Check out this image (more goodies from Phil Plait).

BGH
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Check out this image (more goodies from Phil Plait).

This is an ABSOLUTELY AMAZING image, I can't believe you can see the space station that clearly with an 8" telescope and webcam. WOW!!

Not so close encounter

What is this???

An insect and the Moon? A UFO near a streetlight? A Photoshop job?
Nope. It’s the International Space Station, passing near Venus in broad daylight.
How cool is that? It was taken yesterday by the accomplished photographer Etienne Simian of Saint Martin de Crau from the south of France. He was using a relatively modest […]

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What is this???

Image of the space station passing near Venus in the sky

An insect and the Moon? A UFO near a streetlight? A Photoshop job?

Nope. It’s the International Space Station, passing near Venus in broad daylight.

How cool is that? It was taken yesterday by the accomplished photographer Etienne Simian of Saint Martin de Crau from the south of France. He was using a relatively modest 8″ telescope and a webcam, which amazes me. You can actually make out details on the station! Venus, if you have been living in a basement the past few weeks, is glowing like a beacon in the west after sunset, incredibly bright. You can see it fairly easily in the daytime if you know just where to look.

The space station orbits the Earth, and you can find out if it passes overhead at your location by using any number of planetarium software packages (my favorite way is to go to Heavens Above). I go out several times a month to see it pass across the sky, in fact. For M. Simian, it happened to sail very near Venus… I looked up Venus’s stats, and it’s about 17 arcseconds across, so the ISS was about 5 arcminutes away when this image was taken. For comparison, the Moon is about 30 arcminutes across in the sky, so this was a very close encounter! But only apparently: the station was a few hundred miles from the photographer, but Venus was about 90 million miles away.

Some close encounters aren’t as close as you might think.

 


JCE
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That is amazing - simply

That is amazing - simply amazing!  Makes me feel so small and so very, very privileged to be able to witness it.  Out of curiosity - what is an archminute?  Does it have something to do with visual travel distance?? 


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Per wikipedia: "A minute of

Per wikipedia:

"A minute of arc, arcminute, or MOA is a unit of angular measurement, equal to one sixtieth (1/60) of one degree. Since one degree is defined as one three hundred sixtieth (1/360) of a circle, 1 MOA is 1/21600 of the amount of arc in a closed circle, or (π/10800) radians. It is used in those fields which require a unit for the expression of small angles, such as astronomy."


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You needed to look at

You needed to look at wikipedia for that?

 

Anyway, it's basically puts in perspective how far away things are and their actual size.

IIRC a minute is the distance of 1m viewed from 1 km away.

 

So If I have a 1m long object and was 1km away, I would measure that objoct as one minute.


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Cpt_pineapple wrote: You

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

You needed to look at wikipedia for that?

No, coconut(asshat), I did not HAVE to look at wikipedia for that. It is easier to copy and paste from there though.

By the way, As seen from the Earth, the Sun and Moon both have angular diameters of about 30 arcminutes.

 


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BGH wrote:   By the way,

BGH wrote:

 

By the way, As seen from the Earth, the Sun and Moon both have angular diameters of about 30 arcminutes.

 

 

 

Good to know.


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I got my definition wrong

I got my definition wrong anyway. That's the definition of an arc mil which is. My bad.


BGH
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Cpt_pineapple wrote: I got

Cpt_pineapple wrote:
I got my definition wrong anyway. That's the definition of an arc mil which is. My bad.

Well, thanks for admitting to this. 


BGH
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BUMP

BUMP


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This is great!  I am going

This is great!  I am going to check that software to see if it is visible here.  Then I am going to grab my dad's telescope and try to find it.