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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."
" And while star-gazers will be able to obscure all three planets simply by holding their outstretched thumb to the sky, Young reminds them appearances can be deceiving.
"In reality, the planets are millions of kilometres apart," he said. "They only appear close in the sky because of our perspective. Saturn is actually over a billion kilometres behind Mercury."
Oh thank God. I thought they were all going to crash into one another, showering the earth with deadily meteors or something. THANK YOU for thet reminder, Mr. Young.
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Venus is similar - but less so.
Saturn is often in the sky, and is a beautiful sight through a telescope.
I can't wait to see them all so close together - Let's hope for clear skies!
This event has convinced me to buy a telescope! I must see this first hand. What sort of telescope would be ideal for an amateur astronomer such as myself to view such a planetary event?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Considering I live in Houston, I doubt I'll be seeing anything. Light pollution is atrocious. When I want to see the night sky, I have to go camping.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I want to know what odds the people in Vegas are giving to Mercury. I've got a lucky feeling about that planet!
Some people are idiots. Other people are not.
Binoculars and a star chart.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
It promises a stellar show for star-gazers.
I'm afraid you've misunderstood this. It's not a stellar, it's planetary.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
When aligned, the planets will fit into a piece of sky the same size as a full moon.
Is that the low hanging moon or the smaller moon?
liqbase
After a six car US F1 GP, only three planets racing this weekend?
Business Voyeur
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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Sigs are like arse-holes, everybody has one
I don't see how this is so unusual, since it's an astrologer's job to look into the future, not to look into space (that would be an astronomer's job).
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(for the ill-informed, it's the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey that goes: duhhhh....duhhh....DUHHHHHH... [dun dun dun dun dun dun])
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! =)
At least camping is an option. I live on the East Coast, and real darkness is many hours away. And even then the horizons are usually obscured by trees. But even I can see the conjunction.
I'm sure the light pollution is pretty bad in Houston, but Saturn and Venus are easily visible even against that, and given those indicators it's not hard to find Mercury. You may have to go to the 'burbs rather than in the city proper, but I bet you could find it on top of a large building. The planets are pretty bright, and the problem in a city is more about horizon than light pollution.
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.
Thing is, the conjunction isn't really all that interesting, scientifically. It's interesting mostly because it's rare, and it's a way to get the vigorously nonscientific to actually watch the planets move across the sky. Go out on two successive nights and you can watch them move relative to each other.
No biggie for your college-educated, Slashdot-reading brain, but a lot of people are bored stiff by science. Turn on Jeopardy some day and watch as the board clears of every category except Science. Not always, but too often.
There's an awful lot of people who don't really get how the planetary orbits work, and probably DO think that they would collide. I bet you know at least some of them. Take them out and show them the conjunction. Take them out on successive nights and describe how we can figure out the heliocentric universe from the observations.
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...
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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"
It has the inside track.
I found some simulation images:
...
/
Here is photo1:
Here is the zoomed in annotated version:
Mercury Venus
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o o o
\
Saturn
liqbase
No, Saturn is currently on the opposite side of the sun from us, so we are not between them.