Who has seen Venus this year?

cuz i sure as hell havent...




i go to university of maryland, live in a college house, and have a terrible college town view of the night sky




i cant wait till its declination gets higher in the sky...i currently have NO view of the horizon or anything too close to it...




im sure a lot of you have viewed venus before...but i just got real into astronomy and stargazing this past winter...i cant wait to see venus tho...so let me know what im missing out on if you've seen our "sister" planet this year

So that you can recognize it, only asking because I see some thing to the south west of the moon, or under it and to the right. I'm in Michigan however, and may see a drastically different side of the night sky, Ursa Major has been throwing me off a lot lately, because it is nearly upside down...or was that me?

Venus is more of a bright constant light, correct?


[edit on 14-5-2005 by ADVISOR]

This was just on MSNBC, msnbc.msn.com...

I didn't have a clear sky last night but I'll be looking as soon as the sky cooperates. I'm in southern Ontario, near Buffalo NY, and the best show in the sky right now is Jupiter.

Well Venus is gonna be pretty low on the horizon. Your best best to find it would be to be in a large field with no trees obscuring the horizon, or on a building where there's not much light polution.

Anyway, Venus can be found in the WNW sky just above the horizon at about 8:45. By then it should be dark enough to see it. Bad news is, it'll be setting around 9:45. Not a big window of opportunity.

As for Venus being bright, yes. Being a constant light though, no. Nearly nothing is a constant light in our night sky. Because of the atmosphere stars and planets seem to twinkle, or scintillate. The thicker or more turbulent the atmosphere, the more the twinkling. So when something bright, such as Venus, is sitting low on the horizon, it could be pretty inconstant on its coloration.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
Well Venus is gonna be pretty low on the horizon...

So is that problem?

Venus doesn't go very far from sun and if sun rises high above horizon so does Venus... and you can see it in daylight!
It just requires knowing where to look because contrast isn't so good compared to nightsky.

Originally posted by E_T
Venus doesn't go very far from sun and if sun rises high above horizon so does Venus... and you can see it in daylight!
It just requires knowing where to look because contrast isn't so good compared to nightsky.

You can if you know where to look, but a good share of people don't know where they can find it. Also, I was just saying that it's not a big window to see it because it's not at elongation. That's all.

This is probably off-topic, but here goes...Does anyone else think that the stars appear to be getting brighter? My mother and I are avid stargazers, not astronomers, and tend to agree on this. I am in Houston, TX. The background light is terrible enough, but I have noticed that over the last years or so that the few stars and planets that I can see are getting brighter....puzzling...

Originally posted by BadMojo
This is probably off-topic, but here goes...Does anyone else think that the stars appear to be getting brighter?
The background light is terrible enough, but I have noticed that over the last years or so that the few stars and planets that I can see are getting brighter.

...puzzling...

Maybe somebody finally realised they can save lot of money by using lights directed to ground instead of sky...

And just imagine what that light pollution would become if ground would be covered by snow!

There is some truth in that. The suspended particulate in the atmosphere has been dropping over the past few years and there has been a reduction in cloud cover.

No major volcanic eruption has put ash in the upper atmosphere for a while, so this also helps clear things up a bit.

www.iaap.org...

[edit on 15-5-2005 by anxietydisorder]