Posts Made By: carter fox

I really want to scale down from a giant 8inch newtonian but do not want to lose the visual potential. I'm thinking an APO refractor like the 115mm Eon from Orion. How would that compare to views through the 8inch newtonian?

Anyone have a Celestron CGX Equatorial 9.25" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope? If you do, what are your thoughts? There are not many reviews for it.

I am currently a senior in high school and have absolutely loved astronomy since 8th grade. I decided to major in aerospace engineering because I thought it would be more practical, but I am still much more drawn to astronomy. I would love to major in astronomy/astrophysics but fear a lack of jobs and stability. Any advice? Should I follow my dreams and see what happens or go with a more practical engineering career?

I just got the celestron CGX mount and after setting it up I found that the DEC motor is only turning one way. When I press up on the controller it goes one way, but when I press down on the controller it pauses, then goes the same direction in pulses. It appears that as of now it will not go the other direction; not sure why it starts pulsing the other way though. Any thoughts as to what I can do? Celestron customer service won't open until tuesday and this is my last day in the mountains so if I could get it working for tonight that would be awesome. Thanks!

Anyone know of some good red lights to use for observing? I'm looking for lights I can put on the ground instead of flashlights.

Hello friends,

I am a freshman in college studying astrophysics and have been learning about electrostatics and electromagnetic radiation. I have a question that I cannot find the answer to.

What does the position of a photon look like over time? I understand the wave-particle duality behavior and see how the wave feature derives from propagating electric and magnetic fields. What I do not understand is how the photon itself travels. Is it in a straight line? Is it like a wave, literally moving up and down at specific wavelengths? Or do we simply not know?

Send your thoughts if you think you have an answer or other ideas. I'd love to understand this some day.

Hi Friends,

I posted a question here about the properties of light several months ago and got some really helpful answers.  I now have a question about gravity and would love to here what you all have to say!

So, I have been trying to understand gravity in general relativity and here is where I am getting confused.  If I understand correctly, relativity says gravity is just the curvature of spacetime, induced by the presence of mass.  Masses are just following straight lines in space, but their 'straight' lines are warped by the curved spacetime.  When a moving mass reaches a curved region, it's 'straight' line is following the curve, leading it to orbit the larger mass or appear to be attracted to it.  I totally understand that, but where I am lost is how two stationary masses would attract eachother.  How does this warped spacetime view of gravity explain the acceleration of stationary masses directly towards a larger mass?  How could the stationary mass go from not moving, so it has no 'straight' line, to being accelerated across a new 'straight' line right towards the larger mass?  

I have been reading books and watching videos but just cannot find a good explanation for the acceleration of stationary objects.  I see all these visualizations of spacetime as a sheet and mass makes a dent in it, making other masses 'fall in', but that explanation requires the old attractive force gravity to make the mass 'fall down the hill'... If masses are just following straight lines, then why should they be 'attracted' to sources of curvature in space?

Thank you

The spacetime pressure explanation makes a lot of sense to me but what I do not understand is why spacetime would be 'thinner' closer to mass.  If the presence of mass makes spacetime push on the mass, wouldn't there be more spacetime closer to mass because it is being pushed towards the mass?

That analogy of the crowded room of people is really interesting, seeing that there is no force or anything moving them into the open door.  It kind of makes me think of entropy and that if there is a void where spacetime could be, but is being taken up by mass/energy, it will naturally try to fill the void to move towards maximum entropy.  

That really helps me make sense of things.  Thanks so much for taking the time to write out such helpful answers.  I am a physics student trying to make sense of the world and hearing from people like you is where I find the best answers.  Really appreciate it