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As we know, the stars in the constellations aren't sitting on the same plane in the sky, but have different distances as seen from Earth.
Currently, the constellation lines are being rendered as solid-color lines between the stars. This picture is taken from the World Wide Telescope project's web-app (really awesome project, btw). But it's very similar to this in all astronomy software (that I've ever seen, at least).
So me and my friend were thinking that instead of drawing red lines between stars, it would be much more informative (and in a very intuitive and visually-appealing way) to draw red gradient-lines between stars, where the color of the gradient corresponds to the star's relative distance from each other, as seen from Earth.
The picture I made of Orion shows what I mean. I'm sure all of you could intuitivly figure out which star is in-front of which (and which stars are approximately the same distance from us).
The only drawback is that each gradient set (dark-red to bright-red in this example) is per constellation. So you don't convey the actual distance of the stars from earth, but rather the distance ratios between the stars in that constellation as seen from Earth. But still, it seems much more informative than just drawing plain lines.
We've sent this suggestion to WWT, and maybe I'll invest some time to try and make a plug-in for Stellarium that does that.. Shouldn't be that hard (I hope).
I think that this should be a standard in astronomy software for drawing constellation lines :)
Stellarium will help you figure out what's in the sky and when, and how it will look in your specific telescope.
Right now, 3 planets + the Moon are visible at dusk. In three weeks, Jupiter will be lost to daylight.
Here's what it will look like at 9pm tonight. Notice how every object within our Solar System lies along the path that the Sun takes through the sky - this is called the ecliptic.
The easiest Deep Sky Object will probably be Messier 13, the Hercules Cluster. It will look like a fluffy cotton ball, and will be easier to see next week when the moon isn't out. You'll find it in the constellation Hercules.
You'll be able to see the rings of Saturn and its moon, Titan. You'll also be able to see two horizontal stripes on Jupiter, plus all four of its moons (they will look like stars all in a plane). Go back out in a few hours and note how the moons have moved. Mars is pretty much just a red dot.
Mercury and Venus are only ever visible at Dawn or Dusk, since they're closer to the Sun than us. All other planets can be out at any time.
Finally, consider that the sky "Moves by one hour roughly every two weeks." That means that what you see at 10pm tonight will be how the sky looks at 9pm in a fortnight.
P.S.: Do your best to resist 'equipment creep.' New lenses! New eyesights! Books and atlases! Spend spend spend! Your enjoyment is determined by how often you get your ass outside, not by how much crap you have. That's a quality scope, you really don't need much more than you have, plus maybe a pair of binoculars, a blanket, and a star map.
Astronomy can start out inexpensive but can become prohibitively expensive. Get some decent binoculars and a sky map, you can see stuff like the Pleadies, Andromeda, Orion Nebula, etc. My binoculars were around $30, sky maps are free: http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html or download a program called Stellarium: http://www.stellarium.org/
I wanted to see more stuff and found a decent telescope on Craigslist for $75 or so.
Venus and Jupiter are the easiest to spot right now. As soon as the sun goes down, if you look to the West before it's even fully dark, the brightest object in the sky is Venus, a few minutes later to the right of it will be a much fainter Jupiter. When it is fully dark and you can see all the stars, Saturn is just hanging out at the top of and following the Scorpio constellation right now. For a synopsis of easy things to see in the sky check out Sky at a Glance on Sky and Telescope
The thing that made it easiest for me to start tracking things though was this program - Stellarium, you can track where everything is and can manipulate the time to see where things will be in the future.
Yes, it could well have been Mars, as it would have been visible due south from your location at that time.
How do I know that? There is a free, open source item of software called Stellarium which can show you exactly what the sky outside looks like from any place on the planet at any time or date.
And I'd add Stellarium to the list of Space software you can toy around with. As the name suggests, it won't let you explore space, but rather will show you what's visible in the sky at a given time and location on Earth.
Quite nice for wannabe stargazers. I learned of its existence in high school when they made us work with some automatic telescope similar to that one. We could even connect the telescope to a PC and see where it was pointing at inside Stellarium.
According to the EXIF data on his Flickr page, it was taken November 2, 2012 at roughly 1:20 AM. Using Stellarium to go back in time I can see exactly what stars they are.
The lower star is HIP 22838, an 8th magnitude star. It's invisible to the naked eye. The middle star doesn't have any reference according to Stellarium at magnitude 8.45, and the top star is HIP 22947 at magnitude 7.35, still invisible to the naked eye.
If someone wanted to know, from left to right the Galilean moons are Ganymede, Europa, Callisto, and Io.
If you want to get a visual representation of what he's saying, try using Stellarium (freeware).
It allows you to see the stars, and zoom in on any one of them. Alternatively, you can zoom out (as if you are falling backwards towards the Earth, while still looking at the sky). If you keep zooming out, the night sky will begin to fish eye, and you will be surrounded by void, as he said, until the visible universe coalesces into a single point.
Not an exact simulation of the subject at hand, but a pretty fun substitute.
That is definitely planet Jupiter. The stars are constellations Cetus and Pisces, and that is exactly the placement of Jupiter in the early morning of July 3. Get the program Stellarium (free) and you can look these up for yourself. I have uploaded a screenshot of 5 am from the Midwest US facing East - see for yourself!
When you thought it was moving, you were experiencing an optical illusion known as the autokinetic effect.
Stellarium is a great, free plane_arium software that does a good job of showing apparent sizes of any celestial object. I'm sure you can add this object, if it's not already there for that date.
One feature of Stellarium is that you can click on planets, moons, or asteroids within our solar system and then hit CTRL-G (CMD-G on Macs) to make that your home planet. If you select Callisto or Io and hit CTRL-G, you'll be able to see what the sky looks like from either of those moons.
Celestron SkyMaster 15x (I bought these back in college). They are ~$70, but I think they are worth it. You will see Jupiter's largest moons, hanging out around Jupiter (it's stunning). I recommend looking around Orion's Belt and Sirius also. You'll find clusters and nebulas which are jawdropping. I never thought I'd see so many stars/galaxies in such a dense area. I've spent hours at the window with these binoculars. I also highly recommend downloading Stellarium. I mentioned Stellarium to one of the other astrophysics majors, and by the end of the week, everyone in our major was talking about it. You'll see why once you download it.
They are Venus and Jupiter - Venus is the brighter one.
Try looking at Jupiter with binoculars, you should be able to see 1-4 of its moons. They are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto - we call them the Galilean moons after Galileo Galilei, who first observed them away back in 1610 after developing, or at least perfecting, the telescope.
If you look towards the east (south-east later on at night) there should be an object that looks distinctly red; that's Mars.
If you're keen to learn your way around the night sky then there's a great piece of software that can help you out. It's called Stellarium and it's free to download for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Amateur astronomy.
Download Stellarium and start learning constellations and stellar geography. Start spotting planets and learning to name stars, no telescope required.
Nice.
Folks, check out Stellarium, an open-souce planetarium program.
edit: This similar grouping of the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter will be visible again in the early morning hours in mid-July: http://i.imgur.com/MXlL9.png (as seen from where I live)
There's also a great free computer program I've used called Stellarium, allows you to adjust date and time as well as location so you can know ahead of time where things will be.
http://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=2&lat=5396499.63301&lon=590622.69407&layers=B0TFFFTT
1. go stand in one of the dark areas, away from any bright lights
2. look up for about 30 minutes to see milky way.
you might want to check if you can see the milky way from the time and place you will be standing using stellarium.
If the location is correct, looking north, morning time, the rockets were launched towards the west. I'm using Stellarium to determine the appox. time from the shadow angles: It would have been about 7 to 8 am.
Edit: Looks like they were launched towards Dobropillya, or the Road (T0515) leading away from the town.
Edit 2: I was correct, here is a video titled "Terrorists Burned And Left BM Grad In Dobropillya" uploaded yesterday... The guy talks about Dobropillya receiving a Grad rocket attack yesterday from the separatists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KUUdM6C2cM
Seems like the separatists retreated from Dobropillya, left behind one of their Grad launchers, and use another Grad to launch rockets from Dorozhnje train depot yesterday.
"But the second one withdrew, we can see it on the traces and local confirmed."
Use Stellarium and a projector!
It has lots of info about celestial bodies which may be interesting to him. You can also turn on constellation pictures to make those arbitrary lines more vivid. Time, date, location, and atmospheric conditions (you can even remove the atmosphere) can be adjusted. The best part is, it's all free!
I haven't used space engine yet, but I have used Stellarium which is really cool for seeing the night sky from anywhere on Earth. You can also speed up time to see a planet's path through the sky. I spent like 2 hours using it when I first installed it. Free too, and works with all OS.
I have the same scope. You can actually use Stellarium to drive the scope and point to whatever star you want after alignment.
To do so, you'll need the cable, or you can make your own serial port (DB9) to telephone cord (RJ11) if you have the parts. It's relatively simple to make, it's just 3 solder points. A great resource is here: http://www.nexstarsite.com/
There are also some minor issues with the mount if you live in a windy area. It's relatively light and not a solid stand. But you can fix that by tightening all the screws on along the posts, and filling the steel tubes with sand or something heavy. If you don't want to do that, you can always put a heavy sand bag on the accessory tray on the tripod. If there is still a lot of motion, you can use vibration suppression pads to dampen the ground a tiny bit.
I highly suggest you find a 12v power adapter to go along with this guy. It eats up AAs relatively quickly if you use it often.
I've had mine for 3-years now. It's a pretty decent scope for a beginner, and i'm starting to get into astrophotography with it. I've managed to get it to prime focus with my DSLR with a little bit of modification. I ended up needing to move the primary forward about 2cm in order to bring the focus to the camera. It uses M5 screws by the way.
Also, You're the best uncle ever!
I've been doing this for a while but it's not crazy complicated although it does take a DSLR or mirrorless camera, although some point and shoot cameras are good enough. The short version of it is, wait until the moon is not full (the best is when it's a new moon), go to a very dark place (a couple hours outside any major city), figure out where/when the galactic center of the milky way is using stallarium then go outside in the right place/right time. Once you're out you need to focus your camera on infinity, set it to the largest aperture your lens has (smallest f stop), a shutter speed around 10-30 and an ISO above 1600.
This one specifically was shot a few days after the full moon but before it rose above the horizon, using a Nikon D600 and a 24mm F1.4 lens at F1.4/20 seconds/ISO 4500). This was actually a panorama stitched from about 6 images to get a wide field of view and a larger resulting image.
A great resource on how to do this is http://www.lonelyspeck.com/
It's a mixture of the following: New moon + Low light pollution + Milky Way Tracking to predict time of upright orientation
Obligatory plug for Stellarium. It's a particularly awesome app which models what you'll see in the sky from any given location at any given time, and it'll tell you everything you could hope to know.
If you have a computer, get Stellarium! Play with the program and get a feeling of how the solar system physically works. Get a feeling of the earth's axis and rotation too. It helps me 'predict' positions of the sun, moon and planets! As well as times and periods during the year when they're visible or not!
You might also take a look at NASA’s Eyes. There are also apps for mobile phones which you can aim to the sky and will show you the current locations.
Besides software you can print out star charts, buy a globe, binoculars, etc.
Hey, don't listen to that other guy. Have you considered downloading Stellarium? Here is a list of all of the programs I find I ended up needing when I just started viewing the sky :)
Stellarium: http://www.stellarium.org/en_CA/
Clear Dark Sky: www.cleardarksky.com
Star Chart app:
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/star-chart/id345542655?mt=8
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.escapistgames.starchart&hl=en
Hopefully these can get you the information you need in the mean time :)
Link for Stellarium, mentioned by /u/schorhr: http://www.stellarium.org/ (free for Win/Linux/Mac, I think $5 for Android, but it's very good on both). It takes latitude/longitude for location rather than zip code.
In addition to the jshine map you should also download Stellarium. It will show you when/if there is a moon rise and will show you how the milky way will appear on any given day. It's a really useful program.
I used Stellarium to make out the direction of the milky way. Also I used Blue Marble to find a relatively dark spot in my surroundings. That helps a lot when trying to get this kind of photos. Try it!
My first shots looked similar to yours when I didn't pay attention to light pollution and orientation of the earth. I edited the shots a lot afterwards to bring out the interesting parts. Post processing is a really important part here. I recommend this video tutorial to begin with.
Yup, almost certainly the ISS. The ISS can be very bright because it is huge compared to normal satellites and thus reflects a lot more sunlight. It also appears to move faster than many satellites due to it's low orbit. I used Stellarium to simulate the night sky from your location, and you can see the ISS pass overhead and then disappear as it passes into the Earth's shadow.
Edit: My best guess is that you mistook Jupiter for it after it disappeared, as Jupiter is most similar in brightness.
Celestia is open source so it can be extended.
Have a look at Universe Sandbox which is better at aspects of stellar scale modelling than Celestia, and at Stellarium for sky views as seen from Earth.
Yup. Any astronomy software/apps can do this.
I use Sky Safari on my phone.
Stellarium is a free PC program.
Just enter the time, date and location you want and it will show you the sky at that point.
Also just to note, the north star (Polaris) would only ever be at zenith from the north pole.
I know it's not the same as reality, but there is a free open source program called Stellarium that allows you to input your location and view the night sky from your location as if there were not light pollution, smog, fog and clouds. It's a virtual planetarium with an impressive list of features and many ways to customize it. You can even import a panorama photo of your backyard.
IF you have a PC/Laptop, I would download and use Stellarium
If you are using a smartphone of some sort, there are many many apps available that will allow you to find many many things.
first off hunt out a program called stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org/) its a great reference to have for navigating the sky and if you give that program enough information about your scope it will help set expectations on what you can see on a clear night. and best of all its free.
but at first glance a scope that size should be good for seeing the rings of Saturn (a personal favorite of mine to hunt out)
best of luck and have fun.
>Without a star-map, I mean
The best way to learn the constellations (what I think you mean by "star signs") is with a star map of some kind.
Some options:
Install Stellarium. It is free software for PC, Mac, and Linux.
Download a monthly sky map from skymaps.com
Download this program. Put in your zip/postal code. It helps if you know the cardinal directions.
FYI: the star you're seeing probably isn't a star. You're probably seeing Jupiter or Mars
I got 7 minutes before I can post again... I'll address some comments while I'm waiting.
@everyone suggesting phone apps. They're great but unnecessary. Trust me all you need is stellarium. Get a netbook/laptop and some binoculars and prepare to get blown away.
@chomps that is awesome. I'd say it would be better to get a compass and stellarium. You could cut out that process entirely.
@cbfreder Venus is usually only out for a short period of time usually just around dusk/dawn. That being said it is exceptionally bright. Here is a picture I took 3 days ago @ 5am. http://i.imgur.com/13qzY.jpg Venus is in the dead center above the bright light. All the other stars got washed out from all the light in the foreground... but venus showed up clearly.
If I were a betting man I'd say you saw Jupiter.
Here you go:
http://i.imgur.com/s2DjRIo.png
That's from the open source Stellarium - runs on nearly all PCs.
Great program for anyone new, or familiar with the night sky:
Yep, Jupiter! Happy cake day!
Source: the wonderful and free Stellarium.
I moved location to UK, rewound time a bit, found the moon, and saw Jupiter there.
Indeed. The Sun is a rather un-assuming G-class star. When you go outside and look up at the night sky, the vast, vast majority of the stars you see are either O- and B-class stars or giant stars, all of which are very hot and bright.
O/B stars are also extremely short-lived, and giant phases are just a small fraction of a main-sequence star's lifetime. Because of this, the vast, vast majority (these numbers are called "astronomical" for a reason) of stars in our galaxy and in the universe are actually small, cool, dim, very long-lived red dwarfs.
That is, when you look up at the night sky, by a selection effect you see an extremely un-representative sample of the stars in our Milky Way and the Universe. O/B stars and giants are a "vocal minority."
We do a really interesting 101 lab here on campus where students each pick a star by eye from a planetarium program (Stellarium; it's free! Go get it!) and calculate its size, and then draw it to scale on a 10m-long markerboard. At the start of the lab I show them the Sun, which is only 1cm across. Why so small, they wonder? All of the stars they wind up drawing are larger than 3cm across, but the average is about 15cm. There are a number of 2- and 3-meter stars that are wider than the board is tall. The stars are chosen by eye to demonstrate the selection effect: they simply wouldn't be able to see the dimmer stars without zooming in or asking the program to bring them out.
If you're into astronomy, Stellarium is a really nice free software that shows you the sky and all the stars, planets, etc. Basically a virtual planetarium but shows the viewpoint from wherever you want it to and you can speed up time to see orbits and stuff.
It's pretty nifty. My professor used it a lot in our class last semester.
Have you looked at Stellarium? It's got some various options to view constellations in different ways. I'd recommend even if it's just for looking at our sky in general!
Personally I'd use Stellarium.
Much more powerful and I think prettier than most programs. Not only is it super detailed and useful, but it can actually plug into a motorized telescope and control it.
I would recommend a book called "Turn Left at Orion". It is intended for people like yourself, who are just learning how to navigate the skies.
Also a sky map or a planetarium program, like Stellarium will help you a lot!
One of the nice things about winter coming is that the skies are generally clearer. The top star is Jupiter, then Venus (brighter) and then Mars will be at the 8 O'clock position to Venus.
Stellarium: http://www.stellarium.org is a great way to check whats is visible in the sky and at what time!
Yes, there are. I would recommend Celestia or Space Engine
On a more 2D level, but still, quite excellent, is Stellarium
Stellarium is also a great, free planetarium that has satellite info, which is also useful, of course. http://www.stellarium.org
There's also this satellite database, includes info in iridium flares and ISS fly-bys http://www.heavens-above.com/
The program is Stellarium, and yes, it does exactly as you say:
http://www.stellarium.org/en_CA/
Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
Brady, so what do you think about your "how to cut cake" video going viral?
I've been facepalming hard nearly every time someone (like FOXNEWS... yeah Alex "numberphile" Bellos :D ) made an article about it.
Then there was view... er freebooting! Also people not aware that it was video mainly about math and not cooking advice, all raging in the comments sections bellow the articles.
Nevertheless, Steven Fry retweeted it so Congratulations :D
.
edit: oh wow you've talked about it on podcast, and you answered everything.
btw: for stargazing you can use free opensource program Stellarium. I use it every time I want to find something on the night sky.
http://skymaps.com/ is a good printable resource. Otherwise I would say go with something like http://www.stellarium.org/ , which is a simulation of what you can see from your house at any given time.
Venus is below and to the right. Mars is above and to the left. There is a star immediately below the Moon, Sigma Aquarii, which may or may not be what you're looking at.
Stellarium is a great little astronomy program, 100% free.
If you got this as an assignment, then your task probably isn't to find the answer, but also how work it out yourself. This is an important skill, not only when getting to know the night sky. I bet your teacher also wanted you to learn self reliance. If you would have searched for yourself, you would have come across valuable resources like Stellarium, or a site like this. You won't always be able to ask someone else. [/teachermode]
Your eyes are a good place to start :-)
My early forays into astronomy were summer nights, rolling a blanket out on the lawn and just lying back and looking. After a while you start to recognize the patterns and learn your way around the sky. And it's not only stars you'll see, you can see, for example, the great nebula in Orion with the naked eye from a dark place. You can also see the Andromeda galaxy and numerous bright star clusters like the Pleiades, plus Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Saturn. If you know where and when to look you can even see the ISS.
If you've got $15 buy a copy of Nightwatch which is a great introductory text to astronomy.
You can also do astronomy without even leaving your armchair. Just download Stellarium and kiss goodbye to all your spare time.
If you can save up between $50 and $100, it will be time to get a pair of 7x50 or 10x50 binoculars and blow your mind out by looking at the lunar craters.
Try the freeware package Stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org/) if you are interested in what is in the sky on any given night. Very useful if you have kids, to show them what they should be looking at.
Sure, I'm gonna make a cup of tea and put this together for ya, in the meantime, you should explore:
Globular clusters are always nice to explore at lower powers. M13 (Hercules globular cluster) should be easy to see and find. M5 is another nice one.
M31 (Andromeda galaxy) near Cassiopeia is another good one since its so large.
For planets, you should be able to get nice views of Jupiter and Saturn. The moon (I know it's not a planet but I'm putting it here anyway) is another great thing to look at -- there is a lot to explore there. Try to focus around the terminator (dark/light line) for more contrast and detail.
There are a few binary stars you should be able to resolve as well.
Other than that, a lot of the time I just pick an area of the sky to look at and slowly look around. If I see something interesting, I'll figure out where I'm pointing and use Stellarium to figure out what it is (if anything). For me I have more fun just exploring randomly.
Planets each move on their own orbit around the Sun, so they move at different speeds relative to the background stars. That speed depends on their distance from Earth and the Sun, so the nearby planets like Mars and Venus may be in completely different places just a few months later, while Uranus and Neptune will still be in almost the same spot.
Best way to find them is with software like Stellarium.
I have learned the most about the night sky and the location of various objects with a free software called Stellarium. This is a fantastic tool!
Also, reading the book "Turn Left at Orion" has been really helpful for me.
By using the telescopes from earth and in orbit we can measure distance and position of many stars in the solar system. We then put it together to have map of the solar system with our own solar system included. Besides google sky we have Celestia which is a space simulator and Stellarium a planetarium. Both are multi-platform and free
There's no such thing as "above", "below", or "horizontally parallel to Earth" in space. There are telescopes looking in every direction, from the North Celestial Pole to the South Celestial Pole. There are stars, dust, nebulae, and galaxies in every direction. If you'd like to see for yourself what the sky looks like from any point on Earth, looking in any direction you choose, I'd recommend downloading Stellarium.
You're very welcome.
If you have a smartphone you might prefer an astronomy app to the book. I use Sky Safari.
Stellarium is planetarium software that provides a simulation of the night sky on your computer. It's fun to just look around, and useful for finding when and where the planets, nebula, star clusters, etc. are going to be.
An accessory you might like is a smartphone holder like this one from GoSky. You can take a picture by just holding your phone to the eyepiece, but a holder helps.
Clear skies!
You can confirm what you're looking at with Stellarium. Set it to your location, set it to the time of your observation, and find Jupiter, and you'll be able to see what was in your eyepiece.
If you ever see an object and are curious as to what it is, you can use a free program called Stellarium to see what it is. It has a lot of neat features like being able to set the view location on any location on the planet, set any date or time, track satellites, etc.
There are other similar "virtual planetarium" programs that do the same thing, but that's the one I personally prefer.
Yeah during southern hemisphere winter. That's when it will be overhead. You can get pictures of it during the early morning of autumn and early night of spring, but during the winter it will rise and set during the night.
I'd recommend downloading Stellarium so you can see for yourself where the core will be at what times of the year.
You need an unobstructed view of the southern sky. This will be limited at Rooster Rock. If you're chasing Saturn and it's low on either end of the ecliptic, you may not see anything at all (depending on when you go viewing).
For what it's worth, Saturn is a very bright object and not really subject to light pollution. You can view it from anywhere in Portland with a reasonably unobstructed view of the sky.
For planning your viewing I recommend Stellarium: http://www.stellarium.org/
That would be Venus. May I recommend Stellarium, fantastic (and free) program to help identify or plan star gazing. You can even see what would be visible on other bodies in the solar system.
Here's the "maximum fun, minimum effort" method:
Install Stellarium, put it in night vision, take your laptop outside and start picking out the constellations and planets.
Acquire binoculars and practice locating Jupiter and it's moons, other planets, Pleiades, Andromeda, etc.
Do this a couple of times and you'll find yourself knowing where things are.
Subscribe to /r/space, /r/astronomy and wikipedia is your friend when it comes to basic facts.
What is Jupiter made of? Wiki.
How far is Andromeda? Wiki.
What's a parsec? Wiki.
What the heck is gravitational time dilation? Wiki.
If you want space related news there's Scishow Space.
Congrats! I suggest SkyMaps (printable maps) or Stellarium (program) for seeing what's up in the night sky. Or just going outside every night and taking a good look around :)
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are very bright objects, actually brighter than any stars you will see. So you don't need a telescope to see them. Of course they will be bright points of light but you will be amazed how much they move night to night.
If you want to see planetary detail then you will have to buy a telescope.
Lots of stars to see without a telescope, try Googleing naked eye astronomy, there are pages such as this.
Find somewhere dark to observe. Look at this map... if you can get to an olive or green zone, or better, then you can observe our own galaxy --> the Milky Way.That is real cool... and you don't need a telescope for that.
Satellites are easy to see, better off without a telescope.
There are allot of objects that you can see with a pair of Binoculars.
Download Stellarium, its a free desktop planetarium and will show you whats in the night sky up tot he minute.
It seems like you're pretty well set. Even though you may not need the computer for art class, I would still suggest GIMP. It might be helpful for conceptualising some of the pieces.
For astronomy, you most definitely can't go wrong with Stellarium :-)
Try looking at this: http://www.stellarium.org/
I did a quick search and didn't find it precisely but there was one very close to those coordinates which might be a good candidate.
Here's a few screenshots:
Good luck!
Why not try going to some star parties? You can try out looking through a scope and see how you like it before investing any money. You might also try downloading Stellarium, both to figure out what you're looking at and to find things to try to look at.
There is a free program called "Stellarium". There you can view the nightsky from your PC and it shows you what star/planet it is (right now) from any location on the earth and also at what time. You should really check it out. I first discoverd it when they had installed it on our school computers. It's pretty nice and simple.
Best place to start is to go outside at night and look up and start noticing where the bright stars are and see if you can identify a few asterisms and constellations, like orion and the Big and little dippers, which are asterisms not constellations. Stellarium is pretty awesome, and it's it is freeware, but there is more than one download. You might want to get planisphere, but pay attention which latitude wht Planisphere is for.. i was in New orleans, using my father's plan shop here, whic was for 40 degrees north latitude,. New Orleans ist at 30 degrees north latitude.
All the equipment you need is your brain, your eyes and maybe some binoculars and a mount to hold th the binoculars steady.
Check at the the right column where there is link for first time telescope buyers. Hopefully you can afford to get a telescope with a clock drive. Don't forget pawn shops.
Here are some nice ones you could use, but they are non-commercial licenses so you'd have to talk to the people who made them if you want to monetize.
NatGeo is an "offbrand" telescope which may be why you're having a hard time finding anything about it. However, there are lots of telescopes with those same specifications (114mm aperture, 900mm focal length) that are very similar.
Yes, you will be able to see all the objects that you listed with that scope. Mars will just be a red dot but you can easily see Jupiter's moons and cloud bands, the phases of Venus, and Saturn's rings.
For planets, start with your 20mm eyepiece (lowest magnification) and move to the 12.5 then the 4mm if you can. The 4mm gives around 225x magnification and should only be used in the absolute best of clear sky conditions.
Use Stellarium to find out when the planets rise and how to find the Orion Nebula (M42) and the Pleiades Star Cluster (M45). Use only the 20mm eyepiece for these. When you're ready to upgrade your telescope, I would recommend getting a nice wide-angle eyepiece with a long focal length/low power (25-32mm).
Also, Since the mount is probably wobbly, putting weights on the tripod legs or building a rocker box for your scope may help.
If this is your first reflector, learn how to collimate the mirrors to get the most out of your scope.. It sounds daunting but is really quite simple and fast once you get used to it. Good luck!
I just downloaded this awesome open source "stellarium" that lets you set your location and time of day and it shows you what the sky looks like. According to it, Venus would not have been visible at 11pm in Michigan facing East. In fact, it wouldn't even be visible in the sky from any direction. Venus would have "set" by then. I, personally, know nothing of astronomy so I'm just trusting the software.
BTW, very cool program, I recommend:
EDIT: When using the software, I assumed the sighting was recent so I didn't adjust for time of year. If you're reporting a sighting that happened some time ago I suppose that might impact whether or not Venus would be visible.
The bright planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus) are usually the easiest to find in the sky, in my opinion (well, other than the moon :))
Download Stellarium to see where and when everything is.
If you're observing from your backyard, you can also make a custom panorama backdrop of the backyard to import into Stellarium, so you can see what the buildings/houses will block out of view.
Hi there,
With your scope, the amount of stuff you'll get to see will be pretty limited by the fact that you only have 60mm of aperture (aperture is the diameter of the front lens of the scope and is the main thing that determines how much you'll get to see). You're going to mainly want to focus on the Moon, the planets, and the brighter deep-sky objects in the night sky (such as the Orion Nebula, Andromeda Galaxy, open clusters, etc), as most of the dimmer objects probably won't show up in your scope very well, if at all. Also, be aware that pushing the magnification over about 120x probably won't give you very good views, as you'll be pushing the maximum magnification of your scope (general rule of thumb is that the maximum magnification is 2x per millimeter of aperture, or 50x per inch of aperture). So, therefore, you won't want to use any eyepieces with focal lengths less than about 6mm (magnification = telescope focal length / eyepiece focal length).
One recommendation I have is to download Stellarium, a free planetarium program that will allow you to see how the sky looks at any given time from any given location. This will allow you to see what's up in the sky and where objects are located.
For upgrades, I'd probably suggest getting used to the scope first and figuring out how everything works before buying more accessories for it. It's up to you, but that'd be my recommendation.
Hope that helps, and feel free to ask anything other questions you might have both here and on the /r/telescopes subreddit - we're always glad to help out! :)
That's the planet Venus. You can download Stellarium to identify stars and planets -- it will show you what's in the sky at any given date and time.
It looks like it was out of focus in the zoomed in picture.
I recommend using the program Stellarium (there's an Android and Iphone app as well, although it costs a bit) to plan your stargazing. You can get an accurate map of the night sky for wherever you are at any time.
Your first steps would be familiarizing yourself with the skies, you can start with that right away -- there's no need for the telescope at this point. A sky atlas or a planetarium software is an essential tool here. You can find lots of various star maps, both in hard copy and online versions. As for the planetarium apps, Stellarium is a great free program for the PC, and Sky Safari is the one I'd recommend for the Android/iOS platforms (get at least the Plus version, as the most basic is, well, basic).
Afterwards, start honing your object location skills: try spotting the planets, stars, asterisms and constellations, and the brightest deep sky features (many of them can be visible with an unaided eye from dark sky location). Turn Left at Orion is a great book to learn the object location techniques. The first steps in here can also be done w/o the telescope; binoculars, if you have any, would come in handy!
Once you get your instrument, read the manual(s), thenpractice assembling and disassembling it before heading outside, as fumbling with an unfamiliar instrument at night is a recipe for disaster. I'd recommend buying a red light flashlight (or using red filter for any existing one), as red colour doesn't ruin your dark adaptation. Use a far-away object (like aerial antenna or a flag pole) to adjust your telescope's viewfinder correctly.
Once in the field, try not to rely on the mount's GoTo feature too much. Sure, it's fun to just tell your scope to align to a certain object, but it is half the fun to try and locate the object yourself! Some of the objects can be quite a challenge to find :)
Finally, once you're comfortable with the telescope and visual observation you can start dabbling in astrophotography.
Clear skies!
From my own experience: SkySafari is hands down the best app i've used on a mobile device.
For those using less mobile gadgets (as in, computers, laptops, netbooks) the Stellarium is a very good (and free, as in freedom) choice.
Firstly, congratulations on your new best friend (I am not kidding).
Secondly, be sure to check out some holding techniques for astronomical binoculars, or consider a mount.
And finally, learn the sky. Binoculars are only as good as your skill at object finding and sky navigation is. Stellarium is a great program at browsing the sky from the comfort of your desk. Alternatively, if you own a smart device, consider downloading a free (or getting some paid one) planetarium app for your platform -- there are plenty of those out there for pretty much any mobile platform. You may want to start learning the sky unaided, to learn the constellations, learn to spot planets, find some of the naked-eye visible DSOs, like M45 (Pleiades cluster), M42 (Orion Nebula), M31 (Andromeda Galaxy).
Good luck and clear skies!
Think that's cool? Try this:
- Turn on satellites (to the left of the arrow buttons on bottom menu)
- search on the ISS (control+F to bring up the find dialog)
- set Stellarium to a time when the ISS will appear in your sky (if you are on the east coast of the United States, try 2/21 around 7:45)
http://i.imgur.com/eES95Up.png
As great as this package is, it doesn't have a lot of help right in the program, you might find this helpful: http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Interface_Guide
> Is Alt-AZ worse than equatorial for astrophotgraphy?
Yes, AltAz isn't suitable at all for long exposure tracked AP, unless an Equatorial Wedge can be added. This is because of...
> Can you explain field rotation?
Yep. :)
Fire up Stellarium and center on a large object with some shape. M42 is a good candidate.
Hit F5 to bring up the "Date and Time" control, and start rolling time forward and back. Watch M42 rotate in the field of view.
If we think about the stars rotating around a fixed point (the celestial pole), then we realize that their orientation, with respect to the pole, stays the same. In other words...the part pointing at the pole is ALWAYS pointing at the pole. Meaning, from our "fixed" point of view, the object rotates.
AltAz scopes track the sky the same way Stellarium does in its "default" view...by simply moving Up/Down (Alt) and Left/Right (Az). They keep the scope pointed at the object...but they don't rotate the scope with the object.
You can, if you desire, put Stellarium into "Equatorial" mode (Ctrl-M on the PC) and you'll see that the field rotation stops. The equatorial mount's RA axis is the same as the Earth's...that is, both axes point at the same spot...the celestial pole...so the scope "rolls" around the path, just as the objects in the sky do. :)
Well Stellarium looks a lot like Star Walk, only it's for PC. What's sweet is that it also indicates satellites. Once I saw the ISS passing in the sky and on the screen at the same time. Shit was so cool.
Celestia allows you to fly through the known universe; to other planets, stars, galaxies... It gave me an idea of its mind-bending size much better than any documentary :) Highly recommended!
Probably will get buried, but anyone remotely interested in astronomy should download Stellarium for sky viewing and Celestia to explore the whole fucking universe. Both totally free and awesome.
You may have some luck trying to identify it on planetarium software—an excellent free choice is Stellarium. You can set the date, time and location and then see what the sky looked like at that point. It does both stars and planets, and can do satellites with a nifty plugin.
Get yourself a free copy of Stellarium and have a play with that. Set up your home location and time to see exactly what is what in your backyard. In fact a new version is out so I'll download a copy myself ;)
I would suggest that you start learning the constellations with a planisphere
Also, you might want to download Stellarium which is a great free planetarium program. You can set it to your location and it will show you what is in the night sky at any given time.
Not much I can add to this great list but there is free software out there as well. Stellarium is like a planetarium and Carte du Ciel is a good map program.
Also Internet forums.
If you are at all interested in Astronomy, try Celestia.
Stellarium is pretty sweet too, although (unlike with Celestia) you are bound to the surface of the Earth.
Give Stellarium ( http://www.stellarium.org/ ) a try. This is open source software, and is a great way to get familiar with what's in the sky day to day. It would be more helpful to plan an observation than using a paper star chart, unless you can print one out for the time of day that you go observing.
That's a 60mm Refractor.
There's plenty of youtube general How To's on Refractors.
But in a nutshell, first you want to align your finderscope in the daylight, before observing.
Get an idea of what it is you want to look at and find out where it will be when you are out using an app like Stellarium (free on PC, android and apple).
You should get a tripod and a pair of binoculars. It'll cost you maybe around 150€ but it'll be worth it. Plus, you can watch birds with it. A dobsonian would also be great, but let's not get carried away. If you speak German, do try the Kosmos Himmelsjahr. It's a book that is released annually. It has a chapter for each month, features an article about an interesting topic in every chapter and shows you the night sky any how the moons of Jupiter will progress throughout the month. It's a bit old-fashioned but it's a nice thing to go through. You could also get stelarium, which is free. It's a bit convoluted and intimidating to a beginner, but the site got a wiki and a forum and what not, so you can read up on what ever problem you may have. It's a planetarium app that can show you what's in the sky at your location and when. I use it to plan in advance what I want to look at. It also shows you planets and of course naked-eye things like the pleiades and constellations. It can be infuriating to set up, but it's a wonderful too and it's 100% free, both as in freedom and free beer.
I went to the source that the OP linked to in the top comment, and found this image is from 2014-Dec-25, from 02:00 UC to 05:30 UTC. So I plugged in that time and date to Stellarium and found that that "blip" is actually the moon Ganymede.
Jupiter's shadow is casting back and to the right. Something just visible over Jupiter's limb would only be in shadow if it were close enough, and Ganymede is just far enough away that it emerges from shadow just before going behind Jupiter.
Download a program called Stellarium. http://www.stellarium.org
Set the time and date to when you were at the festival, and adjust the location to match where you were. Then, scan the sky in the direction you were looking when you saw it. It'll help if you remember other celestial features that were nearby.
In half an hour, it should've moved a bit if it was anything celestial, but you may not have been able to discern the movement.
Intersting problem... Assuming we can rely on some of the details of Hyperion the ED system (this is a huge assumption), it is an M-class star 54.37ly from Sol. According to this list of known M-class stars by distance, there are 25 such stars that are 54.4ly away.
Maybe you could jump to Sol, use the Galaxy Map to find the approximate direction of Hyperion relative to other known stars in our Earth sky, and compare to those 25 stars (maybe using Stellarium ).
Even if there isn't a real life equivalent, maybe one of them is close enough to pretend. Good luck!
Judging by its brightness, the bright light in the images you posted is very likely to be Venus or Jupiter. The free planetarium software Stellarium should show you where they are on the given dates: http://www.stellarium.org/en_GB/
There is a "window in the sky" known as Baade's Window, a small patch of sky with a clear view through to the galactic core: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/what-can-you-see-through-baades-window0610201506/ Probably has nothing to do with your riddle though.