The first factor to consider is a sidereal day, which is how long it takes Earth to complete a full rotation based on fixed stars. Since the orbital motion of our planet makes the Sun appear to move eastward relative to the stars, it has to rotate 361 degrees rather than just 360 degre...
It’s all about the sun’s tilt. Planet Earth sits at an angle of about 23.5 degrees. So, at different times of the year, the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are more or less tilted toward the sun and will experience the long, warm days and short nights characteristic of the summer ...
I have been observing on summer nights in North Carolina and needed a sweater and jacket even when the outside temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit. If you are not comfortable, then you will not enjoy observing. Next, you will need a red flashlight so that you can see things while keeping...
I have been observing on summer nights in North Carolina and needed a sweater and jacket even when the outside temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit. If you are not comfortable, then you will not enjoy observing. Next, you will need a red flashlight so that you can see things while keeping...
the Gemini-based mission could be accomplished using a single Saturn C-3 – a one million kilogram or 2.2 million pound launch vehicle originally designed for the Earth Orbit Rendezvous approach – and the 2-man Apollo-based mission using the slightly larger C-5. Yet despite its many ...
I have been observing on summer nights in North Carolina and needed a sweater and jacket even when the outside temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit. If you are not comfortable, then you will not enjoy observing. Next, you will need a red flashlight so that you can see things while keeping...
Mars is thought to be currently coming out of an ice age. Like Earth, Mars is sensitive to changes in factors such as the tilt of its rotational axis as it orbits the Sun; it is thought that the stability of water at the surface has varied over thousands to millions of years as the...
“How about overlapping many boxes together?” “When they go over 1500 degrees, the metal will melt, and so will everything inside them. Captain, protecting against the heat and protecting from shock are two different problems: we don’t need to use any kind of hard, resistant material. ...
determine the telescope's field of view: apparent - how much of the sky, in degrees, is seen edge-to-edge through the eyepiece alone (specified on the eyepiece; true or real - how much of the sky can be seen when that eyepiece is placed in the telescope (true field = apparent field...
When you think of stargazing, you probably picture someone standing behind a telescope, studying the craters on the moon, the spots and streaks of the rusty Martian surface, the rings of Saturn or the galaxies of the Local Group. But many amateur astronomers, even those without expensive optics...