The Lunarscape -- photography and astrophotography from Galway, Ireland
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An Increasingly Active Sun

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Had some time to do some solar imaging…

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The Castle and the Stars

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Now…

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M42 Captured Again

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Yet another…

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The Flame Nebula and the Horsehead

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It seems to be an age since…

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Noctilucent Clouds over Ireland

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It's been some time since I posted. We've had more than 2 months straight months of cloudy nights with a…

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M45 - The Pleiades

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The Seven Sisters Captured

Capturing the Seven Sisters

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M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy

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LRGB image of the Whirlpool Galaxy

LRGB image of the Whirlpool Galaxy

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M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy

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The gorgeuous Andromeda galaxy

Andromeda captured with an Astrotrak tt320x and Canon 30D

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IC 434 - The Horshead Nebula

A shot of the Horsehead Nebula

Half decent result from light polluted back yard

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Moon Phase

Special Relativity in Jeopardy PDF Print E-mail

cernalb18_10-04Not strictly as astronomy but certainly affects it in a big way. A few days ago physicists at the OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) in Italy and CERN released extraordinary news that they seem to Neutrinos travelling FASTER than the speed of light. Obviously this is bad news for Special Relativity which states that nothing can travel faster than light.

The neutrinos were beamed from CERN to the OPERA detector below Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy a distance of 455 miles and the time taken measured to deduce the particles' speed. The neutrinos are arriving 60 nanoseconds earlier than they would if the neutrinos had been travelling at the speed of light (which was the assumption).

They're being rightly cautious however. If the measurements are correct we'd have to throw out much of understanding that we take for granted. The scientists are appealing to the broader scientific community to help them understand the results or find some mistake in the calculations or process.

Just had to use this old photo of the SPS at CERN because it reminds me of TV's "The Time Tunnel" ;-)

More on the Beeb here 

and again on the Beeb with Prof Brian Cox here 

and on Nature here