www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17324826 I've managed to work out 3 tonight.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17324826 I've managed to work out 3 tonight.

Got the telescope out of the loft yesterday. So will see what cloud cover is like later.

2 very close together last night, 1 very bright, guess its Venus and Mercury??

Venus and Jupiter , Venus been the brighter of the two looking west , Mars is also visible looking east . Saturn should be visible from about 10ish near the moon.

Quote ="B0NES"Venus and Jupiter , Venus been the brighter of the two looking west , Mars is also visible looking east . Saturn should be visible from about 10ish near the moon.'" Yes, Jupiter and Venus showing well, as they have been doing for days now. Are you sure it's not Jupiter that isn't the bright one though? www.telegraph.co.uk/science/spac ... -2012.html Mars also showing well. Saturn too low at present. What's the 5th?

Quote ="B0NES"Venus and Jupiter , Venus been the brighter of the two looking west , Mars is also visible looking east . Saturn should be visible from about 10ish near the moon.'" Yes, Jupiter and Venus showing well, as they have been doing for days now. Are you sure it's not Jupiter that isn't the bright one though? www.telegraph.co.uk/science/spac ... -2012.html Mars also showing well. Saturn too low at present. What's the 5th?

Mercury will be the hardest to see as its faint and you can only see it at sunset, it will set at around 6pm. In the west where it sets, it will be slightly above the sun and to the left so just after the sun has dipped below the horizon you might get a glimpse of it if it's very clear.

The two bright ones close together are Venus (the brighter one) and Jupiter, these will set in the West like the sun and set around 8pm ish.

Around 8ish when Venus and Jupiter are setting you will be able to see Mars across in the south east, this will be in the south about 11pm. Fairly bright and reddish tinge.

Saturn doesn't rise (in the south east) till about 10pm, tonight (March 11) it will be pretty close to the Moon so its easiest to pick out tonight. After tonight it will not be directly close to the moon but you will still see it in the south east - south from 10pm till around sunrise.

I am confused over Venus and Jupiter. Venus is supposed to be the brightest but the one to the right as you look is much bigger and brighter and per the Telegraph map seems to be Jupiter?

I tried to catch Mercury but never had a chance to . Just to built up were I live , You need to be able to see the horizon for at least a glimmer of hope.

Venus is supposed to be 10 times brighter .

Just took this:




Bit of a rough one as they are just above roof height now. Still confused - any ideas?

Left is Jupiter

Thanks. It's the Telegraph's map that has been confusing me - from that it looks the other way round. But, all others and logic dictate Venus as being the bright one on the right.

I like that. Good pic. I had thought that one was Venus but not sure about the other one.

It's lower in the sky, light pollution and atmospherics will play a large part in it's apparent dullness.

A bit cloudy tonight :/

If you read the Telegraph in that link, "The chart shows the sky at midnight at the start of March.". It's now March 13th! The problem with these infernal planets is they keep moving!

The simple way to always be fully informed, for free:

1. Find your latitude and longitude using a simple resource like
[urlhttp://www.getlatlon.com/[/url
where you enter your place name, then zoom to your house, and copy you Lat and Long into a document. Please note, your longitude may well have a minus!!

2. Go to the excellent free resource, [urlhttp://www.heavens-above.com/[/url and register as a user. Then set up your home co-ordinates as your current observing site (and PS you can set up as many different sies as you want; for example, I always set one up if I'm going away on holiday, then print out the charts and other info i want to take with me)


This gives you a personal sky map for every day, automatically.

You can also look at the Sky Chart, and see why the planets look like they do, from the Earth's perspective, as it shows you whereabouts they are relative to each other in space, in their respective orbits.

Just now, Mars is prominent in the southeast, and Saturn is nice in the south. Jupiter and Venus went to bed hours ago!

The site also gives you an incredible amount of other personalised data, with just a single click. For example, any visible passes of the international space station. Or check out Iridium flares.

Current magnitude (brightness) of Venus is -4.1 and Jupiter -1.9. The bigger the minus, the brighter the object. The scale is logarithmic, and a difference of 5 magnitudes means a brightness difference of exactly 100 times. A difference of one magnitude corresponds to a brightness difference of around 2.51

The brightnesses change a great deal, due to (a) the planet's distance from Earth and (b) their position relative to Earth-Sun. If you picture the Sky Chart, you can see how and why sometimes a planet will be "full face" illuminated as viewed from Earth, and at other times it will be gibbous, or a crescent.

I was well impressed last night, saw the two planets (above) to the Northwest of LBA at around 8pm, by far the brightest things in the sky, sort of puts all your daily shoite into context doesn't it ?

It was too cloudy down our way last night. Hoping it may be better tonight. Would love to go somewhere rempte from lights from towns to see them in their full glory along with all the other stars. The only times I can recall seeing the stars in their full glory where on Anglesey many years ago and lying on my back at midnight after a sumptious meal and wine, in the Okavango Delta.

Well tonight is "closest approach" and it is looking good, if a little hazy, in Bradford at the moment. The pair should be clearly visible in the southwest as soon as it starts to get reasonably dark while Mars, an obvious bright reddish object (especially contratsed with Venus) is at the same time slowly rising in the east, to be followed by Saturn a few hours later.

Seems cloud is forecast for home tonight. I suppose I'll have to wait and see what it's like when I get there.

or just get Google Sky Map?

Well, here's a chart of the path of the ISS across the sky from my house on 23 March, and a table with exact info of the event.



How do I do that in Google Sky, then?

One of the explanations for the biblical 'Star of Bethlehem' is a planetary conjunction between Jupiter and Venus like this as there was one that would have been clearly visible over Jerusalem in the east in August 3 BC, where Jupiter was particularly bright at the time and Venus was right on top of it so it would have looked like a large single star and shone much brighter than anything else in the sky.

Nah, that is just a rubbish explanation, as the planets in the course of a night just move right across the sky from one side to the other like everything else appears to.

What you would actually need is an object that in fact orbited in a retrograde motion, so that it maintained precisely the same position relative to Bethlehem. A bit like a geostationary satellite. No natural phenomenon ever has or ever could achieve the feat.

Even a bright object near the Pole Star would be no good, as it would only be of any use as a guide to travellers approaching from due south, from anywhere else (especially north) they'd be royally fooked using that as a GPS.

Maybe thats the whole problem with Christianity, maybe they were following Jupiter, realised that they'd never be able to catch it as every night it started from a different position to where they'd left it and just decided that any old new born would do, the next one they find gets the gold and they can finally get to fook off back home again.

I think Monty Python may be closer to the truth than we think.