What Planet Is That Very Bright Light In The Night Sky?

[ZONE 51]

No need to go to that expense though - you can get very simple mounts that you move yourself and they work a treat - like my little thing.

I can imagine thats good on the moon viewing but whats it like looking at saturns rings if you have?

I have a 130mm Sky Watcher telescope which is brilliant for looking at the moon and Jupiter, the bright planet is definately Jupiter as I was looking at it the other day. With my telescope I can see four moons and the bands on jupiter once I get my 'eye in', not seen the red dot yet though. The mount I have is manual but has two twisty knobs which allow very fine adjustment so once something like jupiter is in view I can quite easily keep looking at it without looking awway from the lens. When I first got the telescope last year I was amazed how quickly things move across the field of view. Fascinated new world though.

Moomin

Its very rewarding if you have it set up right, and like you say things move quick, its the more zoom the more things move from view, so the computer connects up to some telescopes and logged up to a space site can keep you on track.

What i have always wanted to do is photograph space from my own setup, we can connect up with digital cameras and see on computer screen which is good.

The mount was £245. The telescope on top of it was....well....I'd better not say in case my wife sees this.

now i read this after the earlier quote! so thats my answer, at that price you would be able to see saturns rings and the jupiter storm then?

[Osbourne One-Nil]

You're looking at about £2000 for the scope alone if you were to buy it new, but you could get something which gave views 90% as good for less than £250 including the mount! Normally, the single most important factor with a telescope is its aperture....the bigger it is, the more you'll see as it'll collect more light. However, with planets you're not really struggling for light, so a 3" or thereabouts will always show you Jupiter's cloud belts, Saturn's rings and, most of the time, Mars' ice caps. Jupiter's red spot is surprisingly difficult to see as there's not a great contrast between it and the surrounding clouds - photos tend to enhance this.

I do have a 10" scope too - one with a mirror, and despite what I said earlier, the views of Jupiter last night blew the little one out of the water. When you look at something through the little scope, you think "wow". When you look at the same thing through the 10", you go "*#@*".

[ZONE 51]

http://www.space.com/news/

-

http://hubblesite.org/

[Alan Robinson]

You don't need a telescope to see a few of Jupiter's moons. A simple pair of 7 * 50 binoculars does the trick if you steady them against a tree trunk or a post or a wall or something. Last night I could see 3 moons with my binos.

By the way, just with binos you cab see Venus change phase like the moon.

Okay, this is all very simple, but its a start.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Binoculars are great and for some things, are often the best optical aid to use....like sweeping the Milky Way or seeing the Moon hover near star clusters, because of their wide field of view.

I've got a pair of Canon image stabilsed binoculars which are absolutely magnificent and do away with the need for a tripod, even at a relatively high x10.

[ZONE 51]

You don't need a telescope to see a few of Jupiter's moons. A simple pair of 7 * 50 binoculars does the trick if you steady them against a tree trunk or a post or a wall or something. Last night I could see 3 moons with my binos.

By the way, just with binos you cab see Venus change phase like the moon.

Okay, this is all very simple, but its a start.

I had a pair of 16x50 ones years ago, the moon was amazing through them especially, some binoculars are very powerful, some as good as a very good telescope.

The more zoom/power the more steady you need to be! i remember comet Hale-Bopp that was visible without any lens, looked amazing and lasted weeks, any comets due? think that was the last close one for a long time?

comet hale-bopp the great comet of 1997

http://en.wikipedia....le%E2%80%93Bopp - to read about Comet Hale-Bopp see link here

http://www.salzgeber...cs/9703293.html - the link to the above photo

Edited October 4, 2011 by ElectricSnowStorm

[Crepuscular Ray]

Oh dear:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8808922/Good-Samaritan-mistakes-Jupiter-for-distress-flare.html

[Alan Robinson]

Oh dear:

http://www.telegraph...ress-flare.html

Oh dear indeed. Paraflares fall slowly to the surface, and hand-held flares are, how can I put it, in the hand.

[AderynCoch]

You don't need a telescope to see a few of Jupiter's moons. A simple pair of 7 * 50 binoculars does the trick if you steady them against a tree trunk or a post or a wall or something. Last night I could see 3 moons with my binos.

By the way, just with binos you cab see Venus change phase like the moon.

Okay, this is all very simple, but its a start.

I've seen the four Galilean moons simultaneously through 20x binoculars. It's keeping them still that's the hard bit.

[Hodgheg]

its most likely jupiter at the moment, its very bright in the early night sky. Looks very good through a small telescope, can make out the moons and even the cloud bands. Spectacular.

[Bluebreezer54]

Google Sky Maps application is as far as my budget lets me nosey around.

Great for i-d things tho !

I have to say Ive recently got this app on my android phone and find it very useful, in a strictly amateur way admittedly, but even so a useful tool and free as well.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Anyone wanting some really, really good planetarium software for their PC - http://stellarium.org/

It's free too.

[AderynCoch]

Anyone wanting some really, really good planetarium software for their PC - http://stellarium.org/

It's free too.

Nice one!

I've also downloaded Celestia (http://www.shatters.net/celestia/), which allows you to zoom across space and gives you the distance and apparent magnitude of stars depending on your position. The only real gripe I have is that sometimes when you click on things that god-awful BEEP noise occurs (on Windows at least - it's inbuilt and thus cannot be lowered by changing the system volume) - but you can disable it.*

*if like me you find that noise intolerable, here's how you disable it on Vista/Windows 7 (XP is very similar, but you have to use 'Run' instead of 'Start Search'):

1. Type 'regedit' in the Start Search box (on the Start menu) to access the Registry Editor

2. Select the directory HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Control Panel>Sound

3. Right-click on the 'Beep' icon and select 'Modify...'

4. Change the 'Value data' field from 'yes' to 'no'

5. Restart the computer for the changes to take effect

Edited October 9, 2011 by AderynCoch

[pottyprof]

1. Type 'regedit' in the Start Search box (on the Start menu) to access the Registry Editor

Just thought I'd add this.......

Before editing the registry

When you have opened regedit, go to file and click export. Save the file as whatever you wish. Should you make any mistakes, you can then import the original and return the registry to how it was.