Astronomy / Space Brightest Star.

Non Grata

Non Grata
Burke said:
I have been on the fence over it for years. If i get one it wont be cheap. There is a hatch that leads up to the roof of my block. Im not allowed up there :) I always liked to imagine i could put one on the roof, run a wire down thru my window and then view it on my screen/s
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Don't discount a small refractor pointed out the window at saturn/jupiter/moon.. quick, easy and fun.
 

Zak Gordon

Zak Gordon
Venus.

Mars had been in roughly the same position a few months back, just less bright and with a red tinge, but the sheer white brightness of the object we are talking about gives it away.
 

AkenBosch

AkenBosch
Para Handy said:
One of our posters on here has a setup he uses in the middle of Turin (I think) and produces some neat photos with it - all from outside his apartment's lounge window. I think it is AkenBosch as in https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-Astronomers?p=6130320&viewfull=1#post6130320.
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Yes, that's me! Living in one of the most light polluted areas of Europe, too lazy and short on time to reach out to the countryside, and making the most out of both conditions. :D

Burke said:
What made me get all excited was that could stand directly under a white light street lamp and its still there. Skys are pretty poor in london really. I would own a telescope but there really isnt any point without some proper darkness.
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There is a point in owning a telescope just about everywhere, unless you are living in Vault 101. Planetary objects are bright enough to pierce through any kind of street illumination, as are the brightest stars (even though they are just point of lights, try pointing even a small scope at Betelgeuse, or Antares, or the red-blue double Albireo in Cygnus, or the very very blue Pleiades), and unless you happen to stay right under that white light street lamp you mention :p, even some of the brightest deep sky objects such as the Orion Nebula or M31 galaxy are easily seen with everything from a good pair of 10x50 binoculars going up. Of course anything fainter than that will be out of question without moving under darker skies. The city is the realm of moderate aperture, long tube refractors and catadioptrics.

Burke said:
I have been on the fence over it for years. If i get one it wont be cheap. There is a hatch that leads up to the roof of my block. Im not allowed up there :) I always liked to imagine i could put one on the roof, run a wire down thru my window and then view it on my screen/s
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I'm all for goto systems and digital viewing of celestial objects, but there's something in the "ancient" way of manually searching them in the sky and seeing them directly through an eyepiece that makes that worth the time, and sometimes the cold. A bit like reading an ebook compared to its traditional paper counterpart. The content is the same, as is the enjoyment it provides, but something just clicks differently to me.

As for "going cheap": leaving aside the toy store plastic junk, when talking about proper products just remember that a "relatively cheap" 200£ scope isn't necessarily worth half of a 400£ one. The first thing to take into account is making sure of buying the right instrument for the right work. You wouldn't be advised of buying a screwdriver if you are planning on hammering nails. ;)


Back to the original topic of the thread. That's Venus. :)
 
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Darkfyre99

Darkfyre99
Besides Venus, I noticed this morning that Jupiter is now in the pre-dawn sky as I went outside to load up our empty pallets onto last night’s truck at work. It was between Venus and the horizon. At first, I thought it was Mercury, but I whipped out my phone to check my Star Chart app. That means I’ll get to see it wander across the sky again as I go to work each morning.
 

AkenBosch

AkenBosch
Darkfyre99 said:
At first, I thought it was Mercury, but I whipped out my phone to check my Star Chart app. That means I’ll get to see it wander across the sky again as I go to work each morning.
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Mercury is rather tiny and dim to the naked eye, it's not so easily seen being so close to the Sun, by far the hardest of the naked eye planets to see. On my long term list of things to frame with the scope, for now not worth the early wake up or the risk of burning half my gear and a retina straying to the Sun by accident :D.
I'll surely find the right time for it some day.
 

Noogillim

Noogillim
Even with a simple set of Binoculars low mag and large aperture say 7x50 so not to shakey you can get a rewarding view of objects in the night sky and easily portable.

When Jupiter is in view you can normally easily make out its 4 largest moons.

With Venus you should be able to make out its phase.

Obviously never ever look at the sun directly even unaided.
 

Darkfyre99

Darkfyre99
*looks at sky*
*looks at weather forecast*

Dang it! :(

Well... for anyone up before dawn and has clear skies, Venus and Jupiter will be passing each other in the sky over the next five days. I'm not sure when they added it, www.timeanddate.com have a marvelous Night Sky web app currently in beta. I've been checking out the early morning skies before I leave for work. :)
 
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