Starship Asterisk*

All,
I'm sure regular observers know about this, and hope that I'm not duplicating what is being discussed elsewhere here (I can't find anything), but according to this week's "Sky at Night" with the Good Astronomer, Sir Patrick Moore, there is a 'massing' of planets this week. See this video http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk7h ,nine and a half minutes in.

The Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury will all be in a small area of the dawn sky, and visible just before sunrise. Not much hope of me seeing it, it's raining here in the UK. but I'll hope to see some pics, that might be good for an APOD .

John

Here is an interesting animation of the event
http://media.skyandtelescope.com/video/ ... ay2011.mov

The key phrase for me, printed on that animation, was "30 minutes before sunrise". At such a time of day, the stars and I do not stare at each other. The most that will happen in my day at 30 minutes before sunrise is that a particularly loud snore will cause me to roll over. Now if you were to have a planetary dance at 30 minutes after sunset, I'm there.

Rob

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 62#p148004

Fourth entry; scroll down.

I posted about this elsewhere, on an astronomy site, and got accused of being an astrologist, finding meaning in 'alignments'.
I Googled for "Planets massing" and got one astronomical hit, thta wasn't relevant and loads of astrology!
Why did the Good Astronomer and his colleagues use that word, if it is not one used in astronomy?
Were the astronomers teasing the astrologists?

John

According to this, there will be 6 planets in the sky in a small area
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42805442

Meanwhile, Saturn is hanging out on the opposite side of the sky, visible in the evening until August.

BINGO!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110507.html

JOhn

JohnD wrote:All,
I'm sure regular observers know about this, and hope that I'm not duplicating what is being discussed elsewhere here (I can't find anything), but according to this week's "Sky at Night" with the Good Astronomer, Sir Patrick Moore, there is a 'massing' of planets this week. See this video http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk7h ,nine and a half minutes in.

The Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury will all be in a small area of the dawn sky, and visible just before sunrise. Not much hope of me seeing it, it's raining here in the UK. but I'll hope to see some pics, that might be good for an APOD .

John

I have posted a couple in the recent submissions thread http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 57#p148157

And vey good ones too, analogue.

Sorry, guys, bit over top with Bingo!
I'm sure that the APOD wasn't inserted at my request, and had been planned long before. But it's exciting to see one's wishes come true!
John