bigsinky

5 planets up tonight. just after dusk (7pm approx) you just might make out Mercury. it is very low and you might need an unobstructed view of the horizon to see it. A bit higher up you should see both Venus and Jupiter pretty close to each other (between the borders of CETUS the Whale and ARIES the Ram . Then at about 11pm if you look south Mars should be well up in the sky (just under the belly stars of LEO) and the Moon and Saturn should just be starting to rise (just below the constellation VIRGO).

just bright stars to the naked eye but a pair of 10x50 binos should at least let you see the 4 big satellites of Jupiter. Happy viewing.

Lee247

Thanks for that No wonder my dog keeps getting wrapped around lamp posts. I spend all my time on the walk, looking at the sky

bigsinky

install google skymap on your phone then just hold your phone up to the sky. pretty good for giving you an idea what's up there.

GlesgaKiss

That's an amazing app!

mgcvk

I've just read Paul McAuley, The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun. Great sci fi about humans living on moons of Saturn and Jupiter and other planets' moons two hundred years or so in future. Makes you think even more when looking upwards.

bigsinky

ahh but in the 41st century there is only war

DYK

Nice one but i was just gonna settle down with a vodka and have a go at finishing mass effect 2,now this will be on my mind.

Lee247

I can't get that. I'm an iphone user
Found one that works though. Brilliant app. It showed Mercury and Uranus underneath. Appropriate

Oh and it also shows the stars. Andromeda to the right. Love it

bigsinky

I am really sorry for your loss


if you are in a nice dark sky site, see if you can make out the great Andromeda Galaxy, the only galaxy visible to the naked eye in the Northern hemisphere.

See here for some help finding it. You will need pretty good eyes and it will need to be very dark with little to no light pollution.

Lee247

Whoah Moff to go onto the drive and have a look. Out in the sticks, so only light pollution is from A1231 and that is far enough away to not cause a problem. Thanks

GlesgaKiss

Quite amazing that you can hardly see Andromeda and that's the closest. Starts to put the scale of things into perspective.

bigsinky

well strictly the broad band you see stretching across the sky is the edge on view of the milky way. in the southern hemisphere you have the Milky Way's 2 small satellite galaxies (Large and Small Magallenic Clouds).

But yes to all intents and purposes the Andromeda Galaxy is our closest neighbour about 2 million light years away. a trillion sun galaxy btw ( about twice the size of our milky way). Not billion, trillion. 1000 billion suns like our own, and that's just one galaxy in our local neighbourhood of about 30 galaxies. you're right when you say it puts things into perspective. small backwater planet revolving around a non descript star in a remote spiral arm of a smallish galaxy. we are definately not alone out here.

Lee247

Can't see a bloody thing. Load of thick cloud.
The app is still picking stuff up though

bigsinky

Lee, most people find a hazy smudge in the sky to be a major disappointment compared to the great pictures we get from the big telescopes. even in my 10" telescope its just a elliptical fuzz.

Lee247

Probably, but it's always interesting to know what the "hazy smudge" is

GlesgaKiss

It boggles the mind when you have a good think about it. I think the same... we can't be. Makes you wonder if some faster form of travel and some of the scientific stuff we speculate about is even possible, because surely if another form of life knew we were here they'd make it obvious to us? Or is the universe not old enough yet (in theory) for another race to have developed and made scientific advances that far ahead of us?

bigsinky

14.5 billion years is a long time my friend. long enough for races, cultures, planets, solar systems, stars to have lived and died. i often wonder if they are looking in watching us make complete dicks of ourselves. watch Forbidden Planet with Walter Pidgeon. some might call it kitsch or twee but serves to remind us that we have only been knocking about in our current form for about 50,000 years, less than a blink of an eye in astronomical terms. where will we be in another 50,000 years.

Take a look at Kardashev. might be a few hundred years before we start terraforming but it will be a long time before we harness the power of our own galaxy.

bigsinky

lee, lots of hazy smudges with a cheap pair of binoculars. you just need to know where to look. Lidl did a lovely pair of Bresser binos for £15 a while back. Just rebranded Meade lenses. 10x50 as well. do a Messier hunt throughout the year and see how many you can spot. you will get to know the sky pretty quick.

IWatkins

Couple of smudges for you. Well they are smudges by eye/binos/telescope. But 15 minutes of effort with a DSLR on a telescope opens them up a bit. I did these two the other night.

M42 - Little grey smudge on the Sword of Orion.




M45 - Pleiades, Seven Sisters etc.



Cheers

Ian

mart360

What telescope is that? your using

mart

IWatkins

Hi Mart,

Those were both taken using a Skywatcher Evostar 80ED scope with my Canon 7D nailed to the back. The whole lot sits on top of a Skywatcher NEQ6 mount that tracks the sky, e.g. keeps up with the Earths rotation. You can use a much cheaper mount though.

Cheers

Ian

Lee247

IWatkins, those pics are superb
The sky fascinates me and I love the stories about the stars. Andromeda etc.

GlesgaKiss

Yeah, fair enough. Amazing when you think about it. Long time to go too. But surprising we haven't seen any other sign of life.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

I went to download that SkyMap app on my Galaxy Ace.

But the phone warned me that it would stop it from "sleeping" and that it would also track all my internet usage.

So I chickened out

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

That's cos there is none those 2 planets are so bright tonight though, quite amazing stuff!

TX.

DYK

[QUOTE=Lee247;10528691]IWatkins, those pics are superb
The sky fascinates me and I love the stories about the stars. Andromeda etc. [/QUOT


Always when in the past being out on exercise and stuff,would look and just be blanketed with a sky full of stars,thousands of them,it was almost overwhelming.Puts life into perspective sometimes,we haven't even scratched the surface.

Bubba po

I thought something was up! Never seen so many planets out. I first remarked to myself about it the other night because I saw Mars really large and bright, and I hadn't seen Mars for absolutely ages.

GlesgaKiss

Oh yee of little faith.