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? about 2 stars :not into astronomy just a night sky admirer

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 3:19 am
by light9
ok i have a burning curiosity about 2 stars . One of the stars were obvious to me for about 6 years now . I see it on my way home every night. Its just that bright. I noticed a dimmer star one night when I started to leave for home.It was in the "right spot" for the star I was used to seeing.I didnt think much of it being so dimm till I turned completely around I seen "my familiar star".
thats when curiosity got me , I have pretty much no distractions on my way home so every night since last spring i keept an eye on these two. They pretty much kept a equal distance from each other
through the seasons.Then it happened , the gap in the sky between them started shrinking till last weekend I seen that Friday night the dimmer star was about 10:00 from the bright star and "for lack of knowledge" it was about two inches away.then Sat. night the dimmer star was about 6:00 and 3 inches away from the brighter one. to cut my lame details short the dim star is now still 6:00 and
3 feet from the bright star. the only thing I do know is that the big dipper trails behind these two by an hour and a half aproximately. Any one know what they are ? or why they are?
I wished i woulda taken pics of these two but I didnt expect to see what I have.

Re: ? about 2 stars :not into astronomy just a night sky adm

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 1:59 pm
by BMAONE23
It sounds remarkably like one would describe the Venus - Jupiter conjunction. Dimmer Jupiter passing by brighter Venus as both are westering in the evening sky.
Heavens Above has a useful interascive Sky Chart whish shows the constellations and current positions of the planets in the night sky

Re: ? about 2 stars :not into astronomy just a night sky adm

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 2:24 am
by light9
so i went to the short cut you gave me thank you. i went a step further and found earthsky.org its amazing . I had taken 3 pics as soon as i realized the moon would be in it so i might be able to post it in here .. but im pretty much an idiot in doing some thing like that without direction.so at this earthsky site i was able to confirm your post about venus/jupiter thing, with my pics gainst theirs.they are almost identical except for a slight degree of virticle angel.im still curious though. how is it that it took almost a year for what i was observing for them to come together,lol my wife is wondering if theres a collision we should be aware of... :oops: any way i wished i had a telescope so i could at least see any color .almost forgot the rest of my ? //and why is it taking such a short time to distance from each other.

Re: ? about 2 stars :not into astronomy just a night sky adm

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 4:52 pm
by mike_sharkey
I would highly recommend that you get one of the (free!) planetarium software programs available on the net. Two of the most recommended are Celestia and Stellarium. (I use Stellarium, myself)
Just do a google-search for either one.
Both are relatively easy to use, and once you enter your location (usually in terms of Latitude & Longitude, though Stellarium does a pretty decent job of using a database of cities around the world to locate you...), then you can even see what the sky would (or did) look like from your location at just about any time or date.
I would also recommend that you use a decent pair of binoculars (10x50 or so) and look at Jupiter (the dimmer of the two ''stars''), you will almost certainly be able to see some of the 4 Galilean moons lined up with Jupiter.
Better yet, if you can find a local astronomy group, see if they have an upcoming evening meeting that you can attend, or a Public Viewing Night.