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General Discussion => Science & Nature => Topic started by: sam on March 14, 2010, 20:44

Title: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: sam on March 14, 2010, 20:44
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/03/13/astronomy-without-a-telescope-home-made-quark-gluon-soup/

Quote
The most powerful operational heavy-ion collider in the world, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) recently recorded the highest ever temperature created in an Earth-based laboratory of 4 trillion Kelvin. Achieved at the almost speed of light collision of gold ions, this resulted in the temporary existence of quark-gluon soup – something first seen at about ten to the power of minus twelve of the first second after the big bang.
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Clive on March 14, 2010, 23:02
Quote
something first seen at about ten to the power of minus twelve of the first second after the big bang.

Bloody hell!  That's incredible. I may use that in my next bulletin.   ;)
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: sam on March 14, 2010, 23:28
its pretty cool, but not really new news.. if that makes sense. This is where CERN = astronomy... and why we need them, otherwise particle physics... pah!
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Clive on March 15, 2010, 08:58
We get a lot of particle physics talks from Swansea University because we are quite near.  We love that stuff!   :laugh:
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: sam on March 15, 2010, 14:20
Swansea do particle physics?  :crazy:
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Rik on March 15, 2010, 15:43
No, but they talk about it a lot. ;D
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Clive on March 15, 2010, 19:47
 :pmsl:  Swansea has a fine Particle Physics department. Ian Halliday, boss of PPARC brought in lots of top guys from CERN to staff it.   
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: sam on March 16, 2010, 01:45
oh good to see people abusing power, eh... :p

oh and its STFC now... sorry should that be "people with no money"  :-\
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Clive on March 16, 2010, 09:49

oh and its STFC now...

Yes,all Halliday's work.  He hates astronomers because he's a particle physicist himself.  That's why there no funding for astronomy. 
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: sam on March 16, 2010, 13:35
 :cry:

... just cause we are the better science.
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Clive on March 16, 2010, 16:11
He twice came to our society to give talks on particle physics but each time just gave us a lecture on why funding for UK astronomy should be withdrawn.  Just what we needed to hear!   ::)  No wonder he wanted that job at PPARC.
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: sam on March 17, 2010, 03:04
argh!
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Rodders on March 17, 2010, 22:11
Bloody Astronomy without a bloody telescope.  I've just spent several hours trying to get Starry Night 6 CSAP to co-operate with Windows 7.  After jumping through more hoops than a hoopery, I eventually succeeded only by resorting to harsh language.  I'm now going out into the back garden - to scream.
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Simon on March 17, 2010, 22:13
Was it worth it?  ;D
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Rodders on March 17, 2010, 22:22
Of course it is!  I paid around seven or eight quid in Lidl's for it a couple of years ago and wouldn't want to risk a serious shoeing by turfing her off the laptop whenever I want to check whether it's dark.    8-)
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Simon on March 17, 2010, 22:25
 :laugh:
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Clive on March 17, 2010, 23:11
 ;D  I'm surprised such old software works at all on Win 7.  I hope you managed to catch Mars when it was recently at its brightest.  Right now Saturn is at its best but you can't see the rings this year.  Venus is starting to return to the evening sky but it's not a particularly good apparition this time.  However, Mercury will put on a good show at the end of the month/beginning of next month and will be very easy to find in the western sky just after sunset.
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: sam on March 18, 2010, 01:47
Bloody Astronomy without a bloody telescope.  I've just spent several hours trying to get Starry Night 6 CSAP to co-operate with Windows 7.  After jumping through more hoops than a hoopery, I eventually succeeded only by resorting to harsh language.  I'm now going out into the back garden - to scream.

this is pretty cool: http://www.stellarium.org/
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Clive on March 18, 2010, 08:31
Yes, it's very good and best of all it's free!   8-)
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Rodders on March 18, 2010, 09:26
That seems very reasonable.  Sadly, I'm getting a mixture of 404s and stalled pageloads when looking around their site.  I'll have another go from home later.  Meanwhile, can anyone advise whether it's actually better than SN?
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Clive on March 18, 2010, 11:17
I can remember reviewing Starry Night for Astronomy Now magazine many years ago and thought it was disappointing.   But that would have been a very early version and they stopped asking me to do reviews not long afterwards.  :laugh:  A lot of people are very complimentary towards Stellarium and I know Sam is one of them.  I don't use any astronomy software these days mainly because I was tee'd off after paying £120 for Sky 3.1 on floppies back in 1990 and it wouldn't work when I upgraded to Win 95.   :(
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Rodders on March 18, 2010, 11:30
How much?   :o

I must confess that I can't remember ever paying for software that came on floppies.  Mind you, that's not to say I didn't have any.
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Clive on March 18, 2010, 12:00
It came on 6 x 3.5" discs, but the good thing about it was it could easily be copied and I dished out loads to anyone who wanted them.  For its time, it was exceptionally good software and fun to use.  The Win 95 version was on CD and was only £14 to buy.  After forking out all that money for 3.1 I refused to buy it but then a magazine dished out free copies of it! It was probably a stripped down version of the real thing because it was nowhere near as good as the version I paid £120 for. 
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: sam on March 18, 2010, 14:05
I paid quite a bit (around £80) for Starry Night a few years back and indeed this is a very good program especially if you use it for logs or linking to a scope. However, I'd never pay again. I find the software overly slow and Stellarium is just as good - if not better in many ways. However, if you've got SN working giving it a proper go - but I'd seriously recommend having a play with Stellarium, the price is right and you'll probably get a more intuitive view of the sky. Of course - you can always use Google Earth and press the sky button. That's quite good but not quite right.
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Rodders on March 18, 2010, 14:28
Thanks for your input Sam.  Since I plan to use SN for nothing more adventurous than locating and (kind of) observing major events, there's probably no real need for anything I'd need to use a brain on.  The best thing therefore is for me download Stellarium in the next few days and compare both programs on the brain-strain scale.

I'll be back...   8-)
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: Clive on March 18, 2010, 18:25
 :gofor:
Title: Re: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Home Made Quark-Gluon Soup
Post by: sam on March 19, 2010, 00:32
Thanks for your input Sam.  Since I plan to use SN for nothing more adventurous than locating and (kind of) observing major events, there's probably no real need for anything I'd need to use a brain on.  The best thing therefore is for me download Stellarium in the next few days and compare both programs on the brain-strain scale.

I'll be back...   8-)


I'd expect you might find Stellarium more intuitive. Of course there is also heavens-above.com -which shows the sky from your location on a map and when satellites are going over.