A-L-E-X, I have no idea! Maybe 12 or something like that?

How do I use Astrobin for that? I just signed up, but I see no map or anything like what you mention.

when you upload an image to Astrobin it will automatically map out all the stars it detects.  It's like a cartography function!

Today we can use the abundance of high-resolution cameras and telescopes to observe space. What a great picture one can have using drones. But, can you imagine that in the future we can use satellites to picture space? And what are satellites used for now and for what could they be used in the future?   Now, satellites are used to observe global environmental change as they are capable of monitoring remote regions, hidden features, and environmental events that cannot be detected by the human eye. 

But, can you imagine that in the future we can use satellites to picture space?

We have been using satellites to do this for decades. The Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in 1990, is perhaps the most well known for its beautiful images of galaxies and nebulae. But the history of space-based telescopes goes back even further than Hubble. In 1983 IRAS (Infrared Astronomy Telescope) was launched and scanned scanned the entire sky in infrared wavelengths. In 1972 Small Astronomy Satellite 2, which was a gamma ray telescope, was launched. The use of satellites has been crucial for astronomy, since they allow us to get above the atmosphere which absorbs most of the electromagnetic spectrum.

My personal favorite example: Planck, and its predecessors WMAP and COBE, which measured the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation so that we could learn more about the Big Bang and the evolution of the universe.

I have a feeling you'll be adding Kepler to your list of favorites after it makes some amazing discoveries

A fireball captured by one of our cameras last night.  I like how it made the clouds green.

27h so far 3x2 NA nebula mosaic in HOO
Going to eventually add +15h of SII
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But, can you imagine that in the future we can use satellites to picture space?

We have been using satellites to do this for decades. The Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in 1990, is perhaps the most well known for its beautiful images of galaxies and nebulae. But the history of space-based telescopes goes back even further than Hubble. In 1983 IRAS (Infrared Astronomy Telescope) was launched and scanned scanned the entire sky in infrared wavelengths. In 1972 Small Astronomy Satellite 2, which was a gamma ray telescope, was launched. The use of satellites has been crucial for astronomy, since they allow us to get above the atmosphere which absorbs most of the electromagnetic spectrum.

My personal favorite example: Planck, and its predecessors WMAP and COBE, which measured the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation so that we could learn more about the Big Bang and the evolution of the universe.

Yes and microanalyzing the CMBR for inconsistencies and anomalies so brilliant physicists like Roger Penrose can find evidence of pre Big Bang cosmology and perhaps adjacent universes  The evidence is ambiguous at this point but the research is exciting- it's like analyzing a fossil record looking for the missing link or the first forms of life  Is a very high resolution version of the CMBR available for the public to scan for themselves (like we have deep sea underwater cams where citizen scientists can look for undiscovered life?)

Wat or anyone else do you have any info on whether high resolution maps of the CMBR in various wavelengths will be made available for analysis on Space Engine?  Thanks!

The Leonids are here.  One of the better meteor showers peaking around 17th November.  They are very fast, zipping across the sky in half a second, but can be quite bright, sometimes leaving a glowing mark in the sky.  Best seen shortly after the radiant rises (check when Regulus rises at your location), when they often leave long streaks (but they will be more frequent later in the night).  The picture of the Leonid below was taken last night.

Wow I see the colors!  This one of the more colorful showers right....along with the Perseids and the Geminids!  What kinds of settings and camera/lens combos do you use to capture these?  Some sort of space motion detector?  Also I thought this was supposed to be an off year for this shower.

This is a 5 megapixel video camera recording at 10 fps using a semi-fisheye lens covering roughly 1/3 of the sky.  Meteors are automatically detected and an image centered on the meteor and reprojected to gnomonic projection.

wow thats amazing.  I wonder if my camera could do something like that, although I dont want to wear out the shutter.  I can get an 8mm fisheye lens but I dont think that would cover 1/3 of the sky. It's a 16 mp camera that can do 8 fps as long as I hold the shutter down (silent/electronic shutter) or else I can do 4K with it but only at 5 fps (dont need to hold down the shutter for that.)

How does it keep stars from being recorded  in the image?  Maybe the shutter speed is fast enough not to record stars?

How does it keep stars from being recorded  in the image?  Maybe the shutter speed is fast enough not to record stars?

Most stars are very faint.  With some stacking stars down to magnitude 4 and 5 become visible.  I need some stars in the image so I can keep the cameras calibrated.  The trick for using meteor detections is to be able to translate pixel coordinates to azimuth and altitude in the sky.

Yes that is something I've been trying to do for awhile too but the skies are so light polluted here- right now I am just using an astrometry website to do it for me (it is used by astrobin).  But sometimes I capture very faint stars even in light polluted skies (by means of stacking) and I want to find out what the dimmest star is in a given frame (and its magnitude.)

Question Mid, with your set up could you also automatically record northern lights displays?  I've always wanted to do that.

Question Mid, with your set up could you also automatically record northern lights displays? 

The cameras record continously and store several weeks of video, as well as hour long exposures, so it's possible to fetch video manually.

Thats a nice bonus!  It sounds like a dedicated astrocamera like something I saw from Orion that records large portions of a sky above a dome-like lens.  Can you live broadcast the images on the web?