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| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317886
 United States
10/26/2007 10:38 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
By then. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 304493
United States
10/26/2007 10:44 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
By George, I've got it! This comet is John Titor exploding into our time-line in advance of his imminent return on November 2.
[link to pub47.bravenet.com]
Or maybe its just the Terminator coming back from 2029 looking to take out Sarah Connor. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317886
United States
10/26/2007 10:48 PM | | Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317886
United States
10/26/2007 10:52 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
You know what sucks about this for me? It crystle clear here but there is a full moon rising which is detrimental for film photography .
( :crying: ) |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317886
United States
10/26/2007 10:59 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
Ok. Yall can go back to the doom and prediction stuff.
This is only pissing me off now!!
You GREAT guys and Gals have a wonderful night  I'm sure I'll see some of you on another thread some where along the line. The night night is young. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 293507
 Canada
10/26/2007 11:00 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
I would suspect that the most likely reason for the outburst was that it was hit by a meteor |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 293507
Canada
10/26/2007 11:03 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
If Comet Holmes is about the same size as the comets wit known sizes, the exposed surface area is about 100 square km. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317918
 United Kingdom
10/26/2007 11:10 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
OK, tin foil top hat time.
Werhner von braun gave us a chilling warning.
Communism, terrorism, comets and astroids, aliens.
Weaponising space is the end game for population control.
I just had this mad flash of tin foil top hat thought, and it is thus.
This is a fake event. totaly fake. They are using beams to simulate a huge comet space event for us all to fear over, in planning to 'save us' or create a very bad situation where they can stand up and say 'if we had space weapons we could of saved ____ _ _ _ _ _' (add city / country here).
If this don't work, then its the aliens time.
Total tin foil top hat thought, but, but..... they are just mad and bad enough to pull this type of shit, hence the shuttle HAS TO launch, saftey fears or not. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317886
United States
10/26/2007 11:10 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
If it were in a different part of the sky it would have a beautiful tail. Right now it earth is almost right between the sun and the comet so any tail would be behind it from our view.
Take a look at this again
[link to ssd.jpl.nasa.gov] |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 292526
United States
10/26/2007 11:11 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
I'm sure someone suggested project lucifer...I know it's early but....I thought about it when I saw the crazy explosion...naw it's prolly not that. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 293507
Canada
10/26/2007 11:11 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
i checked live solar system and found a number of our planet aligned yesterday,today...could it be the "Jupiter Effect"? |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317918
United Kingdom
10/26/2007 11:12 PM | | Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317886
United States
10/26/2007 11:14 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
If it were in a different part of the sky it would have a beautiful tail. Right now it earth is almost right between the sun and the comet so any tail would be behind it from our view.
Take a look at this again
[ link to ssd.jpl.nasa.gov]
If it were in a different part of the sky it would have a beautiful tail. Right now THE earth is almost right between the sun and the comet so any tail would be behind it from our view.
Got one word wrong there that had to be corrected. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317918
United Kingdom
10/26/2007 11:15 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
A laser guide star works in a similar manner to yellowish sodium street lamps. Over time, micrometeorites striking the atmosphere have deposited a thin band of sodium atoms 56 miles above the Earth’s surface. Technicians tune a powerful laser mounted on the telescope to a frequency that excites, or increases the energy level of, sodium atoms. The laser is fired into the sky, exciting a small portion of the sodium band. “In those lamps, the electricity is exciting the sodium and it produces a yellow light. We do the same with the laser guide star and create a fake star. The artificial starlight comes back down into your adaptive optics system, just like real starlight does with the natural guide star system,” says Liu. Scientists can use the system to enhance observations anywhere in the sky.
YELLOWISH.
Ringing bells ?
[link to www.kaunana.com] |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 293537
United States
10/26/2007 11:17 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
In January 2001, after more than seven years in development, the Keck and LLNL teams celebrated the completion of the Keck laser guide star system. The artificial star results when light from a 15-watt dye laser causes a naturally occurring layer of sodium atoms to glow about 90 km (56 miles) above the earth?s surface. It would take another two years of sophisticated research and design before the laser system could be integrated into the Keck II adaptive optics system.
In the early morning hours of September 20th, all subsystems finally came together to reveal the unique capability of the Keck LGS AO system and its potential to resolve extremely faint objects. The system locked on a 15th magnitude star, a member of a well-known T Tauri binary called HK Tau and revealed details of the circumstellar disk of the companion star. It was the first time an adaptive optics system on a very large telescope had ever used an artificial guide star to resolve a faint object.
[link to www.universetoday.com] |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 312083
United States
10/26/2007 11:19 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
Quoting: Anonymous Coward 317918
Well, I'll be damned. Who knew?
From your source...
October 8th, 2003
Keck Uses Adaptive Optics for the First Time
Written by Fraser Cain
Image credit:: Keck
The 10-metre Keck II observatory took an important step forward recently when it began observations with its new adaptive optics system. The system uses a laser to create a fake star about 90 kilometres up in the sky - a computer can then use this to calculate how to remove the effect of atmospheric disturbances. Adaptive optics have been used on smaller telescopes, but this is the first time it's been employed on a telescope as large as the mighty Keck II; it took nine years to adapt the observatory.
A major milestone in astronomical history took place recently at the W.M. Keck Observatory when scientists, for the first time, used a laser to create an artificial guide star on the Keck II 10-meter telescope to correct the blurring of a star with adaptive optics (AO). Laser guide stars have been used on smaller telescopes, but this is their first successful use on the current generation of the world?s largest telescopes. The resulting image (Figure 1), captured by the NIRC2 infrared camera, was the first demonstration of a laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO) system on a large telescope. When complete, the LGS AO system will mark a new era of astronomy in which astronomers will be able to see virtually any object in the sky with the clarity of adaptive optics.
?This is one of the most gratifying moments in all my years at Keck,? remarked Dr. Frederic Chaffee, director of the W.M. Keck Observatory the evening the observations were made. ?Like any positive first light result, there is much to be done before the system can be considered operational. But also like any positive first light result, it shows that it can be done, and gives us great optimism that our goals are not impossible dreams, but are instead attainable realities.?
Adaptive optics is a technique that has revolutionized ground-based astronomy through its ability to remove the blurring of starlight caused by the earth?s atmosphere. Its requirement of a relatively bright ?guide star? in the same field of view as the scientific object of study has generally limited the use of AO to about one percent of the objects in the sky.
To overcome this restriction, in 1994 the W.M. Keck Observatory began working with Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL) to develop an artificial guide star system. By using a laser to create a ?virtual star,? astronomers can study any object in the vicinity of much fainter (up to 19th magnitude) objects with adaptive optics and reduce its dependence on bright, naturally occurring guide stars. Doing so will increase sky coverage for the Keck adaptive optics system from an estimated one percent of all objects in the sky, to more than 80 percent.
"This new capability of using a laser guide star with a large telescope has invited astronomers to start exploring the night sky in a much more comprehensive manner,? said Adam Contos, optics engineer at the W.M. Keck Observatory. ?In the future, I would expect most major observatories to be installing similar systems to take advantage of this incredible enhancement to their AO capabilities."
In January 2001, after more than seven years in development, the Keck and LLNL teams celebrated the completion of the Keck laser guide star system. The artificial star results when light from a 15-watt dye laser causes a naturally occurring layer of sodium atoms to glow about 90 km (56 miles) above the earth?s surface. It would take another two years of sophisticated research and design before the laser system could be integrated into the Keck II adaptive optics system.
In the early morning hours of September 20th, all subsystems finally came together to reveal the unique capability of the Keck LGS AO system and its potential to resolve extremely faint objects. The system locked on a 15th magnitude star, a member of a well-known T Tauri binary called HK Tau and revealed details of the circumstellar disk of the companion star. It was the first time an adaptive optics system on a very large telescope had ever used an artificial guide star to resolve a faint object.
A key challenge the LGS AO team faced was how successful the efforts would be to integrate and achieve good performance measurements for each required sub-system. Concerns about the power of the laser and its spot quality, operation of the laser traffic control system, the ability of the new sensors to lock on fainter guide stars, and being able to optimize the image quality through an accurate understanding of the aberrations that could not be measured by using the laser guide star, were all factored into the evening?s observing.
?First light was a superb team effort,? said Dr. Peter Wizinowich, team leader for the adaptive optics team at W.M. Keck Observatory. ?It was very satisfying to have each of the many subsystems perform so well on our first attempt. To quote Virgil, ?Audentes Fortuna Juvat,? fortune favors the bold.?
The quality of the LGS AO first light images was extremely high. While locked on a 14th magnitude star, the Keck LGS AO system recorded ?Strehl ratios? of 36 percent (at 2.1 micron wavelength, 30-second exposure time, Figure 3), compared to four percent for uncorrected images. Strehl ratios measure the degree to which an optical system approaches ?diffraction-limited? perfection, or the theoretical performance limit, of the telescope.
Another performance metric, the ?full width at half maximum? (FWHM), for this 14th magnitude star was 50 milli-arcseconds, compared to 183 milli-arcseconds for the uncorrected image. FWHM measurements help astronomers determine the actual edges of an object, where the detection may be imprecise or difficult to determine. The measurement of 50 milli-arcseconds is about equivalent to being able to distinguish a pair of car headlights in New York while standing in Los Angeles.
Throughout the evening, the laser guide star held steady and bright, shining at an approximate magnitude of 9.5, about 25 times fainter than what the human eye can see, but ideal for the Keck adaptive optics system to measure and correct for atmospheric distortions.
Additional work is underway before the Keck LGS AO system can be considered fully operational. The Keck LGS AO system will be available for limited shared risk science next year, with full deployment to the Keck user community in 2005.
?Even with just this first test, astronomers are already clamoring to use the laser guide star system to study distant galaxies with an unprecedented resolution and power,? said Dr. David Le Mignant, adaptive optics instrument scientist at the W.M. Keck Observatory, California Association for Research in Astronomy. ?By next year, adaptive optics will be used to study the rich formation history of early galaxies.?
The importance of this breakthrough to worldwide astronomy was summed up by Dr. Matt Mountain, the director of the Gemini Observatory, which operates twin 8-meter telescopes, one on Mauna Kea and one on Cerro Pachon in Chile: ?This is a critical milestone for all ground-based astronomy, not just for our current generation of eight to 10-meter class telescopes, but also for our dreams of 30-meter telescopes."
Team members responsible for the Keck LGS AO system are Antonin Bouchez, Jason Chin, Adam Contos, Scott Hartman, Erik Johansson, Robert Lafon, David Le Mignant, Chris Neyman, Paul Stomski, Doug Summers, Marcos van Dam, and Peter Wizinowich, all from the W.M. Keck Observatory, California Association for Research in Astronomy. The team gave special thanks to their collaborators at LLNL: Dee Pennington, Curtis Brown and Pam Danforth.
The laser guide star adaptive optics system was funded by the W.M. Keck Foundation.
The W.M. Keck Observatory is operated by the California Association for Research in Astronomy, a scientific partnership of the California Institute of Technology.
Original Source: Keck News Release
Filed under: Observatories |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317918
United Kingdom
10/26/2007 11:21 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
So...... could this have no tail and have brightened as they have started to 'turn up' the power on the downward facing beam ?
Complete tin foil time here.... but werhner von braun told us DECADES ago they would pull a stunt like that! |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317886
United States
10/26/2007 11:23 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
OK, tin foil top hat time.
Werhner von braun gave us a chilling warning.
Communism, terrorism, comets and astroids, aliens.
Weaponising space is the end game for population control.
I just had this mad flash of tin foil top hat thought, and it is thus.
This is a fake event. totaly fake. They are using beams to simulate a huge comet space event for us all to fear over, in planning to 'save us' or create a very bad situation where they can stand up and say 'if we had space weapons we could of saved ____ _ _ _ _ _' (add city / country here).
If this don't work, then its the aliens time.
Total tin foil top hat thought, but, but..... they are just mad and bad enough to pull this type of shit, hence the shuttle HAS TO launch, saftey fears or not. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 317918
Hey, I know where your coming from.
Been there done that.
There is no way in ALL of Gods Creation that a bunch of low life fucking mob bosses (that belong to hell) could ever in their own wildest dreams ever pull that off.
I have my own portable observatory along with millions of others.
That shit will never leave the run way. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 275504
United States
10/26/2007 11:28 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
We had too much weird light all over so I didn't see it tonight.
THere is so much going on in New Orleans right now all these Halloween people out already, voodoo fest with rage against the machine and smashing pumpkins and black crowes and then some other huge festival and tulane homecoming weekend game against memphis and since there is nothing to do in memphis they all come here and tomorrow there is an air show and an anti war protest to add to all of it..it's rather surreal.. a traffic jam everywhere at nine pm.. it was crazy out there.. and i kept wondering does anyone even know there is a comet up there/ NOPE
not much you can do about it really
smoke em if you got em |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 304493
United States
10/26/2007 11:35 PM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
We had too much weird light all over so I didn't see it tonight.
THere is so much going on in New Orleans right now all these Halloween people out already, voodoo fest with rage against the machine and smashing pumpkins and black crowes and then some other huge festival and tulane homecoming weekend game against memphis and since there is nothing to do in memphis they all come here and tomorrow there is an air show and an anti war protest to add to all of it..it's rather surreal.. a traffic jam everywhere at nine pm.. it was crazy out there.. and i kept wondering does anyone even know there is a comet up there/ NOPE
not much you can do about it really
smoke em if you got em Quoting: Anonymous Coward 275504
What are signs in the heavens above when there are carnal pleasures to be had?!?
Do you think the signs above Sodom and Gommorah distracted the fornicators from their revels?? |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 275504
United States
10/27/2007 12:00 AM | | * <----star of destiny
User ID: 279402
United States
10/27/2007 12:41 AM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
OK, tin foil top hat time.
Werhner von braun gave us a chilling warning.
Communism, terrorism, comets and astroids, aliens.
Weaponising space is the end game for population control.
I just had this mad flash of tin foil top hat thought, and it is thus.
This is a fake event. totaly fake. They are using beams to simulate a huge comet space event for us all to fear over, in planning to 'save us' or create a very bad situation where they can stand up and say 'if we had space weapons we could of saved ____ _ _ _ _ _' (add city / country here).
If this don't work, then its the aliens time.
Total tin foil top hat thought, but, but..... they are just mad and bad enough to pull this type of shit, hence the shuttle HAS TO launch, saftey fears or not. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 317918
People that say this bullshit are scared to death of change...change is what they fear most of all ...especially that moron von braun. What a goof ball. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 269684
United States
10/27/2007 1:16 AM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
Why on earth the mods would unpin this is beyond me.
 |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 317937
United States
10/27/2007 1:17 AM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
It is a shame this was un-pinned. I would like to see it re-pinned asap! |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 11132
 Taiwan
10/27/2007 1:57 AM | | Anonymous Coward
User ID: 11132
Taiwan
10/27/2007 2:00 AM | | Anonymous Coward
User ID: 11132
Taiwan
10/27/2007 2:03 AM | | Anonymous Coward
User ID: 11132
Taiwan
10/27/2007 2:05 AM | | Anonymous Coward
User ID: 11132
Taiwan
10/27/2007 2:09 AM | | Anonymous Coward
User ID: 31016
 Australia
10/27/2007 2:32 AM | | Re: 17P/Holmes - Enigma 'Comet' | Quote |
Why is this thread unpinned, this discussion has been the most interesting on this forum for yonks |
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