Just yesterday I was looking for ephemerides, and found JPL's Horizon, which you can access with telnet:
telnet horizons.jpl.nasa.gov 6775
You can type names, to get numbers (mercury is 1).
The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours
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Re: The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours
#52Interesting to think about where we'll be when this happens again in 2049. It's a difference of only 30 years. 30 years ago was 1989. Yet life today compared to then is simply alien - technology has impacted the way everyone and every thing exists. The first self-powered flight was in 1903. Man landed on the Moon just 66 years later. In one lifetime you went from being perpetually constrained to the surface to litera…
Prediction: When we watch the transit of Earth from Mars, it will be remotely--there just isn't much advantage to humans physically living on Mars. We can see/understand what's going on, without pointless expense, tragedies, and indignities that would go with human presence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Earth_from_Mars
Looks like the next one is in 2084. Assuming humans are still around, we should at least have put a few on Mars by then, but establishing an enduring colony is a much harder problem than sending someone for a Kodak moment.
Re: The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours
#53Figures, there's a giant snow storm passing through the Northeast today :(
Northeast what? Sunny where I am.
Re: The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours
#54What effect will this event have on my mood, plans, and chance of success?
Re: The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Make a couple of cardboard disks that cover the front lens with smaller circular cutouts, effectively reducing the diameter of the front elements. If you make the holes say half the radius, you'll reduce the light by a factor of 4 (telescopes often comes with a front lens cover that have this sort of arrangement built in, either for solar projection or for observing the mount). Shouldn't need to say it here, but neve…
> Shouldn't need to say it here, but never, ever, look at the sun through binoculars or a telescope (even with filters or reducers). You won't get a second chance. i was considering this one: https://www.celestron.com/products/eclipsmart-solar-filter-6... bad idea?
From a reputable company (like Celestron) it ought to be ok. However, if anything goes wrong (filter burns through, cracks, drops out) the damage will will likely be irreversible. Think of it as the risk of standing at the wrong end of a loaded gun.
Even if you avoid looking directly at the sun, it's possible to make mistakes. On a transit of Venus I was having trouble getting a telescope lined up, so without thinking I bent down to have a look through it to see where the sun was. Luckily the resultant burn made me whip my head back before my eye got to the eyepiece.
Re: The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember a world without the internet, without personal computers, without ATM machines. I am a member of the last generation (until the apocalypse) who will know what life was like without these things. Traveling was more of an adventure back then because you were pretty much cut off from home. Nowadays, being away is not so different from being at home. We may be living on the moon in 2049. Whether that represent…
On my first trip to Europe I drove from Paris to Nice, stopping over in Epinal. We didn't have a GPS device and our phones didn't work. We did have some printed out directions from MapQuest IIRC. We still talk about that adventure today, "after the 13th roundabout take the second exit". Was this 12 or 13?
> directions from MapQuest
Heh. When I was traveling in Europe in the mid-80s we had to use actual maps. :-)
Re: The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember a world without the internet, without personal computers, without ATM machines. I am a member of the last generation (until the apocalypse) who will know what life was like without these things. Traveling was more of an adventure back then because you were pretty much cut off from home. Nowadays, being away is not so different from being at home. We may be living on the moon in 2049. Whether that represent…
While I am not so old I remember a time before dialup, I definitely remember travelling without basically all the things that you mention here. To me, the more things have been said to change, the more they are exactly the same. Consider that perhaps a perceived difference lies mostly in the eye of the beholder.
No, things really are different now. Travel is much easier. I think it's arguable whether or not that makes it better. It certainly seems better in the moment if you don't have to worry about, say, running out of cash or finding a place to sleep. But in hindsight, a big part of the benefit of travel in the old days (IMHO) was that it forced you to get out of your comfort zone and face challenges that you otherwise would not have faced. For me, travel is (or at least should be) about more than just getting a selfie in front of the Eiffel tower.
Bringing this back to the OP, we may discover that a big part of the charm of living on the moon is in our imagination. Once we actually making living on the moon routine we'll discover that it's actually not such a nice place to be. It's dusty. It's all the same shade of grey. The weather sucks. The best we can hope for is to turn the moon into another Las Vegas or Dubai, which are also dusty drab places with crappy weather. But once we do that, what will we really have gained? You might as well just stay in Vegas. It's cheaper.
Re: The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember a world without the internet, without personal computers, without ATM machines. I am a member of the last generation (until the apocalypse) who will know what life was like without these things. Traveling was more of an adventure back then because you were pretty much cut off from home. Nowadays, being away is not so different from being at home. We may be living on the moon in 2049. Whether that represent…
Well I had this kind of travel (no phone, no credit card just some cash and 1200 page lonely planet india book) in 2008 and 2010. Heck, 2 years ago I could still have the same when hiking through everest region, if i didn't pay for their wifi internet. Its still out there if you accept taking a modest comfort hit. Just one tip - bring more cash than you expect, even with reserve
Sure, it's still possible to get away from civilization, but those opportunities are becoming more and more rare (and require more and more acceptance of physical discomfort and risks to your health). But before the internet, all travel was like that. If you left home you had no choice but to leave access to some important support structures in your life behind, and that gave travel a fundamentally different character than it has today.
Living on the moon may similarly lose a lot of its charm once it becomes routine.
Re: The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours
#59Will a welding mask work?
https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/iso-certification says "The only ones that are safe for direct viewing of the Sun with your eyes are those of Shade 12 or higher."
(which are rare because they're too dark for most welding)
Other sources said 13 was the minimum. You're probably best off with a 13 or 14. I found 13 too bright.
Re: The transit of Mercury starts at 7:35 am ET and will last for 5.5 hours
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember a world without the internet, without personal computers, without ATM machines. I am a member of the last generation (until the apocalypse) who will know what life was like without these things. Traveling was more of an adventure back then because you were pretty much cut off from home. Nowadays, being away is not so different from being at home. We may be living on the moon in 2049. Whether that represent…
I remember black and white television, and CRT TV screens which shrunk and faded to little dots when shut off. I remember having one telephone in the house. I remember not having a computer in the house, then getting one (Sinclair ZX81). I too remember life before ATMs. In all these cases, I was a kid - these memories are all from maybe the age of 3-4 through early teens. I never navigated adult life without understa…
I remember all of these things, too. I also remember trying to explain to my great grandmother, who was born in the 19th century, how it was that my brother and I were able to control what was happening on the TV screen.
And that's all I'm going to reflect on for now, lest I become tempted to burn a week's worth of evenings reading Ray Kurzweil.