Hello there!

I wanted to see what you all have seen and think about certain planets.

So far, ever since getting a reflector telescope a few years ago I've seen: (southern hemisphere)

Jupiter - pretty decent view, even saw 4 specks; 2 on either side (largest moons of Jupiter)
Saturn - it was clear enough to see where the rings circle around, not as clear as Jupiter but it was a cool view.
Venus - super bright...right now in southern hemisphere winter (June - August), it can be seen as a very big bright star at night.
Mercury - spring time, saw this one, and it was super bright orange and small.

Desired sights:

Uranus (my favorite planet) because it's so unique and the cool blue-green color!
Neptune (probably a better chance to play the lottery)

Fun fact: I spent two hours once in a cold night finding Uranus through the coordinates specified for that hour. Couldn't find it.



Share your experiences/thoughts about planets and outer space.

I love the discovery of the Kepler Telescope. We might find planets that we could populate, if we manage to somehow span the distance by either going faster than light, or manipulating spacetime in a way that it shortens our traveling distance.

http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/

I'm also stoked for humanity if we find microorganismes on Mars that produce methane. I assume we'll find life on another planet within the next 10 to 20 years. This will be a huge gamechanger in every aspect of our lives.

This post was edited by Hellskin on Jun 12 2015 09:29am

Its far more likely that we will simply install spacestations as docking points around planets with suitable conditions for the stations, but without atmospheres to inhabit the planet itself.

This is essentially the path taken by the Terran in the starcraft campaign lol.

It seems to me that dodging small objects as you travel at ultra fast speeds is an obstacle that cannot be overcome, even a pebble would destroy a ship if you were travelling fast enough.

although using the planet hopping technique it would be nearly impossible for an individual to make it directly from earth to a new planet, rather it would be done over one or more generations of traveling parties. That is unless the field of cryogenics suddenly takes massive leaps in reanimation.

You'd like my thread!
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=71536263&f=27

I personally love Saturn.

I've spent oh so many cold nights with my telescope searching for planets, trying to get good pictures, etc.
Jupiter and Saturn are definitely the most stunning.
Im gonna start looking for nebulas soon.

A few of my faves





Also got the sun, using a proper solar safe filter.


This post was edited by Bassist on Jun 12 2015 11:35am

we should strip away the rings of Saturn for all the minerals we can get...... its not like anyone would notice?

I know, the things we have yet to find.

The most interesting thing about Mars, is I found some video showing some weird shaped structure looking things (resembling ancient Egyptian statues).

My theory: Mars was once a planet like ours...populated...but it was wiped out.



That's a cool topic! I enjoyed looking at your pictures. Your Saturn picture is very similar to how I saw the planet through my telescope.

Taking pictures of planets and outer space stuff can be a costly hobby to get the lens and the scope and taking such a still shot. Those are really impressive pictures though.

Any luck on Uranus and Neptune though? I gave up for a while now.

For the near future you are absolutely correct, I assume mars will be inhabited within the next 100 years. But I see that as an intermediate goal.

With manipulation of the electromagnetic field around your spaceship you could easily overcome the problem of small obstacles.

Did you see that on either the discovery channel or the history channel? Those have been debunked.

love these kinds of threads