Puzzlebrains

I thought it'd be nice to have a thread where we could mention things you can spot in the night sky.

Last night (about 2am after battling with a Scurra puzzle) I saw a really really bright object in the sky. It turns out it's JUPITER. It's absolutely splendid, and well worth a squint!

Grab yourself a telescope. Even a quite low powered one will do. You should be able to see the stripes, the spot (if it's in the right place), and maybe one or four-ish of the moons. Stunning. Plus, If you have got Jupiter then Saturn should not be far away. Get that baby in the view finder and it starts to bring on all sort of "insignificant" type feelings etc etc.

Cheers. BB.

Well, I'm spending next week camping, so I might get to see some nice things in the sky - if it ever stops raining!!!!

BassBloke wrote:Plus, If you have got Jupiter then Saturn should not be far away.

Actually, if you get Jupiter, it's Neptune which is nearby, not Saturn. Saturn is in the constellation of Leo, and it's only visible just after sunset. Jupiter and Neptune are in Capricornus, practically on the opposite side of the sky.

Laura wrote:Well, I'm spending next week camping, so I might get to see some nice things in the sky - if it ever stops raining!!!!

Ahhh Camping. Lying there, looking at the night sky in all it's wonderful magesty and thinking you yourself.
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"Which rotten swine has knicked my tent???"

Grab yourself a telescope.

Most of us just happen to have one handy

Well, I'm spending next week camping,

Laura, I hope you aren't planning camping on the East Yorkshire Coast. If so go somewhere else instead. Its not stopped absolutely throwing it down for days and the campers on our park are leaving in droves. Its going to take a while for the ground to recover.

MBH wrote:

Laura wrote:Well, I'm spending next week camping, so I might get to see some nice things in the sky - if it ever stops raining!!!!

Ahhh Camping. Lying there, looking at the night sky in all it's wonderful magesty and thinking you yourself.
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"Which rotten swine has knicked my tent???"

GROAN!

BassBloke wrote:Grab yourself a telescope. Even a quite low powered one will do.

Or you could try living in the centre of London, when even seeing the Moon in a clear night sky is sometimes quite an achievement

That's a terrible shame. I love to sit and look at the stars. When there were meteor showers last I had a sleeping bag on the bench in the garden, and I lay there for hours and hours just watching. Brilliant. I really notice a difference in how much more I can see when I'm in Devon (I've got relatives there too) - so much less light pollution.

You all are so lucky! On a good day, I might see three stars in the sky. We bought a telescope years back so I could show Katherine the stars. It's too bad we have so much light around from the buildings that it doesn't work.

The last summer I went home, I climbed dads garage roof and pulled up a telescope. The sky is such an amazing thing isn't it! I stayed up there for hours just looking.

I'm camping in sherwood forest, so hopefully it won't be that horrendous weather-wise. I think at the moment, the weather forecast is just for irritation-level drizzle all week!

well we've actually got sun........
i know almost unheard of especially with newspaper ths morning saying summers over rain till end of august......

the most amazing sky I saw was when staying on Iona - no street lights for miles. Never really sat and looked at the Milky Way in all its glory before. Took some pics on really slow exposure (of long lines as the stars moved), only to have them returned from the developer (back in the days before digital photography) with sticker over them accusing me of camera shake....

Oh dear!

I'm being forced to go camping for the ONE AND ONLY NIGHT EVER on Sunday and I'm praying for torrential rain so I can sleep in the car !

Sorry to all those out there who actual like this pursuit, but if God meant me to camp he would have made me a girl guide !

strep98 wrote:I'm being forced to go camping for the ONE AND ONLY NIGHT EVER on Sunday and I'm praying for torrential rain so I can sleep in the car !

If its torrential rain - I wouldnt be sleeping in the car - I would be planning my escape to the nearest B&B

I was thinking more 4 stars myself, but I don't think I'll get it. I have just decided I must be very high maintenance

Ah Cenwulf. Just to clarify a few things.

I am lucky enough to live in a fairly low light area.

The last time I did any serious star gazing was maybe 10 years ago-ish. That winter Jupiter and Saturn were definitly together in the sky (as were Uranus and Neptune in the very early evening - very low in the sky). I suppose they have all jiggled around a bit since then (as I suppose they do all the time now I come to think about it).

What I do know is:

A good shot on Saturn is ASTOUNDING.
A good shot on Jupiter is simply captivating.
It gets very cold in January and February once the sun has gone down.
If you want a quick hit, get a set of binoculars, EVERYONE has those just lying around don't they?? and point tham at the visible rim of the moon. You can see craters and everything. However, concrete evidence of the Apollo landings is probalby harder to spot.

Sorry if I mislead anyone previously, my knowledge of astronomy is VERY limited.

Cheers. BB.

Don't worry BB. It was the sentiment I was interested in anyway. I've never seen the planets through a proper telescope - that's something I'd love to do. It sounds wonderful.

The kids used to have this brilliant cd thing called Dorling Kindersley Space Explorer, which was fab. It had a star scope you could plug in your approximate location and the date, and it would give you a star chart for each direction, and if you hovered your mouse over the various stars you could find out what they were, and go and find out fascinating facts about them. It was using this that I worked out one year that I was looking at Mars (was wondering why there was a red star!!), and when I looked it up I discovered the reason it's red (well I knew that much) is that the surface is covered with iron oxide - RUST!!!!

Sadly it won't run, even on my antiquated pc any more. Shame.

You could have a look at Encyclopedia Galactica which is quite technical, but you can click items on the star chart and it will fetch info and images provided by NASA and the Hubble Telescope etc etc.

Also, for a view of what's in the sky, and sounds like your DK program would have been like this http://www.stellarium.org/