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Three Planets Racing this Weekend
William Robinson writes "This report asks you to keep your eyes on the skies this weekend, when a rare triple-planetary alignment is going to happen. It promises a stellar show for star-gazers. Scott Young of the Manitoba Museum Planetarium says the planets in question -- Mercury, Venus and Saturn -- are all big enough to be seen without a telescope."
Some people are idiots. Other people are not.
Binoculars and a star chart.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The event itself (meaning the triple-constellation) is probably best observed with the naked eye, or a simple pair of binoculars, because any decent telescope will have a smaller field of view than the area the three planets will be spread out over.
Even with binoculars (when mounted to a tripod), you will be able to see a faint indication of Saturn's rings (indicated by the fact that it doesn't look like a symmetric blob, but just a little stretched along the horizontal axis. Galileo, when he first saw this with similar equipment, thought he was seeing three bodies right next to each other). You will also see some of Saturn's moons, and the current phase of Venus.
Real astronomer's equipment can of course get you much much further.
For some informative information on this "rare" event have a looko n_mercury_venus_saturn.html?2362005/
at http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/conjuncti
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A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
Not specifically for this event, but a really awesome simulator for astronomy stuff in general is celestia. http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
Click on the earth, hit g (actually celestia starts you at earth), you can hit o to mark orbits to make it easier to find the planets (hit p to show labels to identify the planets themselves.)
I hit shift-g to go to the surface of earth and then find the planets. Can give you a good idea where to look really. Being on the surface isn't particularly important at first, don't want the planet being between you and your destination until you are sure it wouldn't be.
It doesn't always much like things really do, especially with atmospheric simulation not being particularly complex in celestia, but it is cool none the less. Particularly to click on one of the three planets close together, hit g, then look at everything from their perspective.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
From the article: "To catch the show, go outside after sunset today and find a spot with a clear view of the western horizon, Young said. As the sky darkens, Venus will be the first astral body to emerge, as it's the brightest object in the heavens after the sun and moon. Mercury and Saturn will show themselves soon afterward -- both being about as bright as the other, and shining with a pale, yellowish light."
Tom
Hello,
If you need a good starchart to find stars/constellations/planets, i have one big recommendation for you, it's called skymap:
http://skymap.com/products.htm
you can use it in a demo version which is already very useful for a starter.
Way to go! =)
I almost fell out of my chair when I RTFA. "Mercury is a planet few people, even astrologers, have ever seen." WTF? Is this Slashdot or the Nancy Reagan hotline? There's a better article at Sky and Telescope without any of the mumbo jumbo.
Well, assuming we are all in a straight line, 2D model... but not all orbits move on the same speed, and our only view of the heavenly sky isn't a direct path to the sun...
So imagine looking up from earth, towards the sun, then to the sun's 11:15, let's say... we have a line up...
They aren't all at the same "position" in their orbits, but they may line up...
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
To see what it looks like you could go to APOD, which is good for your little daily Astronomy fix/news.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
No, Saturn is currently on the opposite side of the sun from us, so we are not between them.
Lost a planet, Master 5plicer has. How embarassing, how embarassing.o larsytem.gif
Overview of our current solar system: http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y252/CaseGvtgj/s
Dobsonian telescopes are very easy to use, beginner models are not very expensive and at the same time, you get the most bang for your buck, because the morror sizes on dobsonian telescopes tend to be a lot bigger than on refractors you would get at department stores for the same price. You can get a 4.5" Orion SkyQuest dobsonian telescope for $199 and really see a lot with it, tyr this url http://www.telescope.com/shopping/product/detailma in.jsp?itemID=364&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=4&iSub Cat=9&iProductID=364.
You might find these at a near by planetarium.
If you are in a big city, even a very big telescope won't help you much because of all the light pollution. But on clear skies in the middle of nowhere, the 4.5" dobsonian will really let you see lot's of things. Tonight, you should be able to see all three planets really well with a 35mm or 45mm eyepiece. If you don't want to spend the money on a telescope, get some binoculars, but a telescope is a lot more fun once you get into it. Also, before you go, open up KStars, if you have Linux, that will help you with finding where things are at in the sky. Good luck!
There are lots of astronomical programs. One small, simple and free one is Starcalc. Just set it up with your latitude and longitude and it'll show you the sky at any time past present or future. Anyway, this shows that this is not a brief duration event like an eclipse but the three planets are very close over several days.