November 2, 2008

All About The Planet Saturn

Saturn is the most visually striking planet in the Solar System. It is the second largest gas giant behind Jupiter and is surrounded by a spectacular series of rings. Saturn is the sixth furthest planet from the Sun at 1,400 million km away and is named after the Roman God Saturnus. The rings are made from icy particles and dust, Saturn has around 60 moons as well as the only moon with a stable atmosphere, Titan.
Saturn has a small core made from ice and rock with the rest of the planet being chiefly hydrogen and helium. There are thought to be liquid metallic hydrogen and liquid hydrogen and helium layers surrounding the core before the gaseous outer layers.
The inside of Saturn can reach extremely hot temperatures, with the interior temperature of 11,700 degrees C thought to be due to the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism of gravitational compression. The atmosphere of Saturn is not as strikingly active as the one on Jupiter, but it does display some of the same characteristics. The gases have a banded appearance and there is evidence of cloud layers and storms.
The rings of Saturn initially were a great source of confusion for early astronomers, lacking the high-powered telescopes […]

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The Science Behind the Optical Telescope

An optical telescope is a telescope that is used to gather and focus light mainly from the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The optical telescope allows the user to directly view a magnified image of something far away. The term is used especially for a monocular with static mounting for observing the sky.
There are three primary types of optical telescope:
* Refractors which use lenses
* Reflectors which use mirrors
* Combined Lens-Mirror Systems which use both lenses and mirrors
The basic idea of an optical telescope is that the primary light-gathering element - the objective lens or the concave mirror - focuses light from a distant object to a focal plane where it forms a real image. This image can be recorded with a camera or simply viewed through an eyepiece which acts like a magnifying glass. The naked eye sees a magnified virtual image that is a very long way away.
Telescopes that have two convex lenses causing the image to appear inverted. Terrestrial versions of such telescopes employ prisms or a relay lens between the object and the eyepiece to invert the image again making it appear as it truly is thus an upright image appears […]

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You Can Build Your Own Telescope!

It really is easy to build your own telescope, if you are so inclined. Well, we won’t say easy because it really depends on what kind of telescope you want to build. It’s easy to build your own telescope if you want a simple device that conveys the basic principles of a telescope. If you are wanting a fully functional telescope that you want to use to look at the night sky, it will take a little more time, effort, and expense.
The first thing you need to know is what supplies you will need to build your own telescope. You will also need to know what type of telescope you want to build - a refractor or a reflector. Either type is good for sky gazing, but it will make a difference as to what material you will need.

Look online as there are many places that are dedicated to homemade telescopes. Many of these websites can give you not only a list of supplies, but also instructions on how to build your own telescope. There are many books on the subject that as well that can guide you toward the information you need. […]

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