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Stargazing Live

On now on BBC2 & BBC2 HD, 3 great night of TV. Looking around the solar system, some brilliant pictures.

Comments

  • My favourite programme.

    Absolutely obsessed with space and in particular Brian Cox.

    Wonders of the Universe was an amazing series.
  • I just find that Cox guy too strange to look at...

    He looks like the kind of guy that would be a trainspotter were he not a star spotter... Is he a secret Charlton fan?
  • Huskaris said:

    ... Is he a secret Charlton fan?

    Not sure about that, however he did play a part in the greatest half time ever for 10,000 Charlton fans.
  • Lost interest in space when found out all those photos of galaxies and imploding stars and gaseous nebulae had the colours added manually
  • MrOneLung said:

    Lost interest in space when found out all those photos of galaxies and imploding stars and gaseous nebulae had the colours added manually

    Is that true? gutted if it is, why would they do that!

  • Yeah, there are dedicated artists that do them as their job.
  • Saw it mentioned years ago and just done a google search.

    Taking color pictures with the Hubble Space Telescope is much more complex than taking color pictures with a traditional camera. For one thing, Hubble doesn't use color film — in fact, it doesn't use film at all. Rather, its cameras record light from the universe with special electronic detectors. These detectors produce images of the cosmos not in color, but in shades of black and white.
    Finished color images are actually combinations of two or more black-and-white exposures to which color has been added during image processing.
    The colors in Hubble images, which are assigned for various reasons, aren't always what we'd see if we were able to visit the imaged objects in a spacecraft. We often use color as a tool, whether it is to enhance an object's detail or to visualize what ordinarily could never be seen by the human eye.
  • I'm found that out recently as well - a lot of it is guesstimated. Impossible to get that level of detail considering the distance stars/planets are away from us
  • Superb watching last night. Cox and Dara make it so interesting, some great pictures of Saturn too.

    My telescope fund might have to get a boost this month.

  • I read last week that scientists believe that there are 10 times more stars in the known universe than grains of sand on earth. 27,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and each has at least 1 orbiting planet.
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  • edited January 2014

    I read last week that scientists believe that there are 10 times more stars in the known universe than grains of sand on earth. 27,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and each has at least 1 orbiting planet.

    nobody can really know the number of stars or grains of sand to a factor of 10, although the estimates for each are broadly similar in scale - about 10^22 to 10^24 stars in the whole universe and 10^20 to 10^27 for the number of grains of sand on earth.

    Of course other planets have sand so there can be virtually no doubt that there are more sand grains in the universe than stars.
  • great programme
  • Salad said:

    I read last week that scientists believe that there are 10 times more stars in the known universe than grains of sand on earth. 27,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and each has at least 1 orbiting planet.

    nobody can really know the number of stars or grains of sand to a factor of 10, although the estimates for each are broadly similar in scale - about 10^22 to 10^24 stars in the whole universe and 10^20 to 10^27 for the number of grains of sand on earth.

    Of course other planets have sand so there can be virtually no doubt that there are more sand grains in the universe than stars.
    http://www.universetoday.com/106725/are-there-more-grains-of-sand-than-stars/

    this is where i read it. i agree its impossible to know but still a mind blowing number.
  • wonder why they excluded the sand in deserts ?
  • Got a bit of man love for Chris Hadfield. Fighter jet pilot, test pilot, astronaut and Bowie fan...

    m.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DKaOC9danxNo
  • Programme form down under, for the last 3 nights. Excellent TV
  • edited March 2017
    Love it!! Nothing more fascinating than a clear night sky without any light pollution; real escapism.

    I can often be seen trawling round the fields in Norwich with my phone pointing up to the sky, using my star gazing 'sky map' app!! Gets a bit difficult to explain away when I'm near the nunnery and local nurses accommodation but managed so far to baffle em with my obscure night sky facts. Think I'm seen as quite a catch when I start talking about alpha centauri (not that you can see the bugger here!) and Betelgeuse!!

    Edit: And Depeche Mode!!
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