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It's a few metres to the right of the moon at the moment and it's glowing very bright.
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The moons are particularly impressive. On a clear night.
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>It's a few metres to the right of the moon..
Can't even see the moon at the moment. Clouds should be clearing soon though.
Kevin...
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"Can't even see the moon at the moment.'
It's a few metres to the left of Jupiter...
I can't see it's moons, even with my bins. Keep promising myself a proper telescope but I've nowhere to set it up.
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I bought a spotting scope, not a proper astro scope, a few years ago. Has a zoom eyepiece (not ideal) from 20x to 60x magnification with a 60mm objective. There was a brief period of very clear atmosphere a few days back when the moon wasn't so close. Couldn't quite make out the belts, but I'd like a decent 'scope someday. Link for those interested: science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/15sep_jupiter/
Last edited by: NortonES2 on Fri 24 Sep 10 at 20:54
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I have been BBD. People across the road here in Brittany have a small reflector scope which I have borrowed.
Even at 60x though, with a clear disc for the planet and the four big moons all in a straight line, their orbits being more or less exactly edge-on to us at the moment, I couldn't discern clearly the weather bands on the planet which our bigger (but still small) reflector show in England. A hint of them, no more, perhaps just because I know they are there. Either the optics of this telescope or the visibillity. A sky can seem crystal clear to the naked eye and still be full of moisture droplets and other carp. Genuinely good visibility is very rare.
60x is the minimum magnification of this telescope with the eyepieces it has. The others are pretty well unusable. People want high magnification but it's more trouble than it's worth unless the instrument has a large aperture (mirror or objective lens diameter). The greater the magnification, the lousier the image.
In any case, although planets are more spectacular, deep space star fields are really more interesting in their way.
Sorry. An interest of mine.
Cloudy yesterday and today. Damn!
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Wow, I'm genuinely jealous AC. We have a balcony on the second floor which would have been ideal until they erected a street lamp right outside.
Enjoy.
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Sky is very clear tonight here so I have seen it with the naked eye. It is bright isn't it.
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Just been out in the grounds of the D'bout Estate to have a look. "She" thought I was taking her outside to be romantic and thought I was jolly clever to know about such a thing too. Didn't apprise the Memsahib that I'd read about it on here. Just sort of dropped it into the conversation as if I'd worked it out for myself...
Cheers Dave, nice one !
:-)
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They turn the street light outside here off a bit after 11. It's 12 now, so I will take a look outside. Unless it looks pretty good though I won't drag the scope out. Too drunk for a struggle.
Saturn is the most beautiful, Jupiter the most imposing. Mars is very difficult although at high magnification I did once see an ice cap.
Or perhaps it was a sort of shine effect. Amateur astronomy or planet-bothering is a bit like that. It must have been even worse for Copernicus although being very clever must have helped in his case. Venus is boring to look at although being closer to the sun than us it shows part-discs like the moon.
Northern Europe isn't the best place to see the sky from. It's murky and cloudy more often than not. West Sussex where I most often look from has got much murkier over the past 20 years. Unless my eyes are growing even dimmer than I think they are.
I believe the Andes are good, and I've seen clear if sometimes dusty skies in the Sahara and in Australia... but those are different skies from ours.
I should add: the reason planets are hard to examine is that they are low in our skies, through maximum amounts of shimmering air and murk. Jupiter is unusually high at the moment as well as being very big and visible in itself.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 24 Sep 10 at 23:20
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When you look at Jupiter tonight, Uranus is in front of it at the moment too I think. Well not in front so to speak but nearby.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 25 Sep 10 at 00:13
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Almost totally clear night just now and no light pollution in the open fen so a cracking view of Jupiter & moons through Pentax 16x50s... about as powerful as you want to hand hold really.
I don't recall seeing the moons any more clearly in my lifetime.
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Both visible sporadically through scudding clouds here, brisk autumnal wind, bet it's rough in the sea out there tomorrow.
Not worth trying for a better look.
I've always found binoculars hard work Fenlander, although for aperture and optical quality they beat a lot of small telescopes hollow. Perhaps I shake too much now I am old. Rubbish shot with a rifle compared to when I was young.
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Been playing with Google's view of the Sky. I should go to bed. Trip to Nottingham tomorrow to drop off a bike and bean bag (Budda Bag) and bring back step-son. And then 2 weeks in Greece start Sunday! :-)
See Rattle, over 3 years I have done about 36k. Average therefore could be said to be 1k per month. But some months are more and some less. I will go to Wales in December because my brother is over so that's an extra 500 miles for December. Was doing Manchester to Edinburgh every week for a few months last year too.
But I do more than 500 miles most months. Maybe not next month as the first week or so I will be in Greece.
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Silly question -should Jupiter be visible in the same way tonight?
I'm off to the caravan in leafy North Yorkshire later, less light pollution and more chance of clear sky down there.
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I've always had a healthy interest in heavenly bodies,
I bought a Newtonian telescope once upon a time, long, long ago, but I much prefer an half decent pair of noculars,
When we lived in Tenerife I used to observe the heavenly bods on the beach, eh, I mean in the cosmos, and I'll never forget the first time I saw Jupiter (+ moons) & Saturn through my tripod mounted 36 - 108 x 70mm zoom binoculars.
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It should. It's overtaken the moon over the last week though, and will still probably a bit near it to escape its own light pollution.
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Look, BBD, I post this not to make you envious - why should a groovy young buck envy an old buffer anyway? - but to encourage you.
It turned clear here after dark with a brisk cold wind, so after herself went upstairs got the borrowed scope out again and ogled the planet.
Three moons visible, two above and one far out below the planet (in the inverted reflector image), almost in a line, the two outer ones brighter and the inner one dimmer or smaller. I know the names of the moons but can't tell them apart except that some seem brighter than others. After half an hour or so though the fourth moon appeared from behind or in front of the planet, apparently almost touching it, in the big gap between the planet and the far-out lower moon. In the whole time I was watching three of the moons visibly changed position. Jupiter despite its immense size has a nine-hour day, and if you observe it for four and a half hours you see the entire turbulent surface. The moons have similarly rapid orbits, hurtling round the planet before your very eyes. Jupiter is the most violent object by far in the solar system apart of course from our revered star.
Don't rush into buying a small telescope. You can easily waste money. Even good ones are much more difficult and irksome to use than you might think. But quite modest devices will provide good gazing and amuse your nippers if you have the patience and delicacy of touch of, say, a graphic designer.
Why does one want to see for oneself physical phenomena that have been photographed up close from every angle? An American feminist friend of my sister in law once accused me of voyeurism in this context, to my great annoyance. It took me ages to realise she had been teasing me although she is a nice woman and rather cute actually. So I am forced to the conclusion that she was right.
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Venus looks like he's chasing Jupiter as they head for the horizon. Bright and glowing but starting to get lost among the city lights. I should have posted an hour earlier.
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Ah, so that was what I saw in the eastern sky as I was cooking our first outdoor burgers of the season this evening. I remember seeing it before in February from the dining room of our old house; I suppose as Jupiter progresses in its long orbit, we catch up with it a little later each year.
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What is that bright star east of the moon? Looks very very bright :). By east I mean very far East.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Sat 3 Mar 12 at 22:57
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>> What is that bright star east of the moon?
Take a look using Google Sky Map on your phone.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 3 Mar 12 at 22:59
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Forgot about that app, not got it installed at the moment as I had to a master reset a few months ago.
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Two planets ahead of the moon tonight, before it murked over. One obviously Jupiter, the other perhaps Saturn but I haven't checked. And a long way behind the moon in the advancing murk, what might have been Mars.
My telescope's still in pieces, and although there's another 100 yards away, smaller than mine but more modern, its owner has just this evening returned from Mexico, a gruelling journey they say on this occasion, so I didn't have the heart to make demands. Anyway the sky has murked up now.
Edit: I see you think the second one is Venus (she surely, not he?) BBD, so perhaps you have checked.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 3 Mar 12 at 23:18
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Definitely Venus and Jupiter in the second little illustration in this website:
astronomycentral.co.uk/planets-to-see-in-the-sky-tonight
Yes, yours may be smaller than mine, but the separated house-wife opposite has whopping huge one, permanently pressed into her face in the attic on a clear night. I should take photos of it and post it. She's a high-court judge as it happens.
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It sounds a good idea to observe the skies from indoors where it's warm, but actually with small telescopes anyway it's important that all the lenses and mirrors should be at air temperature. Even looking across, say, the roof of a house can degrade the image because of the warm air above the roof. Like the wavy effect you can see above a fire.
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Did any of you skywatchers see this last night?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17248959
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If you look to the west tonight, you will (as usual) see both Jupiter and Venus shining brightly, and if you draw an imaginary line through them both down towards the horizon you will find Mercury. Might not be too easy to see because of light pollution, but if you can find a dark open place you will see it ok.
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>>Venus and Mars are alright tonight
look unto the East tomorrow, both Regulus and Mars very clear,.Mars is as close to us tomorrow as it has been in the last two years! (tis the lower star of the two) and as a bonus, not a sign of P. Mc C!!
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>>both Regulus and Mars very clear,.Mars is as close to us tomorrow as it has been in the last two years!<<
77.5 light years from Earth, clear skies in the West tomorrow evening, until it eventually clouds over,
I'll check em out with my Minolta 10x50's.
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I've just checked out Venus, Mars and Jupiter with my binocs, need a scope really like Lud says,
Very clear up ere - no light pollution at all, ideal for looking at (ahem) heavenly bodies,
Talking of which, I saw 7 sisters while I were outside, luvly they were (Pleiades)
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You're too clever for me you mods, you know I never had any of that there edumacation marlarkey.
Canis Major indeedy!
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>> Did any of you skywatchers see this last night?
>>
>> www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17248959
Spooky! The film 'Starship Troopers' was shown last night on terrestrial TV. It involves an alien race of bugs launching asteroids at Earth. I wonder how many people were freaked out?
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>> Spooky! The film 'Starship Troopers' was shown last night on terrestrial TV. It involves an
>> alien race of bugs launching asteroids at Earth. I wonder how many people were freaked
>> out?
>>
I'd like to think folk are a bit more media savvy than they were when "War of the Worlds" was first aired on the wireless in 1938.
But I'm not too sure.
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I like Stephen Spielberg films regarding space and U.F.O.That is a great subject are we alone?
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No way. Mind you finding actual intelligent life on this planet would be good.
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I'm suitably impressed. On Tuesday night I saw Jupiter's moons, just using the Zeiss 8x30 binoculars I bought 30-odd years ago so I could see both ends of the pitch at once from 'cow shot corner' at the County Ground in Taunton.
And Mars was visible last night - it even looked a bit red.
We are lucky here in that we have very little light pollution.
If the sky is clear tonight I fully intend to get out the two-euro telescope and tripod I bought at a car boot sale here last summer.
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Thu 8 Mar 12 at 10:50
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At the moment Venus is lower than Jupiter in the western sky, but over the next couple of weeks you should see Venus zoom past Jupiter on its smaller, faster, orbit. It should reach the "area" of the Pleiades about the end of this month, whereas Jupiter wont get there till bout mid-June.
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These are similar to the bi nocs I used to use in Tenerife to study the heavenly bodies on the beach in the sky,
Mounted on a Slik tripod I could see Europa, Ganymede and Callisto + some gorgeous the rings of Saturn.
goo.gl/gKliJ (Amazon)
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Very nice Doggle! - but i`m more than happy with the 10x50`s you recommended! last time, - and I often look for "Heavenly Bodies" from those quiet, dark areas! (where theres no light pollution!!)
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Yeah! - I told you about the seven sisters I saw the other night, cor!
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>> It's a few metres to the right of the moon at the moment and it's
>> glowing very bright.
>>
That's someone's Jowett Jupiter with the headlights on!
;-)
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BBC Breakfast this morning - How to see five planets in one night over the UK:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17324826
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Check out Jupiter - NortonES2
