Keep Your Eyes To The Sky! (open letter to ATS members)

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
When looking at objects in the sky at night, we no longer have the same visual cues that our brains/eyes are used to. Under conditions like this, as Phage has explained, it's impossible to judge distance, size, or speed with any accuracy.

This is true and unfortunately makes Identifying an object at night
a near impossibility. I would urge anyone that does take a video of a
night time sighting to use something to secure the camera so that it
is not shaky. Tripod etc. Including an object in the background as well
is helpful, but sometimes it is not always possible.

Keeping the camera steady can help with studying it's movements etc.

I have been carrying a camera with me lately, everywhere I go. I take
pics of clouds, birds and planes as well, So I have an idea of how they
photograph.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by cluckerspud

 

*waves arm (boots Stellarium)*

Venus will disappear from the evening sky in mid March.
She'll start being visible before dawn in early April.

Thanks Phage, I am opening Stellarium now to play with.
I will certainly miss seeing Venus at night.

Back in 1964 I lived on Grandpa's dairy farm at the top of the hill outside of Kirkwood, Missouri with my sister and her husband and children (my mother had died about a year ago from lung cancer).

I was eleven at the time this happened and while I don't consider this a

We were laying out on a blanket watching the night stars one summer evening like we did freguently when I pointed out a star that was moving around.

The "object" was about the size of a period.

It shot one way across the entire sky within our vision and then back again. It then shot upwards at a 45 degree angle. It moved around fast and appeared to be able to move in any direction at will.

I said, wow maybe that's a new military jet or rocket or something. I've never seen anything move so fast like that.

My brother in law who worked at McDonald Douglas on the jets being made at the time was a very no nonsense man (didn't believe in ghost, the occult or anything he couldn't touch) said, "We don't have anything that can move that fast and cut those sharp an angles".

I said, "Well maybe it's a Russian jet or rocket or something".

He said, "I don't think so, let's get the blanket and go in the house".

He looked funny, serious and a little shakened.

As soon as we got in the house he turned off the lights and told me to turn the light out in my bedroom and the bathroom, even the nightlight.

My sister, his wife came out into the livingroom where we were now standing in the dark and said, "What's got into you Rick, you've gone and turned off all the lights?".

Rick said We're sitting ducks up here on this hill out in the middle of the country with lights blazing like a beacon".

My sister said, "what?"

He said, "There's something up there in the night sky and it's maybe not from earth, I never thought I would see one but I don't want to see it up any closer than that."

I heard my sister laugh in the dark and say, "God, you're nuts, little green men".

We never talked about it but from then on but we didn't star gaze as often after that.

Theres a co-orbital asteroid metting up with earth today.... i made a thread about it. Maybe this is what he ment?

Originally posted by Pockets
I'm from the north east of England and have been watching the sky, and every couple of nights there is a quite bright light in the sky that moves east to west and I would like to know what it is, I don't know if it's a star a planet or what but it's the brightest light in the sky, I've used my binoculars to look at it but they are not much good, I'm thinking of getting myself a telescope but don't know much about them and don't wanna pay over the top prices, help from fellow ATS members would be nice on the light and telescopes

Just a thought,there is a good app i have on my macbook called stellarium it's like a google earth for the sky. If it's a star or planet the software will name it for you.
and it's freeware.

reply to post by ho chi minh


oops sorry should have read the whole of the thread before my post

Hi all, here's a picture of Venus tonight, NW UK.





Got the sparkle just right..

reply to post by UKWO1Phot


Excellent work, as stated before I love this thread

still no word on telescope help but everything else makes up for that


got your picture as my desktop, hope you don't mind

[edit on 25-1-2009 by Pockets]

Here are the settings if you have a manual camera.:-

Canon 20D
ISO 800
f/5.6
Was using Canon 75-300mm IS (image shot @ 75mm)
4 second exposure

Mounted on tripod using remote switch.

It's a lovely clear night too, so will be stargazing for a few hours later..

got your picture as my desktop, hope you don't mind

Yeah no worries, not sure if you can get the full res version off imageshack, your welcome to that if you can...

Edit to add lower sentence..

[edit on 25/1/2009 by UKWO1Phot]

Clear sky again tonight in Ontario,Canada. Ive got my telescope setup outside and am waiting for Venus to overcome the suns dying light.

Last night was awesome, both my fiancee and myself saw Saturn for the first time. The rings are almost completely at 0 degrees to the viewing plane from Earth, so there very hard to see. My best view was at 2am when Saturn was high in the night sky, I used my 8mm lens without the Barlow and had a really wide Field of View to work with. That gives me close to 100X magnification with my 700mm reflector scope and its definitely enough detail to make out the rings and a couple of moons of Saturn. Im anxious to try out my 4mm lens (175X) but am going to have to wait until I setup my telescope on the grass (shakes alot on my balcony).

All in all, the fun-factor in stargazing gets ratcheted up a huge notch with a telescope.

Peace

Thanks cluckerspud for the examples and info - I agree we all should look up more. I've seen quite a bit in the night sky simply because I pay attention to it.

I especially like your artist rendition of the moon halo - saw the exact same thing here in Sydney on July 20, and I mean exact. The photos I took are pretty much the same as your pic:







The above images were 30 second exposures at f/8.0. The dot on the upper left is Jupiter as far as I can ascertain, and the tiny blue dot appearing in two of the images is a stubborn lens flare.

Was out doing some skywatching tonight (missed a great image of a meteor 2-3 seconds)
Anyway are you in the UK? Does the sky look too light?
The reason I ask is, I have a very enclosed garden and usually the sky is pitch black. Over the last few weeks I've noticed between 11-2am the sky looks like the hour before dawn.
I captured what it looks like too the eye in this image (1.16am).. Also birds were singing.. Odd.




Orion constellation.

Originally posted by driveshaft08
Late last night around 1:45 am i was looking outside by bedroom
window checking out the deer coming down the street.

Just then i noticed this object in the sky coming towards my house.

All lit up in the sky. As soon it got closer i could make out it shape
by the lights on the object.

The lights made a diamond shape with two lights in the middle
which were blinking. I called the airport and there was no flights
departing at that time.

The city i live in has a air national guard. But, would they be flying
that late of night. Ive seen jet fighters and cargo planes but nothing
like i saw last night.

Anybody have a idea what i saw?

The lights were so bright unlike a commercial airliner.

the first thing i thought about where the "ufo's" ive seen that had a diamond shape.

something like this

which apparently is sirius?
or this

or something else? just what i thought of.

reply to post by Evasius

Those are great pictures.
I used a pretty standard digital camera and
go lousy results.. Hahaha.
Nice shots.

im gonna try to take pictures of jupiter tonight, i hope i come out with good results


Here is a picture i took a while back when the moon, Jupiter and Venus(?) where close together. its not the best quality but i tried