Comments on: Red Lagoon

By: DennyMo

DennyMo — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 11:01:52 +0000

Speaking of scopes, I’ve been looking at Dobsonians, was intrigued by the portability of Meade’s LightBridge. But wouldn’t an open truss structure let in too much ambient light? If you’re way out in the middle of nowhere, no problem. But for typical suburban driveway viewing, would a closed tube be better? Or does it matter?

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 06:25:58 +0000

When looking at that image, specifically the feminine-shaped dust cloud (I know, such a romantic way of putting it) near the middle, it reminds me of ‘Winged Victory’ in the Lourve. It looks so graceful.

Needless to say, beautiful image.

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 04:31:32 +0000

Great image, awesome object a.k.a. M8 from Messier’s Deep Sky catalogue of objects that aren’t comets.

For more info. see :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagoon_Nebula

It has an NGC number too but then nobody uses that for it!

By: Austin

Austin — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 01:36:28 +0000

But my Desktop is Professor Brian Cox… I just put him there. Maybe next time.

By: gopher65

gopher65 — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 01:26:10 +0000

My current desktop is a great picture of Saturn that WASN’T featured in the best pics of 2009! Booo!

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:26:05 +0000

Wow, I wish I had a scope that big as a kid. All I had was a crappy 60mm Orion.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:49:17 +0000

Pretty. But I just loaded Astro Soichi’s pic of Tokyo from the ISS.
http://twitpic.com/1hhoq9
Have to put the Lagoon in the reserves.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:08:25 +0000

My desktop is a picture of the Orion nebula… geek…

By: Crux Australis

Crux Australis — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:48:52 +0000

Mine’s the Cone Nebula from APOD a few days ago.

By: jcm

jcm — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:11:14 +0000

My desktop wallpaper currently features the milky way from the Astronomy Picture of the Day
Oh, check out new video from the sun http://news.yahoo.com/video/environment-15749659/19271005

By: Larian LeQuella

Larian LeQuella — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 19:24:21 +0000

I had a crappy refracting scope from Edmund Scientific when I was a kid. I could barely get a good view of the moon!

By: Charlie Young

Charlie Young — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:06:50 +0000

25cm? That’s a pretty big backyard (or in your case, front yard) telescope. I would have drooled for one when I was a kid. I settled for a pretty nice microscope instead and ended up liking biology much more.

By: Peter Hornby

Peter Hornby — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:52:55 +0000

Some ambitious amateurs are building telescopes in the 1.5m range. Check out Group 70 (http://group70.org), a non-profit group of amateurs who are planning a 1.8m (70″) reflector in California. I don’t know how far they are along, but the mirror is complete, which is a big part of the battle.

By: Adrian Lopez

Adrian Lopez — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:54:57 +0000

My current desktop is a picture of the Moon that I took myself, but this picture is nice enough that I’m tempted to make the switch. I’ll first have to see how desktop text renders on top of it, since not all great-looking images are suited to become desktop backgrounds.

By: jillianswift

jillianswift — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:34:18 +0000

I had a one and a half meter telescope. Sadly, it was only a few centimeters wide. (weeps)

By: Ray

Ray — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:27:20 +0000

What, you don’t have a 1.5m scope in your backyard? What kind of Astronomer are you?

By: Brian S.

Brian S. — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:07:34 +0000

I wonder what my life would have been like if I’d had a decent scope when I first became interested in astronomy, rather than the crappy department store reflector my parents bought for me. I could barely keep it stable enough to get the moon into view. I did as much unmagnified observing as I could, (thank the FSM the skies were still relatively dark in the mid 70′s) but the frustration of trying to do more took its toll and I moved on to other things.

Kudos to whoever got that scope for you, Phil.

By: Lyr

Lyr — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:46:02 +0000

Beautiful!

By: Kyle

Kyle — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:38:35 +0000

Well my current desk top is the latest Mars avalanche. But that is a very pretty picture. When it clears up I’ll have to haul out my scope and take a look.

By: Marcelo

Marcelo — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:58:54 +0000

Wait, where’s Brooke?