u/NvidiaNovice

Hello Everyone. I am stopping over at a friend's in Atlanta for one night on my way from DC to Miami and I will have my telescope with me. I was hoping to set up my telescope so we could observe the Jupiter/Venus conjunction happening on Tuesday evening, and I thought about setting it up on Piedmont Park so others can also have a chance to look through it. Is there a spot in/near Piedmont Park that has a lot of foot traffic in the evenings? Maybe 7pm-10pm?

The ideal location would have the following characteristics:

• an open view to the west (Jupiter and Venus will be about 15-20 degrees above the horizon).
• close to parking (maybe within a few hundred feet)
• has lots of foot traffic in the evenings

I identified a couple of spots on Google Maps that I think might work, but I don't know any of the nuances of the area.

Potential Location 1:
Midtown Reflection
https://maps.app.goo.gl/q5M6jZ3d8g4AjaG86
Maybe off to the side of the viewing area (don't want to block the main view).

Potential Location 2:
Behind (to the west) Park Tavern
https://maps.app.goo.gl/FDmqXMhB2rM5sDvT8
In the grassy area near the walking trail.

If there are any other locations you could suggest, that would be great!

Any input is appreciated. Thanks so much!

I watched the video "Why No One Has Measured The Speed Of Light" by Veritasium and I had some thoughts. I was hoping someone could provide some insight into whether they make sense.

The video claims that no one has measured the "one way" speed of light, and that it's impossible to measure the "one way" speed of light. It's a really interesting video, I thought, and I had some thoughts.

I can totally understand the argument that it's not possible to do the "one way" measurements with clocks because the clocks will drift apart in just the right way so that everything cancels out neatly and you get the same result. However, it's not possible to avoid some of the other consequences of an asymmetric speed of light.

Some thoughts:

• If, in fact, the speed of light was different in different directions (e.g., c/2 going left and ∞ going right), then we should observe huge differences in the structure of the universe depending on whether we point our telescope left or right.
• If the speed of light was c/2 and ∞ in opposite directions, then black holes would not exist in one of those directions because light would be infinitely fast and could escape the event horizon in favored direction.
• We could indirectly measure the speed of light in any given direction by observing the visible length contraction of an object travelling perpendicular to our line of sight. If the speed of light is ∞ in the direction of the object's motion, then we should observe no length contraction. Additionally, if we had precise enough measurements, we could determine the asymmetry in the speed of light based on how much length contraction we observe for an object travelling in any given direction.

Am I getting something wrong? Any insight is appreciated.