Reply to: Jupiter, Mars and Venus

[centurian]

Yep, Venus was incredibly bright last night. Also we missed the close conjunction, last night Jupiter was directly below Venus when drawing a line down to the horizon.

[TimberWolf]

Even clearer skies tonight, apart from the odd cloud, and not so cold. Too late to try and count the stars in the Great Square, yet again.

This might be cool to try: Telling Time by the Big Dipper

[TimberWolf]

How to calibrate your arm with the big dipper: http://www.skythisweek.info/benchmarks.pdf

Which allows you to measure the angular distance of stuff with your arm, which in turn allows you to measure the distance and height of stuff.

[MarillionFan]

And it was foggy last night.

In fact, I suspect it'll be foggy tonight too.

Whenever there's some interesting astronomical event, it's foggy/cloudy/raining.

Well open the bathroom window then. It will soon clear.

[MarillionFan]

I saw three of them at about 7pm last night. Venus and Jupiter are close together, and Mars. Venus is very bright.

My mate has got that SkyView app on his iphone, which is pretty cool.

I was using an app as well. Well cool.

[Sysman]

I saw three of them at about 7pm last night. Venus and Jupiter are close together, and Mars. Venus is very bright[

Just seen them tonight. I thought Venus and Jupiter were one at first glance.

[Doggy Styles]

I saw three of them at about 7pm last night. Venus and Jupiter are close together, and Mars. Venus is very bright.

My mate has got that SkyView app on his iphone, which is pretty cool.

[redgiant]

Last time this took place that I can remember was in 2001 - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

I'll take a look out this evening but there is a lot of haze in London today which I hope will clear by this evening. I'll be down by the river to spot them if it does.

[TimberWolf]

I was thinking of buying some kick-ass 25 * 120 binoculars, like the Fujinon ; but they're about £8000 with the mount. (God knows what the 40 * 150 cost!)

Also I live in a basement flat in Central London, which doesn't help.

They reckon that's a classic rich newbie mistake, as you're better off with 7 * 50 or 10 * 50 binoculars. The big powerful mothers are too cumbersome and have too small a field of view which makes for an unhappy viewing experience unless you have a tripod and something to help you to point them in the right direction.

[Doggy Styles]

Sorry. Big bit in the news this week about spotting 5 of the 10 planets. They say 8 now since Pluto was downgraded but Zeity says there's 10 and I believe him.

Ah, he's including the one that UFO was based on. They are bastards that live there.

[Sysman]

Spend much less on a decent reflector, something you can pack in the boot of the car and get away from the light pollution. Some nice scopes sub £1k with motor drive mounts so no need to spend ages trying to get the thing aligned.

Biggest frustration with noobs to scopes is how hard it is to see something and keep it in the field of view. A decent equatorial mount will solve that. You need to be looking at planets, nebulae, galaxies, clusters etc rather than just pointing at random stars which will still just look like stars no matter how powerful the optics.

I'm starting to get great results using a Nikon D3000 + 75-300mm telephoto lens for astrophotography, just getting a starfield shot like I used to see in books as a kid is very rewarding.

You could go the whole hog and build yourself an observatory.

Some good astronomical photos there too.

[MarillionFan]

Which of the other eight is "all 5"?

Sorry. Big bit in the news this week about spotting 5 of the 10 planets. They say 8 now since Pluto was downgraded but Zeity says there's 10 and I believe him.

[stek]

Anyone know when Mercury is up as well?

I believe he is contact with Uranus...

[hyperD]

Anyone know when Mercury is up as well?

Not much chance of that, he's a bit brown bread really.

[TimberWolf]

BBC News - How to see five planets in one night over the UK