Random fact of the day: I just love astronomy. I don't study it very often tho...

SO had recorded a couple of NOVA shows about telescopes and what the universe is doing. We watched the second one this evening.

I really enjoyed it. I didn't learn much... I already knew almost everything they talked about in the show. *laughs* But I still really enjoyed it!

The one thing I didn't know about was the super long refractive telescopes that were made before reflective telescopes were discovered. They look crazy -- super long telescopes, the longest were football-field long! -- but these were no more crazy than the million dollar, huge telescopes that we're making today.

The first college I went to (back in the 1990's) offered two semesters of astronomy, and I took both of them. One of the things I learned that stuck with me was the phases of the moon. You can tell the approximate time of day based on what phase the moon is in and where it is in the sky.

And it completely and utterly drives me Crazy Mad when artists get the phase of the moon wrong in a painting. I mean, seriously, people! The moon reflects the sun's light... you've got all your shadows going in a certain direction in your painting, right? and you completely ignore the fact that the moon has a sunny side and a shadow side as well??! GAH!

Like I said, it drives me utterly Crazy Mad!

heh.

Anyway. another thing I like about astronomy... all of NASA's photos are copyright free. *happy*

Yeah, I just love the Hubble Deep Field! They pointed the Hubble telescope at a random black point... there are a couple of Milky Way stars in the photo... but every other point of light was a galaxy. Almost 3,000 galaxies in the one photo... and our own galaxy has 200 billion stars in it.

It's just amazing to me!

∞  Wikipedia: Hubble Deep Field
∞  Hubble Site

Static8 > Journal > Archive > 15 apr 2010 Entry