Small Telescopes: April 2009

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Open-source software for Volunteer and Grid Computing

Use the idle time on your computers (Windows, Mac, or Linux) to cure diseases, study global warming, discover pulsars, and do many other types of scientific research.

Choose your own projects, eg Seti@home, (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data) or Rosetta@home, (determine the 3-dimensional shapes of proteins in research that may ultimately lead to finding cures for some major human diseases) and other scientific projects.

To get started, you need to first download the BOINC software,then choose your scientific projects from here, you can participate in more than one projects according to your interest & your computer's resources.

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My current hosts running BOINC,
(2 Asus netbooks and an old 'dino' Pentium 4)

Observing with a small refractor

Galileo Galilei didn't actually invented the telescope, but he did improved upon the idea of putting two lenses together that was conceived back in 1608. Even though his telescope back in the early 17th century was no better than my 50mm refractor, he did made some very important discoveries through his small telescope!

My purpose here is not to emulate what Galileo did, what I'm trying to do here is to compile a list of 50 objects that can be seen with a humble 50mm refractor.

There will be no time frame for this personal project of mine. The 50 objects will consists of various Lunar features (but limit to max 10 lunar features), the rest will be brighter Messier & NGC objects, double stars & maybe a handful of asterisms.

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Why only 50 objects? Well its only a 50mm scope, and I'm observing from light polluted Singapore. So I guess I'll cap it at 50, one object per 1 mm sounds like a reasonable target.

So let the fun begins....

Objects will simply be rated as follows:

Easy *
(Object instantly identifiable OR
detail immediately apparent)

Medium **
(Object not instantly identifiable OR
object need averted vision & partial detail apparent
OR Object identifiable but partial detail )

Tough ***
(Object barely identifiable,
detail partially/barely apparent OR object seen but no
detail identifiable, very close double stars that barely split)

*Images on posts are for illustration purposes only

Fast Facts

-February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

-In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow.

-111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

-Mark Twain was born on a day in 1835 when Halley's Comet came into view. When he died in 1910, Halley's Comet was in view again.

-Only 5 percent of the ocean floor has been mapped in as much detail as the surface of Mars.

-Albert Einstein never knew how to drive a car.

-The Mars Rover "Spirit" is powered by six small motors the size of "C" batteries. It has a top speed of 0.1 mph.

-Jimmy Carter once reported a UFO in Georgia.

-For every person on earth, there are an estimated 200 million insects.

-If you disassembled the Great Pyramid of Cheops, you would get enough stones to encircle the earth with a brick wall twenty inches high.

-The brain knows everything but can't feel a thing.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Open-source software for Volunteer and Grid Computing

BOINC Projects