Topic: Sam's pics

[Clive]

I've just been browsing through your Flickriver pics and I have to say they are stunning. But no comet pics?    I particularly liked the one of M4 (aren't you surprised?) and wonder if the stars at the bottom of the pic are cluster members?  They look as if they might be but it seems almost too good to be true!  It's awesome even if they are foreground stars.  Not sure about the Venus one.  Did you forget something when you took that photo?  Perhaps it was Venus.    What in the name of all that's holy is in the background of the Lyra constellation pic?  Have you photographed dark matter?    Your galaxy pics are outstanding, you've pulled out a lot of detail.  Likewise with the planetaries.  It was also nice that you interspersed the astropics with fun stuff.  You have a great gift.

http://flickriver.com/photos/starrydude/popular-interesting/

[Simon]

Sam certainly has some stunning pictures in his huge gallery!  Unfortunately, it would take about 4 hours from them all to load in my browser, so I only get to see the latest ones, but I am intrigued as to what the 'Arecibo receiver' actually is?

[sam]

Thanks for the comments, glad you enjoyed looking through them. While I have been over in Calgary I've not been able todo much which is a shame.

No comets... well that's cause I kept missing things.

M4 - the one with the BRT? Its a bit of focus and I think that they probably are just foreground stars.

The Lyra pics - that's clouds / the edge of the BRT.

The Venus one - I think I know which one you are talking about - this one? http://www.flickr.com/photos/starrydude/353120229/sizes/o/

Oh and Clive these are just the most popular images on my flickr account, that's why they aren't just astropics - my full photostream can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/starrydude/ and astro-related images http://www.flickr.com/photos/starrydude/collections/72157600234908720/

[sam]

Sam certainly has some stunning pictures in his huge gallery!  Unfortunately, it would take about 4 hours from them all to load in my browser, so I only get to see the latest ones, but I am intrigued as to what the 'Arecibo receiver' actually is?

Those are just the most viewed one - that latest ones, which are probably of less interest though can be found: http://www.flickr.com/photos/starrydude/  - I'll probably put some nice glacial ones from the rockies after our trip out there tomorrow.

Arecibo receiver - that's the detector on the Arecibo Telescope. Essentially its a huge dome that hangs around 450 feet above the main dish. It's quite breathtaking up there. The whole platform weight around 900 tons.  Just below the triangular frame of the upper platform is a circular track on which the azimuth arm turns. The dome (which is a "recent" addition, 1996) has lots of detectors inside, dependent on the project. We use the ALFA receiver, which is a bunch of feed horns. Also hanging below it are some other antennas (they look a bit star wars esq) and by aiming a feed antenna at a certain point on the reflector, radio emissions originating from a very small area of the sky in line with the feed antenna will be focused on the feed antenna. The whole thing is moved to millimetre precision, pretty impressive really and we are able to detect faint emission from just after the begining of the Universe.

[Simon]

It's amazing, as it looks just like something has crashed into a pylon. 

[Clive]

Thanks for the explanations Sam.  I still can't see Venus. 

[Rik]

The ads are frequently on TV, Clive.

[Clive]

I always notice.