What's the planet?
 

Taken 90 minutes ago from Asheville NC.

This is awesome. What's the planet? I don't know. Jupiter, Saturn, Venus?????

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1636329601.jpg

Venus most likely.

Uranus.

Come on man, you tee'd that ball right up.

LOL ^

https://earthsky.org/tonight/

Lv 426

Thank you!

Seti-alpha 7...

Ceti Alpha Six exploded six months after we were left here. The shock shifted the orbit of this planet and everything was laid waste. 'Admiral' Kirk never bothered to check on our progress. It was only the fact of my genetically-engineered intellect that allowed us to survive.

This is ceti alpha 5!

Its my ride coming to pick me up.

Ork.

Yep, Venus and the moon!

Venus is always far brighter than any other planet. Next would be Jupiter, then Saturn, and finally Mars.

For future ref, get the SkyView app, the free version.

You’ll have fun locating everything in the sky.

Will it lead to the secret.UFO base?

We have you for that. :)

If you have access to any kind of telescope or good binos you can see that Venus goes thru phases just like the Moon. It's kinda cool to see.

Yes, very cool.

I have a Meade EXT that cost around $800 15 years ago. I do remember finding Venus and seeing the surface partly in shadow. Crescent shape lit up.

I don't know what made the shadow, though. That's how little I know.

Coolest thing was seeing Jupiter's moons, though.

I have the Meade also, it's my grab and go scope.

As for Venus the "shadow" is the same as for the Moon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_of_Venus

Right, it's not a shadow from something the way an eclipse is. It's that you're looking at the body at an angle where you see some of the front (side facing the light source) and some of the rear (side facing away from light source).

Since Venus is inside earth's orbit, we only see it at full phase, like a full moon, when it's farthest away from earth. Since brightness is proportional to the square of the distance, and the distances are so great, it's not very bright when it's in its full phase. It turns out that it's at its brightest when we can see only 26% of it, because it's very close at that time. In fact, at its brightest, it's 4.16 times brighter than when it's full. Right now it's at about 1/2 phase.

You clearly just made all of that up! It's only a matter of time before we start getting "super Venus" emails to go with the super Moon and super Mars emails..

Makes sense. It is quite bright lately.

So far I've managed to see Mercury, Venus, Earth (tough one!), Mars, Jupiter and the Galilean moons, Saturn, and Uranus. I still need to grab Neptune, Pluto, Ceres, and Vesta.

I also have this shirt.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/...X._SY._UY_.png

How much aperture do you have? Or are you imaging instead?

Should anyone like a bit o' guidance

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/this-weeks-sky-at-a-glance-november-5-13/

I've got an 8" SCT, and I'm in Bortle class 3 skies.

Jupiter and Saturn are always great subjects. I never really get tired of looking at them. I haven't gotten a good look at Mars with my new scope since we moved to the country. Years ago with an 8" Dob in the 'burbs, or a very steady night, I managed to get Mars up to about 300x. I saw a polar ice cap and the "canals". It was pretty spectacular to see the detail.

At our new place, the double cluster and the Andromeda galaxy and its brighter companion galaxy are really easy to see unaided. And I often just look up when I take the dog out and marvel at the Milky Way.

I also want to get a good view of M51 at our new fairly dark homesite.

so was it Venus or Uranus?
i thought Uranus was last week?

Venus.

Venus is the 3rd brightest heavenly body after the Sun and the Moon.

Uranus is not visible to the naked eye (unless maybe you're a contortionist).

Sights like this make you realize why ancient cultures worshipped the sky stuff for a long time.

Brings to mind; Chaco New Mexico and the 19 year lunar cycle they determined. That is a lot of sky staring, but what else was there to do.

I have a CPC 800 but I'm under Bortle 4+. The brighter planets are good here and Mars at opposition with good seeing is nice. Andromeda is just a smudge here as is the Orion Nebula but the Trapezium really pops in my WO GTF 102.