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Monday's Planet Views Best Until 2036
An anonymous reader writes "NASA is reporting that Monday night, March 22nd, offers a rare, naked-eye glimpse of our five prominent astronomical neighbors--Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and the Moon--in close proximity in the night sky, near to the familiar Orion constellation. This contrasts with the picture of the 'Fab Five' shot by Voyager looking back on the inner solar system. Monday's aligned view is not likely to appear in this configuration again until 2036."
I'd say it's pretty much certain that we won't see that configuration again until 2036, unless Jupiter is knocked out of orbit or something...
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
The 35mm camera and the 28mm widefield lens are ready. :) Wish my digital could do longer exposures...
Get outside and take a look at the sky during the next couple weeks. It's worth it. Having this many planets in this small a section of sky doesn't happen very often. Take your kids out there too, and explain to them what they are seeing (it's a good time to demonstrate to them that planets really don't twinkle like stars do, and why - they can see the evidence with their own eyes.)
Oh, and there will almost certainly be a lot of good pix on alt.binaries.pictures.astro after the 22nd.
Clear skies everyone.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
And if you need help identifying which is which, or exactly where they are, Stellarium is a great GPL'd product available for Linux, Win and Mac.
Sourceforge page
It's nice to regularly see stories like this without having the dreaded doomsday angle.
Of course there's always a catch to these stories: You won't see anything like this until (insert far-off date here). With so many fascinating things in astronomy, you'll have plenty of opportunities to see an amazing show on any given clear night.
If you have access to one, that is. Unfortunately, with the exception of Jupiter and Saturn, don't expect too much. Mars is 6 months past opposition, and very small in a scope, even at high power. Venus won't show much more than a featureless gibbous disk. Jupiter and Saturn will show a wealth of detail, however. Saturn is in the constellation Gemini, and Jupiter is in Leo. The best time for both is when they are up highest in the sky, which for Saturn is as soon as you can see it, and Jupiter hits the zenith about midnight. Check out Clear Sky Clocks for your area and pay close attention to the "Seeing" forecast if you are using a scope. Happy observing! Oh yeah, don't forget to check out the Moon. It will set early, and won't show much "face" to check out telescopically. A cool thing to show your non-astronomical significant other is to draw line through the ecliptic with your finger and then tell them to think how we are between Venus and Mars. Most people will be impressed.
I saw the story and got excited: I better go outside now! Bundle (just below freezing up, and I see fog. :( Two bright objects in the sky, I'm guessing one is Venus, the other Mars, or maybe Jupiter. (You can see how much an astronomer I am from that) After a few minutes I could see a few stars, but it was clear that there is little chance of seeing much more, and nothing would be clear.
I know, the problem astronomers everywhere face. Still wish it hadn't happened tonight. Lession to everyone: go out every night and look, since the first night isn't until tomorrow and I have 8-10 days of really good viewing I have a chance to see something. Don't blow your chance, if tonight is the only clear night in a while you will kick yourself for not spending a least a few minutes outside looking.
I live in the country, but still my neighbor across the street with his one light on was enough to annoy my viewing. Went the the backyard and discovered that a monitor makes a very good light to see by. I'll have to do something about that in the morning when I try again.
P.S. If you are in the Twin Cities are you are welcome to attempt a viewing from my yard. Better than the city, though not nearly as good as heading way out would be.
Just a quick correction: the five objects visible include Mercury, not necessarily the moon. See the article for details.
Well, I think it is really romantic. ;-)
Since the phrase "far proximity" makes no logical sense, then is not the phrase "near proximity" equally nonsense?
Things are in proximity, or they are not.
I had downloaded Stellarium over a year ago when my young son was first starting to be interested in stars. Haven't used it much, but kept it installed on the computer. That was why I remembered it to do the parent post.
I started poking around the sourceforge forum, and not only is my version out of date, but they are actively working on a project to add constellation overlays into the display. Check out Ursa Major and a toucan constellation I'm not familiar with.
Cool stuff.
Thats pretty cool, but a little further down the page I found this...
...
Orions Belt Viewed From Mars
Thats pretty cool! I used celestia some while ago to find out what orion looked like from Mars and this shows just how accurate that program is.
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
From the article:
In April and May of this year, two naked-eye comets, C/2001 Q4 and C/2002 T7, will grace the twilight skies. To spot the cosmic balls of dust and ice look to the west at dusk or dawn.
Look to the west at dusk *or* dawn? Yeah right. Probably got shortened by an overzealous editor from the correct "to the west at dusk or the east at dawn". Amazingly inept editing for an astrobiology site. The linked article has more (and correct) information.
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard