Stan’s Obligatory Blog

8/24/2006

Cool! I’ve seen all the planets with my telescope!

Filed under: — stan @ 12:44 pm

This morning when I got to work there were a lot of news trucks parked on the street by my office. Usually this happens after earthquakes, but I knew nothing big had happened last night. But then I found out they were all there to visit Planetary Science because the news had come down that Pluto had been de-listed as a planet.

But the bright side of this is: Back in 1997, when my friend and I attempted to see all the planets in one night, we actually succeeded. We just didn’t know it at the time.

4 Responses to “Cool! I’ve seen all the planets with my telescope!”

  1. Michelle Says:

    Hehe.

    Oh, and your code told me “FU”.

  2. Karen Says:

    Oh those good-ole days of free-wheeling round Pluto …bet they’re gonna take down the Off-Ramp and EXIT sign soon enough.

    But Do try the Parti-Viewer for your next trip!

  3. Steve Ryan Says:

    Stan,

    In your linked article you mentioned eight and a half planet. Did you ever verify whether one of the three faint stars you sketched was pluto?

    Steve

  4. stan Says:

    As I recall, we were never sure. The problem was that Pluto was in a region of the sky that had *lots* of mag 13 stars, so the next month we weren’t even sure we had the same field.

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