I've been using Stellarium for years. Great resource.

Puts hand up and admits to being a computer thicky.

Which should I download for use on an Android tablet?

Since you want to criticise publicly, I will respond publicly.

Moderating - Not all moderating is obvious to all posters but you would only need to have read the Terrorism or Night Sky threads to see evidence of moderating.

Game threads - There were game threads in the Sin Bin long before you surfaced and there may well be after you have disappeared. If they don't appeal to you that's fine but equally not all threads need to be about debate.

This is your third dig, the previous two were simply removed. Not sure why you feel the need to have a pop but I suggest that if you don't like or approve of the game thread then you simply ignore it.

Now, if you want to contribute re Astronomy, then you'd be on the right thread ...

[url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noctuasoftware.stellarium&hl=en_GBClicky[/url

Try this link for the Android version.

Not a new video, but a well-put together animation by the American museum of Natural History that gives a short but fantastic insight into the immenseness of the known universe, it is based on the world's most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas. As for aliens knowing of our presence, if we assume that the speed of light is a speed limit then the bubble shown at 2:38 is the furthest that the very earliest radio transmissions from Earth have got into space. You will see, nowhere at all, really. Not even to 99.99% of our own galaxy. In this still, I have highlighted this bubble with an arrow. that's it, that's as far as any of our signals have ever got. Watching it is quite a humbling experience if you think about it, but amazing too. https://youtu.be/17jymDn0W6U

Not a new video, but a well-put together animation by the American museum of Natural History that gives a short but fantastic insight into the immenseness of the known universe, it is based on the world's most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas. As for aliens knowing of our presence, if we assume that the speed of light is a speed limit then the bubble shown at 2:38 is the furthest that the very earliest radio transmissions from Earth have got into space. You will see, nowhere at all, really. Not even to 99.99% of our own galaxy. In this still, I have highlighted this bubble with an arrow. that's it, that's as far as any of our signals have ever got. Watching it is quite a humbling experience if you think about it, but amazing too. https://youtu.be/17jymDn0W6U

Thanks squire, I'll give it a pop.

And FA, as ever, that's mind blowing!

Sorted. I'm short on time ATM so have a word with the other mods regarding technical details.

Food for thought - NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this beautiful view of Earth from the spacecraft's vantage point in orbit around the moon. Doesn't look that troubled a place from 250,000 miles, does it?

I've been following the progress of a bunch of amateur enthusiasts who have taken some of the millions of images from the Cassini mission and animated them in full 4k resolution. The images are stunning, and the film they are making is called 'In Saturn's Rings'.

Here's a quick vid of the things we can expect from the full imax release. If you can, stick it on 4k and fullscreen to be blown away by the scenes...

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgxWkOXcdZUYoutube vid[/url

That is a good find Butcher! The sheer volume of astonishing images from the Pluto mission is overwhelming, but I especially love this mosaic of images - Quote Zigzagging across Pluto: This high-resolution swath of Pluto (right) sweeps over the cratered plains at the west of the New Horizons’ encounter hemisphere and across numerous prominent faults, skimming the eastern margin of the dark, forbidding region informally known as Cthulhu Regio, and finally passing over the mysterious, possibly cryovolcanic edifice Wright Mons, before reaching the terminator or day-night line. Among the many notable details shown are the overlapping and infilling relationships between units of the relatively smooth, bright volatile ices from Sputnik Planum (at the edge of the mosaic) and the dark edge or “shore” of Cthulhu. The pictures in this mosaic were taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) in “ride-along” mode with the LEISA spectrometer, which accounts for the "zigzag" or step pattern. Taken shortly before New Horizons’ July 14 closest approach to Pluto, details as small as 500 yards (500 meters) can be seen. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute'" astronomy.com/news/2015/12/new-f ... -its-moons

That is a good find Butcher! The sheer volume of astonishing images from the Pluto mission is overwhelming, but I especially love this mosaic of images - Quote Zigzagging across Pluto: This high-resolution swath of Pluto (right) sweeps over the cratered plains at the west of the New Horizons’ encounter hemisphere and across numerous prominent faults, skimming the eastern margin of the dark, forbidding region informally known as Cthulhu Regio, and finally passing over the mysterious, possibly cryovolcanic edifice Wright Mons, before reaching the terminator or day-night line. Among the many notable details shown are the overlapping and infilling relationships between units of the relatively smooth, bright volatile ices from Sputnik Planum (at the edge of the mosaic) and the dark edge or “shore” of Cthulhu. The pictures in this mosaic were taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) in “ride-along” mode with the LEISA spectrometer, which accounts for the "zigzag" or step pattern. Taken shortly before New Horizons’ July 14 closest approach to Pluto, details as small as 500 yards (500 meters) can be seen. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute'" astronomy.com/news/2015/12/new-f ... -its-moons

The pluto images are simply spectacular. The sheer quality and detail is amazing.

Continued study of a supernova first detected last June leads astronomers to believe it is the most powerful supernova ever detected, at its peak shining with 570 BILLION times the brightness of our Sun.



The [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35315509BBC article[/url is full of incredible info, such as the object may be powered by a "magnetar", approx. the size of London, spinning at the rate of 1000x per second

It's another good result for the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN), but just mind-boggling stuff.

Live feed of Tim Peake's spacewalk today, (Friday 15) the 1st by a UK astronaut astronomynow.com/2016/01/15/watc ... walk-live/

Live feed of Tim Peake's spacewalk today, (Friday 15) the 1st by a UK astronaut astronomynow.com/2016/01/15/watc ... walk-live/

Anyone interested, here's the live launch of SpaceX latest rocket. It goes in 15 mins!

[urlhttp://www.spacex.com/webcast/[/url

If you're up and about tomorrow (Wed 19 Jan) before dawn, catch a look at the 5 bright planets in our solar system (Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn) as all will all be visible at once, and aligned very nicely.

If as ever the sky is cloudy, you'll still be able to see these planets, if not in such a nice alignment, until Feb 20th. There must be one clear morning between now and then, surely?

There will be a similar alignment again in in the evening sky between Aug 13-19

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"If you're up and about tomorrow (Wed 19 Jan) before dawn, catch a look at the 5 bright planets in our solar system (Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn) as all will all be visible at once, and aligned very nicely. If as ever the sky is cloudy, you'll still be able to see these planets, if not in such a nice alignment, until Feb 20th. There must be one clear morning between now and then, surely? There will be a similar alignment again in in the evening sky between Aug 13-19'" Oh the weather problem, one of the banes of my life, that & the rare early start. Part of me is hoping for the usual cloud cover so I don't have to drag my sorry carcass out of bed. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science ... -show.html

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"If you're up and about tomorrow (Wed 19 Jan) before dawn, catch a look at the 5 bright planets in our solar system (Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn) as all will all be visible at once, and aligned very nicely. If as ever the sky is cloudy, you'll still be able to see these planets, if not in such a nice alignment, until Feb 20th. There must be one clear morning between now and then, surely? There will be a similar alignment again in in the evening sky between Aug 13-19'" Oh the weather problem, one of the banes of my life, that & the rare early start. Part of me is hoping for the usual cloud cover so I don't have to drag my sorry carcass out of bed. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science ... -show.html

Fingers crossed the 'My way or no way' brigade will leave this thread alone now they've hijacked a couple of decent threads to call home.

Gobsmacking latest released Mars images

Just looked at the original image. Incredible detail.

Here's a locus map of the Martian surface for context




[url=http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Missions/Mars_Express/(class)/image?mission=Mars+Express&keyword=+--%253E+Keyword&idf=+--%253E+ID&Ic=on&subm3=GOMars Express images[/url

[url=http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Missions/Mars_Express?mission=Mars+Express&type=VMars Express videos and animations[/url

Here is a fine example of animations created from thousands of individual Mars Express images, and put together into a flyover of a wide expanse of the martian surface.
[urlhttp://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/content/view/embedjw/456743[/url

Astonishingly, ancient Babylonian tablets reveal that Babylonian astronomers discovered how to calculate Jupiter’s position using a geometrical technique, between 350 and 50 BC - 1,400 years earlier than it was thought such tracking methods had been "invented" by European scholars. It is well-known that the Babylonians were keen astronomers, but before this discovery it seemed they likely just used arithmetic. But this shows that they worked out how to calculate the distance Jupiter travels in the sky over time by calculating the area of a trapezoid, which proves that they understood a concept essential to modern calculus. https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... -europeans www.space.com/31765-ancient-baby ... -math.html

Astonishingly, ancient Babylonian tablets reveal that Babylonian astronomers discovered how to calculate Jupiter’s position using a geometrical technique, between 350 and 50 BC - 1,400 years earlier than it was thought such tracking methods had been "invented" by European scholars. It is well-known that the Babylonians were keen astronomers, but before this discovery it seemed they likely just used arithmetic. But this shows that they worked out how to calculate the distance Jupiter travels in the sky over time by calculating the area of a trapezoid, which proves that they understood a concept essential to modern calculus. https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... -europeans www.space.com/31765-ancient-baby ... -math.html

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark" Astonishingly, ancient Babylonian tablets reveal that Babylonian astronomers discovered how to calculate Jupiter’s position using a geometrical technique, between 350 and 50 BC - 1,400 years earlier than it was thought such tracking methods had been "invented" by European scholars. It is well-known that the Babylonians were keen astronomers, but before this discovery it seemed they likely just used arithmetic. But this shows that they worked out how to calculate the distance Jupiter travels in the sky over time by calculating the area of a trapezoid, which proves that they understood a concept essential to modern calculus. https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... -europeans www.space.com/31765-ancient-baby ... -math.html'" They believed in a Geocentric Universe too. Nice find. They were no nuggets.

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark" Astonishingly, ancient Babylonian tablets reveal that Babylonian astronomers discovered how to calculate Jupiter’s position using a geometrical technique, between 350 and 50 BC - 1,400 years earlier than it was thought such tracking methods had been "invented" by European scholars. It is well-known that the Babylonians were keen astronomers, but before this discovery it seemed they likely just used arithmetic. But this shows that they worked out how to calculate the distance Jupiter travels in the sky over time by calculating the area of a trapezoid, which proves that they understood a concept essential to modern calculus. https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... -europeans www.space.com/31765-ancient-baby ... -math.html'" They believed in a Geocentric Universe too. Nice find. They were no nuggets.

oddly enough as a young lad I studied the ancient Babylonian, Sumerian and Mesopotamian civilizations. You could learn much from them. You would agree, perhaps, that their Enuma Elish is patent myth and nonsense, but you haven't worked out that your own later versions are myth and nonsense too. However, I don't think this is the place to digress into religion, because here I am dealing with astronomy and documeted astronomical discovery.

In the case of astronomy, and the Jupiter discovery, the fundamental point is that they had people clearly of a scientific mind, who were doing their best - and very well - to answer the huge questions that the seemingly inexplicable heavens posed, by application of scientific and mathematical principles. In this respect, they were on the right track, and with our benefit of hindsight, did amazingly well.

Please elaborate. You shouldn't have mentioned it if you cannot handle a debate on the matter. I await in suspense.