Posted on 06/26/2015 7:06:32 PM PDT by ETL
Look up, and somewhere in the western portion of the sky right now, or anytime in the next several weeks, an hour or so after sunset, and you'll see two very bright "star-like" objects. The brighter of the two (by a lot) is Venus, the other Jupiter. Venus, slightly smaller than Earth is currently about 51 million miles away. Jupiter, roughly 12 Earth diameters across, 560 million.
bttt
Waxing moon right along side too...
Just caught the pair as I was leaving. Ran back in, turned on the computer, and posted the thread. Now I need to find excuse as to why I’m a few minutes late! :)
Yep, I’ve been watching them come closer for a few weeks. Right at sundown, they’re easily the brightest and first to appear.
I recently got a modest telescope, not real powerful, but its enough to see Jupiter’s four largest moons. Very cool. Never saw that before with my own eyes.
I hope they bump into us and put us out of our misery.
Not here in middle Tennessee. It’s raining.
Enjoy this conjunction
The next half way decent evening conjunction between Venus - Jupiter won’t happen until 2023 (they meet early morning Oct. 2015 and Jan 2019),
But did anyone notice that third star next to them that looks like it has a big X on it?
I have on a number of days this month seen Venus during the day.
It’s quite dim, comparatively, kind of like a night light in the distance - but it is, (or was three days ago) visible.
“I recently got a modest telescope, not real powerful, but its enough to see Jupiter’s four largest moons.”
I don’t know how large your telescope is or if it has a guidance system, but IMO these are some easy, low-investment suggestions to take a look at:
1. Saturn (now)
2. The Orion Nebula (winter)
3. The Ring Nebula (not hard to find and almost “straight up” in summer)
4. You can hardly avoid things to look at in Sagittarius, too bad it’s low in the south in almost all of the US and doesn’t stay “up” very long in the summer
5. The Andromeda Galaxy (fall)
6. M13 Globular cluster (fall)
I am steadfastly avoiding a “go-to” telescope, because “that’s cheating”.
I thought that I might be interested in digital astrophotography but it’s been done and it is a big financial and time investment to take “really good” images.
There are really no substitutes for a dark sky (get out of the city) and night vision (read about how to prepare and maintain night vision when doing astronomy).
I have avoided “inchitis” disease with my telescopes. This is like “footitis” disease in boating except it’s actually much, much more expensive.
Saw it last night, it was a clear night. Tonight it was too cloudy. But it was spectacular last night.
That is cool.
It’s raining bulldogs and catfish here in Indiana.
Didn’t Cher say she was going to Jupiter?
Has the white house bathed them in rainbow colors?
Bend and stretch, reach for the stars, there goes Jupiter, here comes Mars...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIRu8-5Nyek
“I am steadfastly avoiding a “go-to” telescope, because “that’s cheating”.”
It’s a moral outrage actually.
GOTO is ok for photography, otherwise, you’re not observing, you’re just looking.
I can pretty much find all of the Messier objects from memory, why would I want to do it any other way?
As for Venus and Jupiter, give it a few more nights. They are getting closer and closer.
I looked at it the other night with my new 20-inch monster telescope and it appeared to have the Nation of Islam logo on it. So it could be Screwy Louie’s long-awaited Mother Ship, coming to take him and his followers back to wherever the heck they came from.
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