Starship Asterisk*

starstruck wrote:Ann, I don't think you should feel too bad about not being able to see Venus. It has so far eluded me too . . and I have looked and looked, night after night, when the sky has been clear enough. I have used the Stellarium program to check where it should be and I can see what the problem is, at least from my location. I have hills to the south and west of my position and they effectively block any possible view of Venus because it is so low in the south-western sky by the time the twilight has darkened enough for it to be visible. It is dark here by around 4:30, but even if from my viewpoint the south-western horizon was much less hilly, Venus will already have most likely set.

For you at sunset, Venus is still 10° above the horizon. That may not sound like much, but actually it is quite high. Even in the mountains, the surrounding peaks are not likely to be that high. And Venus remains in your sky for two hours after sunset, moving from nearly south to the southwest, more parallel to the horizon than perpendicular.

I can see Venus here before the Sun sets, against the blue sky (that requires very clear air, though). The instant the Sun is below the horizon, however, it is easily seen... once you first pick it out. It is very bright, and does not require dark skies. Try binoculars, and scan low in the south. Once you see it with those, you should be able to pick it out without aid.

Chris Peterson wrote:

rstevenson wrote:Do you have any astronomy software? You can find inexpensive software which can tell you exactly where to look, usually doing so in a picture of the sky format.

You don't even need to install any software. There are good star charts available on that display in your browser. Sky View Cafe is a nice one. Just put in your location (Malmö isn't in the predefined list, but for most purposes, Copenhagen is a suitable alternative) and pick your time. You can enable display of the ecliptic and see how it changes with the time. And of course, you can see what stars, constellations, and planets are visible, and where in the sky they are (or were, or will be).

Thank you for this suggestion, Chris. I just downloaded it (I had to install Java first). Venus has set by now, and the weather is really bad - it was raining cats and dogs as I was cycling home! Uuugghh!! And the weather report has promised similar weather all week, so we'll see when I may be able to search for Venus again. When I do, I'm sure the site you suggested is going to be useful.

Chris, you said that Venus stays up for two hours after the Sun has set? Then it really ought to have been comparatively high in the sky when I started searching for it ten minutes after the Sun had set last Saturday.

I've been so confused about my inability to see Venus that I have started wondering if what I took to be Jupiter might have been Venus instead. But that isn't possible. Jupiter was quite high in the sky, and more importantly, it was in the southeast. Surely Venus can never be in the southeast in the afternoon sky.

Starstruck, I'm glad to hear from you! Thank you for telling me that you haven't been able to see Venus, either!

Ann

Ann wrote:Chris, you said that Venus stays up for two hours after the Sun has set? Then it really ought to have been comparatively high in the sky when I started searching for it ten minutes after the Sun had set last Saturday.

My guess is that you aren't looking far enough to the south (left) of the Sun. And as Venus sets, it is actually moving more sideways (right) than it is downward. At an altitude of 21° at sunset, Venus shouldn't be hard to see... assuming you aren't looking through soupy skies, of course! Jupiter is only at an altitude of 24° at sunset, so if you can see it, you ought to be able to see Venus as well, visually at a similar height above the horizon, just SSW as opposed to ESE.

Two things. first, a white light meteor heading west, that just dropped into the atmosphere to warm up a little. Then i noticed a really big ring around the moon, about a good 3-moon diameters wide, with a radius of at least 24 moon diameters. The biggest ring-around-the-moon that I've ever seen!

Beyond wrote:Two things. first, a white light meteor heading west, that just dropped into the atmosphere to warm up a little. Then i noticed a really big ring around the moon, about a good 3-moon diameters wide, with a radius of at least 24 moon diameters. The biggest ring-around-the-moon that I've ever seen!

Lunar halos are always the same radius: 22° (thus, 44 moon diameters). It is pretty common to see a corona around the Moon, as well- a glowing, sometimes slightly colored blob much closer in.

Here's a meteor (heading NNE) and a 22° lunar halo caught on my camera yesterday morning.

Beyond wrote:Two things. first, a white light meteor heading west, that just dropped into the atmosphere to warm up a little. Then i noticed a really big ring around the moon, about a good 3-moon diameters wide, with a radius of at least 24 moon diameters. The biggest ring-around-the-moon that I've ever seen!

I heard somewhere that if you see a ring around the moon, rain is likely. I think it's caused by cirrostratus clouds building up in the atmosphere, foretelling a rain (precipitation) front.

Nice job seeing that meteor, too!

Chris Peterson wrote:

Beyond wrote:Two things. first, a white light meteor heading west, that just dropped into the atmosphere to warm up a little. Then i noticed a really big ring around the moon, about a good 3-moon diameters wide, with a radius of at least 24 moon diameters. The biggest ring-around-the-moon that I've ever seen!

Lunar halos are always the same radius: 22° (thus, 44 moon diameters). It is pretty common to see a corona around the Moon, as well- a glowing, sometimes slightly colored blob much closer in.

Here's a meteor (heading NNE) and a 22° lunar halo caught on my camera yesterday morning.

20111212_043832_001.jpg

Hmm... Always 44 moon diameters As I've said, that 's the Biggest one I've ever seen. Up til this one, they've always been smaller,some down to about 4 or 5 moon diameters for a radius. That's why i thought WOW!, when i saw this one. But then, i think i live in a s-t-r-a-n-g-e place. I was used to seeing bigger versions of Orion's belt, until Ann pointed me to the real one. I haven't seen the others since.

How odd. There is an article about Moon halos in today's Universe Today.

Wonderful Ice Halos | Adrian West | Universe Today | 2011 Dec 14

bystander wrote:How odd. There is an article about Moon halos in today's Universe Today.

Not that odd. 'Tis the season for them (in the northern hemisphere), and the Moon is currently high and bright.

Out exercising the dogs for three quarters of an hour or so this evening, giving myself a crick in the neck and not really looking properly where I was going, as I admired the Geminid light show up above. Never seen so many meteors over a thirty minute period, they were coming relatively thick and fast. Counted 25 between 8:30 and 9:00pm and, almost without exception, they seemed to be traveling roughly north-east to south-west. Best view of the Geminids I've ever had

starstruck wrote:Out exercising the dogs for three quarters of an hour or so this evening, giving myself a crick in the neck and not really looking properly where I was going, as I admired the Geminid light show up above. Never seen so many meteors over a thirty minute period, they were coming relatively thick and fast. Counted 25 between 8:30 and 9:00pm and, almost without exception, they seemed to be traveling roughly north-east to south-west. Best view of the Geminids I've ever had :D

That's the nice thing about the Geminids: the radiant rises just after sunset, and is in the sky all night. So it's not one of those typical showers that you only see the good stuff at 3am! When you were out, the radiant was still very low, which means that many meteors were near Earth-grazers, and should have had long trails.

I think the Geminids are the best meteor shower. Unfortunately, we had a little snow storm blow through last night, so I only saw a few between the clouds, and the camera only caught a couple dozen. Maybe it will be better tonight, even though the peak itself has passed.

WHAT? Another meteor shower?? No wonder it was cloudy last night and tonight. Damn clouds Oh, well, just one more event to add to my could not see list. Nothing new about that.

starstruck wrote:Out exercising the dogs for three quarters of an hour or so this evening, giving myself a crick in the neck and not really looking properly where I was going, as I admired the Geminid light show up above. Never seen so many meteors over a thirty minute period, they were coming relatively thick and fast. Counted 25 between 8:30 and 9:00pm and, almost without exception, they seemed to be traveling roughly north-east to south-west. Best view of the Geminids I've ever had

Congratulations, Starstruck! I'm so envious!

Ann

Beyond wrote:WHAT? Another meteor shower?? No wonder it was cloudy last night and tonight. Damn clouds Oh, well, just one more event to add to my could not see list. Nothing new about that.

You said it, Beyond!!!

Reminds me of all the times I would get myself out to the Oxie Observatory outside Malmö to see the Leonids. Guess what, it was completely overcast every single time. On one occasion, they had had a brilliantly clear night up in Stockholm, our capital, and the next day the Stockholm dailies wrote that there had been a veritable meteor storm over Stockholm that night! I was going crazy with envy!

It didn't help that an old man belonging to our astronomy club, a man with an unreliable bladder, had had to get up at about three in the morning on the night of the Leonidsto go to the bathroom, and afterwards he had looked out the window and seen the clouds part and a magnificent celestial show had played out even over Malmö. But the clouds close up again, the old man went to bed, and when I got up at about six, it was overcast again. That was before I started getting up so unbelieavbly early in the morning myself. Nowadays, three o'clock... hey, I get up before before three at least twice a week these days. And on every weekday, I get up not much later than four.

Ann

You say they call that part of the country the quiet corner, Beyond? They should probably call it the astronomically unsound corner!

I must have read this thread right before I went to sleep because I had a dream that I was back in Oklahoma and I got to see the meteor shower in vastly emphasized intensity over what I would realistically imagine it to be like.

TNT wrote:You say they call that part of the country the quiet corner, Beyond? They should probably call it the astronomically unsound corner!

After Rod Serling died, i think his 'essence' took up residence here.

geckzilla wrote:I must have read this thread right before I went to sleep because I had a dream that I was back in Oklahoma and I got to see the meteor shower in vastly emphasized intensity over what I would realistically imagine it to be like.

SEE?, that'll teach you to make remarks about -The Quiet Corner-. Now Rod Serling's 'essence' is visiting you.

Well, after searching the sky at dusk in vain for what seems like weeks and weeks now, I have at last had the most rewarding view of Venus this Sunday evening, as the last light drained from the sky, very low against the hills, in the south-west. So bright! So clear! Out there, twinkling away beautifully as I type this . . . big deal? . . you bet!

Last night while participating in the 38th (!) annual caroling party, I saw Orion hanging over houses decorated for various holidays.

Also occasional snow flurries.

I saw the Praesepe cluster early this morning.

owlice wrote:I saw Orion hanging over houses decorated for various holidays

I had the pleasure of a similar view myself and had just taken this picture from outside my own house a couple of evenings before:


The Hunter emerging from the cover of clouds to the east,
on his endless quest to capture one of the the fleet-footed Seven Sisters!




Orion, Hyades and Pleiades over the Yorkshire Dales, December 16th 2011

I'm hunting for lovejoy (the comet LOL)
Yesterday it was cloudy at the horizon, nothing to be found but I saw two very bright fireballs at dawn. Very surprising.
Today it was mostly clear, no fireballs and no signs of the comet yet.

I think I need to go earlier to have a reference and point a long lens towards the comet expected position. I'm arriving at dawn and there are almost no stars to use as a reference and Mercury is just a rough guide.

On December 2, Chris wrote:

It is impossible to miss on any clear evening shortly after sunset. Right now at that time, you have the extremely bright Venus in the west, and the extremely bright Jupiter (just past opposition) in the east. A pretty pair.

And since then, since December 2, I've been trying and trying to see Venus. On December 10, I saw something that I thought was Venus, but I wasn't absolutely sure; after all, I had been staring at the western and southwestern sky for half an hour at a time when Venus ought to have been in the sky, and I didn't see a thing except Jupiter. Then about twenty minutes later I saw something in the sky which I thought was Venus, although I wasn't really sure. The brightness of this object in the sky was sufficiently unimpressive that I asked myself afterwards if it had been Arcturus that I saw.

Well, tonight I saw Venus. Absolutely, truly and for real. I was on the train home, having spent an overcast day in the place where I work. (How unusual. Not.) But when the train had taken me one third of the 44-mile journey home, I spotted a thin, thin sliver of clear horizon to the south. I stared and strained to see Venus for the rest of the journey home, but I saw nothing.
But as I emerged from the underground platform and looked out through the glass walls overlooking a bit of waterfront and a relatively unobstructed horizon, I saw it. Venus. No question. It was definitely too bright to be Arcturus, and too bright even to be Sirius. And it was in the right place in the sky, so, yes, it was Venus.


But was it super-impressive? Not at all compared with how bright it has been on a few previous occasions when I have seen it. It looked much like it does in the picture here, except there was no Mon in the sky. It was an obvious light in the darkening sky where there were few other lights to be seen, and that was pretty much it.


But at the very least I have seen it now. Venus hasn't gone missing from the Swedish skies.



Ann

I saw a crescent Luna!