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.space_pics

Google Play: Space Pics

Image Credit & Copyright: Alyn Wallace Photography

With that lens I stop down to f2 to f2.5, you get a nice starburst affect thanks to the aperture blades at f2.5. For the tracking mount, I recommend and app called PolarFinder if you have android (it might also be on the apple store, not sure):

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.techhead.polarfinder&hl=en

The app lets you set the display to whatever tracking mount you have, it has the Skytracker on there. The polar scope is mirrored and the app takes that into account, for a long time I didn't have the app setup specifically for the Skytracker and I wasn't mirroring Polaris' location in my scope so I never could get longer than a couple minute exposures.

Make sure you remove the polar scope once you start shooting, a couple times I've let the camera run and absent mindedly left the scope it and the camera hit the scope. The worm gear actually stopped working after that happened, luckily it started again after I power cycled it a few times. The body design of the Skytracker is really really poor, it's another reason I got the Star Adventurer.

Wider angle lenses are much more forgiving with your polar alignment, so as long as you are close (like having Polaris in the ring in its approximate location) you should have no problem getting up to 5 minute exposures. With a good alignment I can get 15 minute exposures up to an 85mm lens.