Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

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alig99
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Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby alig99 » Thu Jun 03, 2010 10:51 pm

I have been trying to find the website that Ken Campbell use to run about what you can see in the night sky above the Costa del Sol but I can't seem to pick up the URL through Google. Does anyone have it or perhaps advise me if he still has one? or perhaps recommend any other sites on this subject. many thanks Ali

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby pete_l » Fri Jun 04, 2010 12:11 am

You can have a look at my little astronomy website. This page (link) has some maps of the sky right at the bottom. Click on the one for the current evening map and so long as your browser has popups enabled, you can get an interactive chart of the sky as seen in Andalucia.
If you want to get serious, there's a free software package called Stellarium (link here) that you can download. Once you have that, I have a "skin" that I produced which overlays the scenery and landscape from Cuevas del Negro onto the sky, so it appears just as if you were there!

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby casaalba » Fri Jun 04, 2010 9:36 am

Without cutting across Pete I there is a NASA sight (HSF) which gives projected sightings of the International Space Station (ISS) and other NASA launched things with dates and timings. The only problem is that there nearest location I can get is for Malaga.
Pete, I will have a look at your recommendation as without knowing anything about astronomy etc, it really fascinates me.

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby gerryh » Fri Jun 04, 2010 9:40 am

Have a look at http://www.heavens-above.com for ISS.
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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby alig99 » Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:29 am

Hi thanks to everyone for your replies. I'm very much a novice on the tecno front but will give it a go. We have only a little light pollution where we are and the night sky is usually very clear, I can identify some of the stars but not all and I am interested in knowing what the really bright star/planet is that I can currently see in the west, I think it might be Venus? Anyway again thanks I'll be checking out your recommendations. kind regards Ali

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby gerryh » Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:55 am

Also there's Google Earth where you can see the sky above your house.
Zoom into different parts to identify which planet, star etc you can see.
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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby alig99 » Fri Jun 04, 2010 12:40 pm

thanks Gerry :thumbup:

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby pete_l » Fri Jun 04, 2010 12:48 pm

alig99 wrote:Hi thanks to everyone for your replies. I'm very much a novice on the tecno front but will give it a go. We have only a little light pollution where we are and the night sky is usually very clear, I can identify some of the stars but not all and I am interested in knowing what the really bright star/planet is that I can currently see in the west, I think it might be Venus? Anyway again thanks I'll be checking out your recommendations. kind regards Ali
Yes, the bright one in the north-west shortly after sunset is Venus.
Later on (10 - 11pm) you can see 2 more planets. Mars is just by the front "foot" of Leo and Saturn is behind Leo and a bit higher up than Mars.

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby alig99 » Fri Jun 04, 2010 1:01 pm

Thanks Pete, I will have look tonight for Mars and Saturn; I'll have to find Leo first though, hope thats not to much of a challange :lol: ali

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby alig99 » Fri Jun 04, 2010 10:58 pm

Pete, would you believe it, its too cloudy to see much tonight, tried with the bino's but still had problems but I'll keep going. My parents, especially my mum taught me as a child lots of the star patterns, such as little bear, orion's belt and of course the plough, unfortunately the plough was the only one now I recognised, but have spent some time today doing a refresher course thanks to google. Hopefully the cloud will not hang around tomorrow night and I will have more success. best wishes Ali

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby pietree » Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:05 pm

If you have an Android phone and download Google Sky you may be amazed what you can learn.

My phone has Wifi and GPS and compass and it finds my location and when I hold the phone up it tells me every planet in the direction I point it even planets below me. Truly amazing, Hope Im not too much off topic.

I am looking for planet Nibiru, it should be quite close now
Thats it for now

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby Retro P » Sat Jun 05, 2010 12:48 am

pete_l wrote:You can have a look at my little astronomy website. This page (link) has some maps of the sky right at the bottom. Click on the one for the current evening map and so long as your browser has popups enabled, you can get an interactive chart of the sky as seen in Andalucia.
If you want to get serious, there's a free software package called Stellarium (link here) that you can download. Once you have that, I have a "skin" that I produced which overlays the scenery and landscape from Cuevas del Negro onto the sky, so it appears just as if you were there!
On a slightly different tack perhaps you can help me here, several years ago my missus bought me an astronomy telescope for my birthday,I believe it's a Bressard,I have no clue how to focus the damn thing although it was supplied with a variety of lenses, do you know of any websites that offer hints on how to use it, and believe me I am a total novice but having it I think I may as well get some pleasure from it !!
Ah! the full english!!

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby pete_l » Sat Jun 05, 2010 9:02 am

First thing I'd suggest is to get familiar with it in day time
I assume it looks (or should, when set up :) ) something like this:Image
Have a look at the eyepieces you've got. One big difference between them is the size of the lens inside the rubber cap. The bigger the lens, the less magnification you'll get. Strangely, magnification is not what you're after - at least not to start with. Choose the one with the largest lens and plop that in the eyepiece holder. Remember to do up the screw in the holder, so the eyepiece doesn't fall out!
If the telescope came with a right-angled piece that goes between the eyepiece and the main telescope you *will* need this. You probably won't get it to focus unless it's in place. You can rotate this around (it doesn't have to point upwards) until it's at a comfortable height. Make sure that the screw holding the right-angle is tight, as well.

Point the telescope at something about a mile away. Now use the wheel near the eyepiece to move the tube in and out. At some point you should start to see an image - it'll probably be upside down.
Once you can see things through the telescope, adjust the small viewfinder on the top, so that its cross-hairs are centred on the same thing. At night, you'll use the 'finder to line up the telescope with what you want to look at.

Normally for astronomy you'll use a low-power (i.e. low magnification) eyepiece. At least to get close to what you want to see, and once it's within view swap to higher power. It's deceptively hard to point at something in the sky just by dead-reckoning. Also, a lot of astronomical views are fairly large. The reason we can't see them without a telescope is because they're not very bright.

The other thing you'll need to become familiar with are the knobs used to turn the telescope on it's mount. All the stars and planets move across the sky (going round once a day!, blimey - how's that for insight!) and although it's imperceptibly slow when you just look, the higher magnification of a telescope speeds this up, so things will move across your field of view pretty fast - the higher the magnification, the faster they go and the harder it is to keep them in view. Anyway, back to the knobs. One will move the telescope left - right and the other moves it up/down. Become familiar with these, again in daytime is easiest.

Once you've got it all set up and are ready to go, just wait until it gets dark and the clouds roll in. As Ali has discovered, Murphy's law rules with astronomy. Whenever there is something interesting to see, or you have a free evening the weather usually cocks it up.

If you want something interesting to aim for with your new-found telescope skills, there's a comet that should be visible for the next week or two. Have a look at this website to see just where it will be. It's probably too dim to "eyeball" but will show up as a fuzzy blob in your telescope.

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby Retro P » Sat Jun 05, 2010 9:19 pm

Pete thanks for what appears to be a comprehensive insight to this subject, I'll have a go and see what happens, let you know.
Ah! the full english!!

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby Rogue » Wed Jun 23, 2010 8:17 am

Re Ken Campbells site. I called the paper which he is in and they said he was updating his site and it would be back up and running when he done with it. I am still waiting

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby pietree » Wed Jun 23, 2010 5:24 pm

Is Nibiru visible again yet?
Thats it for now

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby Rogue » Thu Jun 24, 2010 2:03 pm

Ken Campbell site is up and running again. It's a great little site for novices like me. www.kencampbell.info

Which is the answer to your original question. By the response your post has had, I think we star gazer should have our own forum!

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby pete_l » Thu Jun 24, 2010 4:23 pm

Rogue wrote: By the response your post has had, I think we star gazer should have our own forum!
Or just post in the Food, Drink, Recipes & Gastronomysection. Close enough, shirley?

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Re: Star Gazing! Those bright things in the sky not movie stars!

Postby pete_l » Sat Jun 26, 2010 5:33 pm

Just in case anyone's outside, looking up at around 22:20 this evening, there's a fairly bright pass of the space station this evening. Here's a chart showing the track, from South-West - North-East
Image

More at http://www.heavens-above.com


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