Anyone planning to watch NASA's DART mission Monday the 26th?

[WickedFog]

Anyone still following NASA stuff?

In case you haven't been following, NASA will be crashing a spacecraft into an Asteroid to try to change its trajectory. And who doesn't want to watch millions of dollars crash into a rock in space?

Here is the launch and info vid about the mission.

They will be streaming a live watch party of the actual crash starting Monday the 26th at 6:00 pm EDT at the link below. Impact time is said to be 7:14 pm EDT.

 

[Doom!]

if it's not RC related I haven't been paying attention. Is it going to be on the NASA website?

 

[Tunedfrog]

Looks interesting.

 

[WickedFog]

if it's not RC related I haven't been paying attention. Is it going to be on the NASA website?

Yes, it will be here as well...
https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

Looks interesting.

Yeah, I mean if you consider the fact that it's a multi-million dollar RC, getting driven into an asteroid, it should be interesting to everyone here

 

[Chubaka]

Is this the one in florida that keeps getting scrubbed? The same one that had a big traffic jam for nothing? I think Ill pass.

 

[WickedFog]

Is this the one in florida that keeps getting scrubbed? The same one that had a big traffic jam for nothing? I think Ill pass.

No, that is an unmanned moon mission flight. The Dart spacecraft is already heading to the asteroid.

 

[WickedFog]

2 days til impact

Anyone planning on watching it live?

 

[Doom!]

I probably won't get to but I want to, love to see how this plays out. Just an adult version of throwing rocks at cans only with a bigger budget.

 

[Doom!]

Watched the vid, they were right on target, will take a week or so to find out how much effect it had. Always amazed at the amount of accuracy achieved with so many variables.

 

[Chubaka]

Saw space x I think it was launch the other day.

 

[WickedFog]

Watched the vid, they were right on target, will take a week or so to find out how much effect it had. Always amazed at the amount of accuracy achieved with so many variables.

Yeah, it was pretty amazing how dead on they were. I am patiently awaiting the results.

Saw space x I think it was launch the other day.

Finally huh? I tried to watch the launch, and it kept getting scrubbed so much I lost interest.

 

[ahr43]

NASA struggles to get a Moon shot off the pad. Meanwhile is successful in crashing a space craft into a rock. Were I an astronaut training for a manned Moon launch, that would not instill confidence in my chances of survival. Perception is everything.

Did, however, watch Ranger 7 impact the Moon back 1964. Was in the Air Force then and we gathered around the shop TV and marveled at the grainy images coming back-one image at a time. Until the screen went all snow. We knew then it was curtains and soft music for Ranger 7. Three or four years ago, during my lunar telescoping days, got a good look at the impact site of Ranger 7 - fifty plus years later.

'AC'

 

[WickedFog]

NASA struggles to get a Moon shot off the pad. Meanwhile is successful in crashing a space craft into a rock. Were I an astronaut training for a manned Moon launch, that would not instill confidence in my chances of survival. Perception is everything.

Did, however, watch Ranger 7 impact the Moon back 1964. Was in the Air Force then and we gathered around the shop TV and marveled at the grainy images coming back-one image at a time. Until the screen went all snow. We knew then it was curtains and soft music for Ranger 7. Three or four years ago, during my lunar telescoping days, got a good look at the impact site of Ranger 7 - fifty plus years later.

'AC'

I have been considering getting Breydon a telescope, but I am not much of an astronomer, as much as I wish I were. I have been noticing a bright star in the sky around 3am to the south. I was thinking it had to be something cool. Using a star map app I found that uses gps and stuff, I found out it's Jupiter. Neptune is up there as well, but with my old eyes I can't even see a blip of it in the sky. But I have a nice dark area behind my place and a good view of the moon, so I may look into getting a telescope pretty soon.

 

[Greywolf74]

I have been considering getting Breydon a telescope, but I am not much of an astronomer, as much as I wish I were. I have been noticing a bright star in the sky around 3am to the south. I was thinking it had to be something cool. Using a star map app I found that uses gps and stuff, I found out it's Jupiter. Neptune is up there as well, but with my old eyes I can't even see a blip of it in the sky. But I have a nice dark area behind my place and a good view of the moon, so I may look into getting a telescope pretty soon.

I wish my dad would have bought me a telescope when I was a kid. Then I could have peeked in my neighbors daughters bedroom without being seen

 

[Doom!]

We used to have a telescope, it was fun for a while but we had to drive a ways to get away from the light pollution to use it.

 

[ahr43]

We used to have a telescope, it was fun for a while but we had to drive a ways to get away from the light pollution to use it.

Same here. No dark skies in the Houston area for miles around. Heat island by day; light island by night.

That was the reason I took to lunar observing. Moon is the brightest object in the sky and readily observable under city light conditions. Was able to locate and journal all the Apollo landing sites as well. Observing the Moon is a fun thing to do.

Invested in a small lightweight refractor scope and used my rock-solid birding tripod as a base. I got a terrestrial viewer model. With it the image is not reversed for use in other spotting activities, aircraft, etc. Easy to hump into a site anywhere and quick to set up. No need for the spotting scope that came with it either-further lightening the load and easing set up. Red dot reticle was all I needed to approximate a sighting area on the Moon. Still have all that stuff, filters, etc. Just too lazy to drag it out anymore. RCing by day takes all my spare time. Come the night, I be tired.

All kidding aside, NASA will get it together. JPL is doing well on the unmanned side. NASA just needs to tighten up the manned program. Cheers, mates. 'AC'