Stargazing Live 2012

Beeker

Stargazing live is back on BBC 2 with Brian Cox and Dara O'Briain next Monday 16 Jan at 20:00 for 3 nights.
Good show last year, looking forward to it:)

Kersh

Brilliant. I loved this last year, and took a slight warming to Dara :eek:

Cant wait for it, super show,

Cheers Beeker

Rubecula

If I am not in work I will be watching that. Thanks Beeker, good find.

ScrubsfanChris

Its actually starting @ 20:30 on BBC Two/HD for Monday, then 20:00 Tuesday and Wednesday.

There is also a 30 minute Q&A after the actual show as well.

Monday:

20:30–21:30
Stargazing LIVE
Series 2, Episode 1

1/3. Dara O Briain and Professor Brian Cox return to celebrate the wonder of our amazing night sky.
Live from Jodrell Bank observatory, the team kick off with a look at the mysteries of the moon and meet Captain Eugene Cernan, the last man ever to walk on its surface.
Liz Bonnin reports direct from South Africa on the differences between the constellations of the northern and southern hemispheres whilst Mark Thompson offers help on buying all the kit you need to get started in astronomy.


21:30–22:00
Stargazing LIVE
Stargazing LIVE: Back to Earth, Episode 1

1/3. Professor Brian Cox, Dara O Briain and their guests return for an extra half hour of chat, debate and audience participation celebrating all things astronomical.

Looking forward to this.

barr32

cant wait 4 this thanks

Kersh

Woo Hooo

Here we go

Batsy

It's great. I'll be watching it again tonight. The star of the show is, of course, Professor Brian Cox. It's great listening to the things he tells us about the Solar System, the galaxy and the universe. It's just a bit annoying the way that Dara O Briain keeps interrupting him from time to time.

Last night's episode was very interesting when Brian was telling us about black holes. I was also very surprised to learn that every object with one exception that we see in the night sky in the Northern Hemisphere is within our own galaxy the Milky Way, with the exception being the Andromeda galaxy. I had always assumed that quite a large number of the stars that we see in the night sky were other galaxies far, far away.

I also liked the photo of the Milky Way, that belt of light across the night sky which is actually another arm of our spiral galaxy. And, of course, Earth and the Solar System are situated in one of the outer arms of the galaxy. It shows how insignificant we are on the grand scale of things.

From 10.30pm to 1.00am there was also a live show on Radio Five Live broadcast from Jodrell Bank - the world's third-biggest steerable radio telescope and which can be seen from parts of Bolton on a clear day. The boss of Jodrell Bank, who was on last night's Stargazing Live, was on the show and so was a former presenter of Tomorrow's World. The huge radio telescope moved to point to a different part of the nightsky during the show, and all you could hear was a lot of whirring machinery and the show's presenter, Tony Livesey, remarking on how awe-struck he is by the vast machine.

And the boss of Jodrell Bank answered many listerner's questions. One woman wrote in saying: "During the show we were told that everything we see in the night sky is within our galaxy, and then they showed us a photo of the Milky Way, that belt of stars across the sky. But if that's our galaxy then what are the rest of the stars?

And the boss of Jodrell Bank explained that the belt of light across the sky is just another arm of the galaxy and that the rest of the stars we see in the night sky make up the big bulge that makes up the rest of the galaxy. He explained the galaxy as being like to fried eggs placed back to back.

Tony remarked that he was surprised to learn at how vast the universe really is, and that he can imagine the spiral arm of our galaxy just kicking the tiny little Earth away.

Also, Jodrell Bank, just outside Macclesfield, is well worth a visit. I went there as a kid in 1991. It is part of the University of Manchester. There is a visitor centre there which sells meteorites and Moon rock, and you can stand right underneath the Lovell Telescope, which operates 24 hours a day and is the largest of the several radio telescopes there. It is a Grade I listed building. I remember standing underneath it when it suddenly starting rotating on its circular rail, which sounded like a train moving past.

The Lovell Telescope's recent achievements include the discovery of the first double pulsar. An orbiting pair of dead stars, this has provided us with the best-ever test of Einstein’s theory of gravity, General Relativity, showing that he is at least 99.95% correct.




The Lovell Telescope's upgrade in June 2002

coylemj

Batsy wrote: »

It's great. I'll be watching it again tonight. The star of the show is, of course, Professor Brian Cox. It's great listening to the things he tells us about the Solar System, the galaxy and the universe. It's just a bit annoying the way that Dara O Briain keeps interrupting him from time to time.

It's great that a science program like this is on in prime time. I don't think Brian Cox has any problem with Dara O'Briain based on the body language, Cox is smart enough to realise that delivery and format is very important when it comes to science and TV.

Even though he's not a scientist, Dara O'Briain isn't short of a good line or two. They were discussing the threat to Einstein's theory the other night caused by the claim that some subatomic particles appear to travel faster than light, Dara's response was 'well if we got it wrong, someone can call us from the future to put us right' - something to that effect anyway, it went down a storm with the panel, including Cox.

annie_m

coylemj wrote: »

Even though he's not a scientist, Dara O'Briain isn't short of a good line or two. .

Dara did Maths and Physics in UCD.

Any chance of a Dark Sky site thread ?

coylemj

coylemj wrote: »

Even though he's not a scientist...

annie_m wrote: »

Dara did Maths and Physics in UCD.

Cú Giobach

Here's a picture taken from Dulverton during their switch off.
No copyright infringement intended.

slade_x

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Here's a picture taken from Dulverton during their switch off.
No copyright infringement intended.

Not a very long exposure was it, someones not used to astrophotography :P

Cú Giobach

slade_x wrote: »

Not a very long exposure was it, someones not used to astrophotography :P

I don't know if you saw the show, but it was completely clouded over and raining when the lights went off.
So I think for anyone into astronomy the only thing they could have enjoyed that night, was a first hand experience of how a star can re-arrange the distribution of moisture around a planet.