.... and further afield.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ8UAMR98y4&NR=1

It amazing to see things put into perspective in a simple visual way such as this and shocking to see just how massive some Red Giants are.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere and have a "very good" set of binoculars or a 3+ inch telescope you can see over the next few days the last gasp of a Red Giant that went supernova 21-million light years ago....... I wont be able to see it, because I don't own a decent pair of binoculars, its very cloudy all weekend and I have the added benefit of the light pollution that comes with living on the edge of a city of 7-million people.

However if you can you might want to take a look.

This chap explains how to find it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJIaC7DU ... r_embedded

On a related note that started all of this, last night I watched the second part of "Wonders of the Universe" (series 1, series 2 starts soon), its all about the Stars and how they create all of the atomic particles that exist (naturally), and apart from "Hydrogen" and "Helium" they are all created in the death throws of Stars.

Fascinating stuff, get yourself a copy and watch it - ideally in 720p.


Andy

I don't know if you linked to that website by chance because many sites have the same pictures.
But that link should come with a warning: it's not only seriously nutty but sinister as well. It may seem ludicrous to you but, the education system in the USA beign what is is, there are naive and/or hateful people who might fall for this stuff.
There are much larger stars by the way.

Cox's previous series, Wonders of the Solar Systems, was very good and obviously more focused on this thread's topic. I think it had a few actual pictures of the planets among the CGI.

But for actual pictures of the planets, moons and stuff, the best source of information is probably http://planetary.org and its forum http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com
If you want a more direct link, the website with the best actual pictures is probably this one: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu

I only used that link because the particular page "just" had those pictures, and that another page with the same set of pictures had a virus on it.

I only briefly looked at the front page and also decided that it was "nutty".

There may very well be other even larger stars, however as those pictures already exist in a set and are all relative, even though stars such as "Betelgeuse" (beetlejuice) are very hard to determine their actual size its not that important. Its the sheer scale of these pictures that dwarf our own sun that impressive, no doubt there are/have been/will be even more colossal stars at distances that are not easy to imagine or even comprehend.

All of this add up to something that is truly fantastic.

"Wonders of the Solar System" was excellent and I have already watched it (some parts repeatedly), but now I have moved on to the stars and how they have formed all of the elements that naturally occur on our planet when they died - we are literally made of stardust.

As far as the URL's you have suggested, I will look at them later, thanks.


Andy

http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

Sodding amazing.

Hint, drag the bar all of the way to the left (the tiniest things are no less amazing than the most massive, after all the universe is made up of an uncountable number of these minuscule objects), and then just tap the "right arrow key", wait until you get to the end, they you suddenly understand what is classified as the "observable universe" this is simply staggering, thanks very much for posting this link.


Andy

Fun stuff, huh?

But not quiet as mind blowing as the Total Perspective Vortex would be tho!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSnJl7B_TVs

cool size comparison video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaOPsmlJ ... detailpage

I take it you didn't notice the sinister stuff then.
Best not link to such websites. Aside from what I wrote the other day, some popular search engine will make them appear among the top results if people link to them.


I'm more impressed by the galaxies myself. Especially the bit about that milky thing in the sky actually being one, same as Andromeda and the others. And it looks gorgeous too, even without an unwieldy telescope or CGI. See http://skysurvey.org for instance.


So you may not have reached the bit about general relativity yet. I'm curious about what you'll make of it. I didn't think the mountain/valley analogy made much sense. It provided yet another excuse for travelling to yet another terrific location on the beeb's dime though.

I imagine you know about that site by the way: http://hubblesite.org
Great pictures, especially if you dead or dying stars.


... and Sagan is its prophet.

Evidently I didn't scroll down that far to notice the huge amounts of bullshit conspiracy stuff total trash, and the phony medicines and cures that are trash.

Link replaced with a youtube short, that is non-offensive in every way - and unlike many includes our own moon - although there are many others - often basically the same - I am sure that everyone can choose their own favourite.



That does look excellent, I will have a proper look at that tonight when I have the time.



I watched that last night.



No it didn't, but to be honest I still have not fully got my head around the concept, after all why would it be easy to understand. The evolution of Humans failed to incorporate the necessary senses to see the entire universe as it is, we can see a very small spectrum of light, we can hear a very small spectrum of sound and as such our brains are trying to cope with things that we cannot see or hear, let alone smell, taste or touch.

Given some time reading wiki and/or other useful pages I will understand how it works, I am certainly part way there, but the whole concept is alien to us all.



Yes, the Hubble telescope was a master of cosmic photography in and out of our small band of visible light (as soon as it was fixed).



I am getting "Cosmos" as an x-mas present on the condition that I can start reading it now (x-mas presents are a pain in the arse if you already have everything you want).


Andy

edited my quote of the link as well


Well I'm no physicist but I like to think I understand a few things (not to the extent of fully getting my heard around it of course). Still, I don't get that part of his spiel. The whole point is supposed to be that you can't tell if you're on a straight line or if there's a valley you're falling into. And if we take some kind of otherwordly perspective in which the time dimension was analogous to the distance from the sea, it seems that stuff would be flowing uphill, not falling. I can see why he would want to talk about free fall but I don't see how it works with mountains and valleys. I guess I simply can't guess how the analogy is supposed to be interpreted.
What's relevant for the general public in my opinion is not the nature of spacetime (that's too abstract) or the math needed to get the orbit of Mercury right but how gravity relates to light, how time and space appear to be affected by relative accelerations as well as the equivalence principle. You should see what I mean if you read up on this stuff. I don't think the principles are very hard to understand if you start with weightlessness in free fall and the speed of light as an absolute.


You can see the result of the relativistic experiments just fine.
The point is that there are things which supposedly can't possibly be detected (or not from our standpoint anyway). It's not an issue with your body like the inability to see ultraviolet.
And if there's one thing you ought to take from this series is that the "things" you see are ghosts.