Planets

Nick R · Mar 21, 2012

It was beautiful tonight. Warm, and clear. Venus was extremely bright, so I thought I would attempt to take some long-exposure shorts with my Canon 12MP point-and-shoot. Imageshack killed the pictures a little bit, I recommend checking out the fullscreen in the direct links at the bottom.
Relatively poor pictures of Orion & Sirius

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Sirius
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/4569/img1955wg.jpg

Venus(top) and Jupiter

Mars

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http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/2336/img1941z.jpg
http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/5519/img1936i.jpg
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/2955/img1952kh.jpg
http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/2816/img1951sp.jpg
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/5016/img1943ft.jpg
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/4569/img1955wg.jpg
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/9121/img1957gr.jpg

Popinski · Mar 21, 2012

So beautiful. Thank you.

simple_gifts · Mar 21, 2012

Stellarium is a good program that shows the night sky in real time and allows one to speed up the motion; shows satellites also; a good resource for those who look @ the night sky.

http://www.stellarium.org/

RoGuE · Mar 21, 2012

I've been watching the Jupiter, Venus and Mars now for a couple weeks. Astonishing to be able to see them with just your eyes.

That Stellarium program looks interesting. i'll try it out.

Nick R · Mar 21, 2012

If you have an android phone there is this great app, called starchart. It's a few dollars, but it's worth it. It finds where you are using GPS and then using the built in motion detectors or whatever it moves as you move it, showing you what you are looking at. It's pretty cool.

rpn453 · Mar 22, 2012

Those apps make a phone a good toy for the hot tub! I only recently realized how obvious the planets can be. Venus has been spectacularly bright at sunset for the last few months. Mars and Jupiter have also been much brighter than any stars. I'm pretty sure Saturn is visible lower in the eastern horizon late at night too. Only as bright as a star, but sort of orange and without the flicker.

Pop_Rivit · Mar 23, 2012

One of the rewards of living in a rural area-when I step out onto the deck or walk back into the pasture on a cloudless night I get to see an incredible display of planets and stars. It's not all that unusual to faintly see the aurora borealis.

ridgerunner · Mar 23, 2012

Yup, been seening these for a while now. I knew they were planets but wasn't sure which ones. I used to know all this stuff but have gotten lazy. Thanks for the info! Keep em' coming!

crinkles · Mar 23, 2012

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Stellarium is a good program that shows the night sky in real time and allows one to speed up the motion; shows satellites also; a good resource for those who look @ the night sky.

http://www.stellarium.org/

thank you. that is a great link. Running it now!

sleddriver · Mar 24, 2012

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Stellarium is a good program that shows the night sky in real time and allows one to speed up the motion; shows satellites also; a good resource for those who look @ the night sky.

http://www.stellarium.org/

Another good free one is Cartes du Ciel.