Some quick and easy things to spot in the West-Southwest if you have clear skies in that direction. Binoculars are essential to see the dimmer objects. Venus is the easiest to spot--no binoculars needed to find it!The relative positions of the three planets and Spica on Sunday night and Monday night will not be as nicely spaced as in the above picture (forming a diamond shape).
The above picture shows their positions on Tuesday night only. If you go out to look on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, you will notice changes in their positions every night! Wow!
To get a perspective on how positions change, the picture below shows their positions last Thursday. Venus and Mars were nearly touching! Or go to: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog
In the blog about Venus, go down 4 paragraphs and click on Quicktime movie.
9 comments:
Sounds like a star party needs to happen. . .
I'm for that!
Yet another good reason to move to Orem.. Star Parties. Sigh.
Em: with Albuquerque's great views of the Western horizon, you should have no trouble spotting these objects. And if you take your cell phone and if Jen has hers, it would almost like being together!
fhujoi=sounds sorta like faux-joy only different?
Stars...There are too many and I get all disoriented and cranky when I look up at that mess. I only know one star for sure and that is the Sun.
"ffehxlav" the sound you make when you look at the night sky and don't know what you are seeing.
shy: that's why this particular attempt should be so easy: there are still so few to see at 30 minutes after sunset
I will have to take Evan out to the yard so he can see it. Maybe we could capture all of it through his telescope.
acrchuex: an archer sneezing
I remember taking an Astronomy class with Dave at TVI in ABQ. Dave was quite the Astronomer. Either that or a kiss ass with the professor. Tehehe!!
ssmimubm - what happens when you throw your brother under the bus.
Alas: the western horizon was a bit murky with smoke and thin clouds, but our main problem was the home teachers came at 8pm (the time when we needed to be out there with our binoculars), and by the time we looked at 8:20, the only thing still left above the horizon was Venus. <:(
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