mega_stream

I've had a look the past few nights, can't say I've seen it

Has anyone managed to find them? What's the best time to look and where and in it what direction! (I know its upward )

matt.bowey

Look west at sunset.........

The planets will be in a line going from the sun, left and up!

You have to be quite high up as they start at about 10 deg above the horizon, so trees & buildings get in the way.

Havent looked myself, but my boss gave the all the details yesterday!!

MichelleWRX1994

I had a peek, but failed to see anything

Neil Smalley

I don't believe in all that planet stuff. I looked outside yesterday and did'nt see anything.

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Just peeked outside and look what I saw




No, didn't see anything either. I knew I should've opened the curtains

[Edited by DJ Dunk - 4/24/2002 9:41:22 AM]

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

We've seen them from our kitchen window which is on the 1st floor

Jen

Aren't they on the right hand side of Orion (sp?!) ...havnt' remembered to look yet

Brendan Hughes

I'm too busy looking out for Lara Croft

DavidRB

Was it cloudy by any chance?

The planets are there, whether you believe in them or not.

If you're having trouble figuring out where to look, then I would recommend downloading SkyMap Pro 8 (eval). It draws the position of the stars and planets from any position on Earth at any time or day. The download is pretty quick and it doesn't need a reboot (on W2K at least). The program works right out of the box, all you have to do is click on the globe on the left and enter your longitude & latitude co-ordinates (which you can find here).

You can see quite clearly that the five planets Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus and Mercury are grouped together at the moment (at the time of writing this, they are just to the left of the Sun! ).

This is an example of a typical view:


[Edited by DavidRB - 4/24/2002 11:09:41 AM]

BOB.T

David, your screen needs cleaning, there's a big cobweb over it

Right, I'm off to stare at the sun

Bob

fast bloke

I'm with Neil on this. There are no other planets. What you believe to be planets are just small specks of dust on your eyeball. They look bigger through a telescope cos you press them against your eye. Anyway - What would keep them up there? Sure they wouldn't have a bit of string big enough

fatnutsac

I live on the moon and i still can't see them

TonyG

They're a lot more spread out than you think. The whole lot covers about 40 degrees worth of sky moving away from the Sun. For reference, a full Moon is about 1/2 degree across. May 5th is when Venus Mars and Saturn are closest together, so find the brightest (Venus, dead easy to spot , you can't miss it, it's so bright)and point your binoculars at it. That should show you three. Jupiter is the bright one much higher up n the sky, and I haven't seen Mercury yet.
Word of warning DO NOT USE BINOCULARS TO LOOK FOR MERCURY WHILE THE SUN IS STILL UP. Apart from the very real danger of blinding yourself, you'll be unlikely to spot it against the bright sky anyway.
Dr. Technical (for those of you old enough to remember Hawkwind)

Seamus300

Without wishing to hijack the thread, does anyone know anything about refracting telescopes they could mail me off line about?

I had a rather smart one bought me for my birthday, but no instructions on how to use it correctly..

Thanks, Sean

DavidRB

This should be the view of the Night Sky (from London ) tonight at 8:15pm, looking due West. The curved horizontal white line is 0 degrees elevation, trees & buildings usually push the horizon up to at least 15 degrees. If you can find Orion's belt, they'll be a little on the right.

The planets may well be visible an hour earlier, depending on how far the Sun has set and will be in pretty much the same place for a month, although each day, they will be closer to the horizon.

Hope this helps you find them. Oh and they are held in place using super string.

mega_stream

Cool I've set me watch to remind me at 8pm so I can have a gander