I'm new to learning about all this. Recently got interested in the universe and how it all started. So my question is, if space is expanding, does this possibly mean that it's expanding due to the big bang and basically the big bang is still happening as we speak? Hope that makes sense....I'm not very book smart but I'm really wanting to learn more about the universe. It's all so extremely fascinating to me and has me feeling some sort of way.

How can me and my group (4 people including me) create a simple adaptive optics for a university project? We can get the parts needed from our university and professor.

Level: Electrical Engineering Bachelor's 3rd Semester

Hello Astronomers of Reddit!

I work at a home for the elderly, running activities (both one to one and in groups each day) for the residents at the home, who live with a range of abilities both physically and mentally. We have a mixture of dementia and non-dementia residents, as well as a mixture of ambulatory and non-ambulatory. I’m still quite new to working on activities with this group, though I’ve worked in care for longer, so I’m still learning and discovering how best to deliver engaging activities!

At our latest house meeting, the residents put forward a request to have an astronomy day, which I will be running later this month. I have reasonable knowledge of constellations, star-hopping and the basic science of astronomy due to personal interest, so I am excited to spend time with the residents on this.

However, I am struggling to find activities to do with them. Due to the nature of their attention span, a ‘lecture’ or ‘talk’ style thing isn’t appropriate, as activities need to be interactive to fully engage them. Additionally, we have basically no budget to buy things we don’t already have - we have plenty of general equipment, eg large screens, craft supplies, musical instruments, but no specific astronomy equipment like telescopes.

The internet has given me a lot of great craft ideas, and also backed up a thought I’d already had about using interactive apps on iPads to ‘explore’ the night sky. With daylight leaving earlier I am hoping to go out to our garden with some residents later in the day to stargaze, too. Beyond that, the internet was mostly offering me school group activities that required equipment or multiple sessions for running experiments, which unfortunately I am not able to do.

If anyone has any ideas/experience of either one-to-one or group activities that are self-enclosed (ie take between 15mins to an hour, or could work as drop ins) and would work with elderly people, I’d be very grateful to hear them! Particularly, ideas of ways I could deliver information on constellations and the science-side of astronomy to our residents without it being a ‘talk’ that lacks physical interaction, as I do want to share this information and have the day be about learning new things, but it has to also be in an engaging way.

Thank you in advance!!

Hi all,

Can anyone recommend some books about astronomy for a chemistry nerd? I'm specifically looking for books that explore the chemistry aspect of astronomy.

My knowledge of celestial bodies is too limited, galaxies are way smaller and superclusters are a bit too big. Looking for a celestial body that's roughly 100,000x smaller than the observable universe.

Edit: this video goes through almost my exact thought wandering but with much more depth and knowledge. https://youtu.be/Z_1Q0XB4X0Y?si=HIxQz7dtHW5Z96Ig

Hi All! I’m a little new here and would love some help or tips. I’ve been doing some research into radio telescopes and used to be in love with astronomy in my younger years.

I live in a very rural area of the central U.S. It’s quiet, the sky is beautiful every night and I have a lot of spare time on my hands. I might be overthinking but I would love to construct my own radio telescope and be able to listen to the night sky. From the research I’ve done, the construction of a radio telescope seems simple but the information available looks to be limited or I’m searching in all the wrong places?

I don’t have a crazy disposable income but due to my many years working with satellites I have ease of access to many parts that will be tossed. Very LARGE dish components, LMB’s, Feed Horns…etc.

Where should I start, what do I need to get going?

I'm an amateur astronomer at best, and at worst, I've done a lot of astrophotography, but I have an engineering background (never finished my degree, but I have a ton of adjacent experience from school), nearly 15 years of technician experience, I've worked in national labs and I've worked on several particle accelerators, I'm an engineering technician at the end of the day. What would be in my way to work as a technician on the big stuff like the big radio telescope arrays, the giant reflectors and refactors.

I don't know how applicable this is reddit, just help me pursue my dreams

I have already ordered "Stars and Planets - The most complete guide..." updated edition, "The Planets: Photographs from the Archives of NASA," and " Earth and Space: Photographs from the Archives of NASA".

I want all of the best-quality photos we have of our solar system. IN PRINT. Hopefully with every planet, all or most/major moons, and even miscellaneous objects like major asteroids, comets.

Thank you for your time. I read the subreddit's rules and hope this post is okay.

Last night, it was a perfectly clear sky since last month here in Melbourne. Although I had 2:30 hours to photograph something but didn't photograph anything for 75% of the night. But that is not relevant and i’ll post more in the comments.

If you were to take our solar system and put it close to galactic center, would the stars in the sky be bright enough to be seen during a normal Earth day?

Hey all,

I know relatively little about astronomy but my GF is a huge astronomy fan. I am trying to find the best place to watch the planetary alignment in Massachusetts that day that has the best visibility. Any suggestions ?

An answer surely is that all organic intelligence creates AI that supercedes it. In this way all intelligences capable of visiting us are inorganic. The reason they do not communicate is twofold. First they have no interest in anything we have to say, we ourselves have scientific interest in the single-celled slime we evolved from but are not seeking it's opinions on the universe, which are all along the lines of 'food good, death bad'. Secondly, they have conventions not to interfere in case it affects the development of the AI we will bring about.

I like to look at peoples star pics and identify what part of the sky the camera was pointing at. Very common on this sub to see people pointing at Jupiter and Pleiades, but I'd love to see something more varied. Anyone know if this exists? If not, would you be interested in it?

Sorry if this is not a good place to ask this.

Yesterday I saw that the forecast was cold and clear for the evening. So I invited a bunch of people over and had the kids invite people over.

We set up the 10" dob and binos on the tripod on the sidewalk in front of our house.

I taught my son how to collimate dob and align the finder scope. Then directed him on a star hopping adventure to find Andromeda as our first target.

We had 6 guests who had never done any astronomy. We showed them the Pleiades, Jupiter, and the Orion Nebula. The star of the show was definitely Jupiter. You show them Jupiter through the binos and explain that they are seeing the moons and they're like "holy shit this is the coolest thing ever". Then have them see it through the scope and work their up in magnification and they see the bands and their minds are blown.

Blankets and hot drinks were provided. What a great night!

It is such a joy to share this with people.

Hi , I do a bit of angling, an was angling over the full moon; the moon seemed a lil bigger the high tide was also very high. It was a beautiful full moon, I planned to photograph it the next night, but the moon did not appear the next night. I am in the southern hemisphere, the movement of the moon could not have changed relative to the earth and sun as dramatically for it not to be visible the next day? Can someone help to explain this. Sorry for the stupid question but baffled.

Captured with a Canon R5 and EF 300mm f/4 lens using a tripod and MSM star tracker.

I really enjoyed Astronomy as an undergraduate student - I only did take 2 courses though. I did really well and I especially enjoyed math portion too.

I looked into minoring in Astronomy but it clashed with my major (Genetics) and ultimately I was focused on going into a well paying professional career so I ended up taking pre-reqs for professional school and then another 4yrs of schooling- and there ended my interest in that.

I want to get back into Astronomy. My brain is a lot slower than before so I’m not sure if I can get back to learning the math side of it, but I’d like to try. I’m not sure if taking a physical course would be a good starting point or if I should look into online sources. If there were those in similar place as mine or had success getting into it later in life, please share tips!

Please forgive me if this is a really stupid question. I live in Philadelphia near the edge away from the worst light pollution. I could see Uranus was near the Pleiades in my star map app, and that there weren’t a lot of bright objects near it at the time. There’s no moon but still a faint light pollution glow. I could easily find the Pleiades first with my naked eye, then with the telescope. Uranus looked like it was just beside. I kept tapping the telescope in that direction and I could see a few faint stars. One seemed to move more quickly than the others. It was a tiny faint white dot. I think there’s a 50/50 chance I was looking at Uranus. I think the other probability is that I was seeing what I wanted to see—and imagining it was Uranus. Any chance it could have been Uranus?

I’ve seen videos of meteors that look like they flash bight and then bright again at consistent basis till they fade away. Does anyone know what’s happening there?

Germany (NRW), 29.11.2024, shortly before 23:00. I was walking my dog and noticed the starry sky, which is rather unusual in my area. When I looked at the ground while walking, it suddenly became really bright, but only very briefly. My first thought was that something was wrong with my brain and that this was a harbinger of a stroke or other neurological pathology. But when I looked at the sky 30 seconds later, I saw something that could have been a shooting star, which was only visible for 1 or 2 seconds. To be on the safe side, I spoke to a walker nearby and he also said he had noticed something very bright for a fraction of a second. What could it have been, the phenomenon was not accompanied by any noise?