astronomer's help
 

I'm in Vancouver looking at the southern sky ( southwest actually).

There are 2 bright stars/planets visible, fairly close together. Which are they?

I'd say Mars and Venus at this time of year.

^ It looks like you're right. They're really bright and stand out quite a bit. thx.

Jupiter slightly above Venus

What he said.

stars twinkle, planets don't

If you are interested, I highly recommend "The Stars" by H.A. Rey(yes, that is the same dude who did the "Curious George" series of books, inexpensive and extremely simple to use and understand

Yes, Jupiter and Venus.

I would suggest Burnham's Celestial Handbook: An Observer's Guide to the Universe Beyond the Solar System.

Something that you can get for free in 5 minutes is Stellarium from www.stellarium.org.

With Stellarium, you input your location and then you can see your sky in real-time. You can click on and zoom into just about anything to get more info. It's really cool.

You can also go forward or backwards in time, drag the screen around, even see what's in the sky during the day.

You can adjust how much detail you see in the sky, how many labels and stars show up, etc....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1227659924.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1227659911.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1227659945.jpg

Check this out. There is a Flickr group that you can post photos of the night sky to. They run your photo through a "solver" and it labels the objects in your photo. I used a Canon SD700 IS camera, set the shutter speed at 15 seconds while shooting off a tripod pointed at the night sky. Kinda like a custom star chart.

Here is the site: http://www.flickr.com/groups/astrometry/pool/

Here are some photos I submitted:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevdog/304503...pool-astrometry

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevdog/304503...pool-astrometry

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevdog/304419...pool-astrometry

Kev

that is so cool, I like the Rey book because you can take it with you, and it is simple enough that a child, or even childish individual such as myself, can understand it.

Astronomy for the compleat idiot, if you will

OK that is cool. I just spent the last two hours looking at the Messier objects.

http://www.astro-pat.com/images/Othe...508-forweb.jpg

Tonight as dusk. Nothing spectacular, but fairly rare. Three celestial bodies in close proximty.

Photo contest? :D


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081125/ap_on_sc/sci_sky_trio;_ylt=AkjoxJaXA1O9TNlnB4xKejVvieAA

just came inside from looking at them......time to break out the camera :D

Yep, I got a couple of shots last night, but haven't installed the Canon software on my new computer to read the raw images. I'll probably be home too late tonight to get any pics now that they are really close and the sky is really clear.

Still, it's neat when stuff comes together like that.

I saw a photo taken in Bangkok last night (can't find the site now) that showed Venus and Jupiter directly over the crescent moon i.e. a perfect smiley face.

This astronomy stuff gets more and more interesting the more you look into it....... Just sayin......

It should be a sad face tonight.. not dark here yet, can barely make out the moon. Los Angeles is about the worst place to see the sky.