Posted on 12/20/2012 8:30:00 AM PST by virgil283
"For those of you with even a small refractor telescope, the next few nights present a once in a blue moon opportunity to spot all seven planets in the same evening. Five of them are visible without even binoculars, while the other two will require you to reference the charts below. While Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will "move" faster in the sky, Uranus and Neptune will stay relatively fixed in their positions in Pisces and Aquarius for some time.
The closest five planets all yield some features through a small amateur telescope, the largest, Saturn and Jupiter, even reveal their moons through simple binoculars, all this regardless of light pollution so even city dwellers can get a good view. Don't expect anything more than a colored disk on the outer gas giants, even with my 8" reflector Uranus is mostly featureless and dull. Anyway, charts below, and the weather tonight is perfect in all but middle fifth of the country, so it makes a perfect time to look up!
Live at 4800’ ASL west of the Rockies in Colorado. Very little light contamination so star gazing is optimum ... I’ll check it out.
In case anyone is unaware, there is an awesome app out there called Star Walk. With it, you can move your iPhone or iPad around the sky and see what is out there, even on the other side of the Earth. Also will show you where the various satellites and space station are. Coolest app I’ve seen in quite a while. My 7 year old loves it too.
Why that’s Nibiru silly.
To bad voters didn’t see your post before they voted.
Starstruck ~ If you look up and see Earth you may have problems.
You know it's going to be a bad day when...
...you open your eyes and the first thing you see is asphalt.
...but you probably had an interesting night. (never mix mescaline, vodka, and hookers...just sayin’)
Agreed. Vodka is a poor substitute for tequila in that context.
Haha, good call! :)
Ur anus ain’t no beauty either!
Planet X is actually a brown dwarf star that is only visible with special equipment because it is always close to the sun, alignment wise.
Don’t know about you folks, but, I plan on seeing a bit of the Earth tonight also. That makes 8 for me.
Good luck seeing Mars. It’s on the other side of the Sun, so, it is VERY small and sets just after the Sun.
If you have access to a scope, take a look at Jupiter. I was looking at it Friday Night. Had the scope cranked up to 250x and it looked like a basketball! The air was very still so I could see lots of cloud details. Got to see the Red Spot even.
Mercury is gonna be a tough one too.
Yes, the age of pisces is ending, the next 5 or so generations will probably generate some major changes in the world.
No kidding. Neighbor kid has that app on his pod. I was just blown away watching it track satellites.
I liked it better when it was called Xena. That was a whole lot more memorable.
Won’t be visible here, wild weather coming in, high winds, thunderstorms, temps dropping from the fifties to the twenties, snow west and north.
bkmk
Eight if you look down...
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