Puddleglum, how cool you saw the International Space Station! I find it a special thrill when a man-made object crosses paths (from our standpoint) with a natural, God-created orb.

Our dear Wiggle, do you know of the site heavens-above.com? You put in your location there, and you can access all sorts of specific info, including predictions for when the ISS will pass over your area, Iridium flares, among others.

Such wonder we miss when we fail to look up once in awhile.

'Tis very true. A group of girlfriends I 'hang out' with sadly don't have an interest in the night sky, so often are curious when we head outside on an evening and I immediately look up, as is my wont. I begin to tell them about what I'm seeing, but they quickly lose interest. Still, they're good friends, so I won't give 'em up just for that , although it never ceases to amaze me how some folk simply aren't interest in the glory of that ever-changing and fascinating vista above us.

Bella, I might have mentioned this to you before, but Ithi, take note too, that we have found Guide to the Stars—a planisphere—to be an invaluable resource ... so very useful, containing a wealth of night sky info on a very portable object. (In catching up on previous posts, I see, not surprisingly, that others have mentioned these resources as well—the star chart and heavens-above, as well, of course, as the fascinating and informative skyandtelescope.)

I have yet to look at the online star charts, but do like that they include planets.

stargazer, the view of the night sky at your brother's place must be awesome. And how wonderful you saw the Northern Lights! As well as that 'triple-feature'. What a treat! The video you linked to gave me the chills, and, around the one-minute mark, reminded me when we lived up north and were driving home from town to our little country house, only to see a magnificent dancing red sky in the north. At first, we thought it was a major fire, but then realized the stunning spectacle was the Northern Lights. Wow!

'gazer, thanks for that "Venus During the Day" link. I hope to catch that sometime this spring. I have yet to see Mercury, as the western sky is hidden by a number of trees and a few houses, but the nearest schoolyard should provide clear viewing on the next cloudless night.

Jupiter and Venus continue to be so beautiful in the sky together with the moon, and then ruddy Mars in the eastern sky, with Orion's belt pointing to Sirius and Saturn visible in the east a bit later in the evening. 'Tis the most wonderful time of the year ♪ ♫ for gazing in awe at the glorious night sky.

*misses Shadlowlander popping in here*

A group of girlfriends I 'hang out' with sadly don't have an interest in the night sky, so often are curious when we head outside on an evening and I immediately look up, as is my wont.

Ditto! For as long as I can remember, I've always checked the sky when I go outside, day or night. Imagine my surprise, years ago, when I learned that most people don't do that.

(Of course, it can work the other way. I remember the time a friend came in to the house and asked why I wasn't outside looking at the Northern Lights. She'd noticed them before I did).

The Red Planet Mars comes to opposition tonight - meaning it's roughly opposite the sun in the sky and thus visible all night. It's also when it's biggest and brightest in the sky too. For Mars this happens roughly every other year, but sometimes it's much closer and brighter (like in 2003) than other times (this year it's about as far away as it can get). Still, it shines at about magnitude -1.2 and is worth checking out as that reddish orange light below Leo.

Too bad it's overcast here...but Mars will be fairly easy to spot for the next couple of months.

Went out for supplies tonight. I could have walked for miles without so much as a torch, the moon was so bright. It's not even full yet.
I did have the oddest thought cross my mind, (that does happen at times), while walking back to the wig-wam.
I recall someone telling me of the time Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. Watson went on holiday, and decided to go camping. After they had had their evening meal, and finished having a pipe by the fire they turned in. Later that night Holmes woke Watson, and told him to look up and explain what he observed.
Still groggy, Watson exclaimed, "Well I observe the vastness of space, with the constellations, and planets. The Milky Way, with it's many stars, to great in number to count. I realize the greatness of al this, and the insignificance of man on this but tiny mote floating in infinity."
Holmes lay there silent for a moment. Then excaimed," Watson, you idiot. Someone has stolen our tent."

Enjoy the night sky. But be careful of those random thoughts. Good Night.

Still, [Mars] shines at about magnitude -1.2 and is worth checking out as that reddish orange light below Leo.

For some reason, I have troubles easily recognizing Leo, and am determined to get that down pat this season.

Mars is so beautiful now. I like its ruddy look. Speaking of a reddish tinge, I saw Mercury last night , as we finally had a clear evening in the west. What a sight to see high in the west Jupiter and Venus, then way down below, and a tinch to the right, Mercury. I brought my binoculars with me, hoping to spot Uranus near Mercury, but could not. I'm asking for a stronger pair of binoculars for my birthday in May, but if our youngest son were home, I would have 'dragged' him to the schoolyard, along with his telescope, to hopefully spot this 7th planet from the sun.

at our Marshwiggle's Sherlock/Watson funny!

A later EDIT: On my walk, in the moon's glare tonight, I think I saw part of Leo ... the triangle. There is that shape in that constellation, yes? Directly below it was Mars, and to the near right, the bright moon.

You're right, jo, the hindquarters of the Lion are a triangle (currently Mars is below it). The easternmost star of that triangle is technically called Beta Leonis and has the popular name Denebola, tail of the lion (Deneb = tail + ola = Lion).

Two great reasons to keep an eye to the skies this week:

- Two of the night sky's brightest objects, Venus and Jupiter, continue to draw closer together night by night. They'll be closest March 12-13, with Venus passing just 3 degrees north of Jupiter. (For Northern Hemisphere observers, this is about the best evening appearance Venus can have in its 8-year cycle).

- Two large solar flares mean a good chance of Northern (or Southern) Lights tonight or tomorrow night. Auroras could be seen as far south as Iowa or Pennsylvania (around 40N) or even farther south. Even with a big bright moon outside, check it out!

I see a lot of planets mentioned on this thread. Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury. Sounds like the whole solar system can be seen in the night sky lately.

I'm trying to figure out what I saw tonight. Normally where I live, you can't see the night sky at all. But tonight we had a rare clear, and so we took advantage of that and went out to look.

I saw these two ridiculously bright things in the sky. I'm assuming they're planets, but I don't know which ones. If it helps, they were in front of me, the big dipper was behind me, and the full moon was to my left.

I also grabbed my camera and took a picture of them. I just have a basic $200 digital camera, but it takes way better quality pictures then you would expect from it. Here are the snapshots I got.

The dimmer one which was higher up:

The brighter one which was lower down:

Is that Venus and Jupiter?

~Riella

I've got a similar situation as Ithy...

I'm on the southern shore of Lake Ontario (In NY state) and normally its full of clouds, but tonight it was relatively clear.

1st off facing the moon (S or SE position), there was one star that was pretty much adjacent to the moon (moon was gorgeous tonight btw) ... I see it all the time and I'm wondering what it was. Then nearly directly opposite (N or NW direction) I saw these two really bright stars (perhaps the same two Ithy described) Could those be the planets? I don't think I've ever seen one brighter than the brightest of the two (except the Sun of course).

I really still want to make that "star chart" but the weather/hw schedule don't cooperate well.

Edit forgot to mention this was at about 8:30- 8:45 PM EST.

I just went back out and took a picture of the one closest to the moon. Here's the shot I got:

Is that Mars?

Also, I see a little black circle in front of the planet, near the top, when I look at the picture. My dad is insisting it must be one of Mars' moons. Is he right? Or is it just a dark patch on the planet? Or even a flaw in the photograph?

~Riella

Ithilwen and wolflover, I suspect that the 2 bright objects both of you have seen - the ones to the west - were Jupiter and Venus (especially given the description of the Big Dipper behind you and the moon to the left). And Jupiter is the dimmer one above much brighter Venus.

Mars is the bright object near the Moon tonight. However, I'm not sure what the dark circle is in your picture, Ithilwen; there's not enough resolution on my screen to make that determination. However, if you're taking it with just a camera (that is, no serious telescopic lenses), then I doubt it's either a surface feature (this is not a good appearance of Mars; its disk is quite small) or one of its moons - as this article notes, a 6-inch telescope would be the minimum to spot either Phobos or Deimos - and then only under very ideal conditions. Mars' moons are just too small, dim, and close to the much brighter planet to be seen easily.

And Jupiter is the dimmer one above much brighter Venus.

That would mean this one is Venus:

... Why does it look yellow and red like Jupiter?

And the dimmer one above it, which is supposed to be Jupiter, looks blue-ish silver... Isn't that backwards?

~Riella

Why does it look yellow and red like Jupiter?

And the dimmer one above it, which is supposed to be Jupiter, looks blue-ish silver... Isn't that backwards?

I couldn't say for certain without more information, such as time and length of exposure, and so on...or even better, seeing the picture being taken.

Normally Venus is brilliantly white (or bluish-white) and Jupiter more of a golden yellow (check out the contrast of both compared to Mars the next time you're outside).

A few ideas I had:
- atmospheric effects: Not only does the atmosphere make the stars 'twinkle,' but it does other things as well, especially as objects get closer to the horizon. The twinkling is often exaggerated, with different colors sometimes seen (try this the next time Sirius, that bright star in the south at dusk right now, is close to the horizon). Objects look dimmer. And since red light is 'bent' less than shorter visible wavelengths, things near the horizon often appear redder (this works on the sun and moon too). So if Venus was low when you saw it, this could be a reason (Jupiter, being higher at the time, would be affected less).

- camera effects: as a rule, planets won't show disks when you take pictures of them through an ordinary camera (without telephoto lenses or telescopic aid). For example, check out this image of the view just a few nights ago.

So check the focus on your camera by pointing it at a bright star - it should be a point of light, not a disk. The planets should look similar, but brighter. (Jupiter will show a small disk in 10-power binoculars, as will Venus when it's closest to earth - this coming June - but Mars requires a telescope to show a disk).

This Illustrated Guide describes the conjunction, including diagrams of what to look for and more photographs of the planets (near the bottom of the page).

Some Northern Lights were reported as a result of those solar flares, but they weren't as spectacular as some expected. Try again tonight if the sky is clear!

A very beautiful full moon out tonight. I don't think that I've ever seen it so bright.

I was out until after my bedtime looking for the northern lights last night Cameras ready, but the promised show was a no go.
Looks like the solar flare was more of a celestial dud.

Hi all! I don't hang out here on Nweb much these days, but got a tip from johobbit that an astronomy thread had gotten started, so I popped in to see.

I haven't read all 6 pages, and I can't stay long just now, but I will come back in a bit and give a proper introduction (for those who don't know me) and a bit of background on my own interest in stargazing, a rundown on my equipment, and etc.

So...I'll be back!

mm

Welcome to this thread, Mother-Music! I'm eager to hear about your stargazing experiences.

My attempts to view Northern Lights last evening were stymied by clouds; too bad, as I bet my friends' child Abby would have been excited to see them.

Spaceweather.com has some nice pictures from Canada and the northern tier of US states (including this pretty picture of auroras over Split Rock Lighthouse) - not to mention some shots of Southern Lights from Australia and NZ. While not yet quite as spectacular as some displays I've been lucky enough to see for previous solar maxima, this holds some promise for even better activity this year.

And the sun continues to be quite active, launching another large flare this morning. The CME from the last large flare is expected to hit earth around 0700 GMT March 11 (around midnight US Mountain Standard Time).

And Jupiter and Venus continue their show in the evening sky over the next week; this is their last good conjunction in a dark sky until June 2015 (when they will appear extremely close together).