Comments on: Distance Learning

By: swunmba.com

swunmba.com — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:22:33 +0000

Distance learning has long been a part of society. The important thing is that you can get your MBA online through distance learning, no matter what your schedule, budget, or learning style.

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 20:08:05 +0000

I couldn’t get a good dark sky / clear horizon / cloudless sunset. But then, I think the UK is one of the hardest places to find a dark sky.

The faintest object I’ve ever seen from the UK was the Ring Nebula when it was nearly overhead … until it was occluded by a power cable (I then lost the track).

Still, the linked photo (from Bruce Langdon’s comment) is very nice.

By: Bruce Langdon

Bruce Langdon — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 23:52:44 +0000

Venus may also be brighter due to the planet’s phases. Since Venus is farther away it should be on the far side of the sun and therefore has most of its sunlit surface facing us. I don’t know what phase Mercury is in though. The lit side could be facing us or away from us.

By: Bruce Langdon

Bruce Langdon — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 23:37:35 +0000

Here’s a nice picture of the planets from from Mount Hamilton:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050630.html

As to the directions being reversed in the southern hemisphere:
Being in the southern hemisphere could be compared to standing on your head. If you stand on your head facing the same direction as when you were standing, left and right will switch directions from your previous viewpoint.

Although now that I think of it, I suppose it would be more precise to say that the their relative positions with respect to the horizon would rotate the same number of degrees as the difference in latitude. You’d have to go from the north pole to the south pole to completely reverse left and right.

By: Irishman

Irishman — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:05:50 +0000

Mark Bukal, plane of the ecliptic? The planets are roughly in line. While the Earth’s axis is tilted, there’s a definite plane that matches the plane of the ecliptic that cuts through the Earth. That plane will define a North and South. North of that line, the planets will be south of you and fall more left as they are higher in the sky. South of that plane the planets will be north of you and fall more right as they are higher in the sky. The same way the Sun’s path in the sky is either slightly south or slightly north for most people, and not directly overhead.

By: varada

varada — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:28:32 +0000

saw it…awesome; Took my 7 year old (who has a reasonable interest in astronomy) to show it with a 8 inch Dob. He was mesmerized.

By: Mark Bukal

Mark Bukal — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:09:49 +0000

I’m confused. You said that an observer in the southern hemisphere should reverse left and right. For objects in the western sky, would they really be reversed? (I understand how something in the southern sky in Ohio would be in the northern sky in Chile, thus switching left and right, since the observers would be facing each other. I’m thinking that this is different though.)

By: Richard Board

Richard Board — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:45:19 +0000

In regard to the parallax phenomenon, don’t astronomers use that technique to measure or calculate distances to distant objects by observing them from Earth at six month intervals? That’s a cool way of separating our “eyes” by the width of our planet’s orbit!

Thanks for all your time and efforts, Phil. I enjoy your work very much on Bad Astronomy as well as Night Sky mag.

By: Ian Musgrave

Ian Musgrave — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 21:51:08 +0000

So pretend there is a picture here of three planets really close together.

The weather can be very unkind. If you pop over to my blog, you can see some images of the massing that I managed to snatch inbetween rain storms. Astronomy blog has a nice image too.

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 20:59:08 +0000

Mercury is so close to Venus that if you find Venus, you’re in.

By: Michelle Rochon

Michelle Rochon — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 20:30:42 +0000

I’ll try my best at seeing the show tonight, but that’ll be a tough one. Finding Mercury through the trees low here was something earlier on. But I’ll probably find a nice spot without too much trouble this time!

By: Tom Hill

Tom Hill — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 17:00:02 +0000

There’s a similar view here, only as a subset of one of the planets in this weekends trifecta:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=1561