What's there to see just after nightfall?

[BilliGoatsGruff]

With the sun coming up earlier, it seems easier to go out after dark, rather than in the morning just before work. I was wondering, what interesting things are there to see between nightfall and midnight? Preferably anything in the east/south/western part of the sky as our house and a giant tree in the front yard block the northern sky for me.

:astron:

[BeanerSA]

Are you using Stellarium yet?

[madwayne]

Hi - the obvious answer is Saturn, just below Scorpius in the West. After that go Messier hunting through Scorpius, Ophiucus and Sagitarius, plenty of globs on offer in that part of the sky. Pan around that part of the sky, will keep you busy for hours. After that head South and the SMC and 47 Tuc, compare it to M22 in Sagitarius.

That's what I did last night while tracking down carbon stars.

Enjoy!

Wayne

[BilliGoatsGruff]

I haven't given Stellarium a proper go yet. I've been using Star Walk on my phone and that's ok if you know what you're looking for. I don't know much about all the constellations so it's still a bit tricky to navigate.

[GrampianStars]

Hi Billi
Here's a few to get you started :thumbsup:
from http://tonightssky.com/MainPage.php

[Eden]

Definitely try and make time to learn your way around Stellarium -- it's not a particularly difficult application to use and lets you see what is visible in what direction and at what time. It's great for learning the names of all of the major stars and for learning about their motion across the sky relative to your location. This helps when star hopping to locate objects you wish to view.

It also allows you to search for objects, so if you read about a particular object in a magazine, on the NASA site, here at IceInSpace or somewhere similar, Stellarium will help you determine whether the object is visible from your location and when to look for it.

Lastly, if you get stuck with it at any point, there are plenty of Stellarium users here who will gladly assist you along the way. :thumbsup:

[sil]

If you have good views down to horizon you can find/follow Comet Catalina.

[BeanerSA]

You should get familiar with it. It plops you in the middle of your backyard, and shows exactly what you can see at any given time.

[BilliGoatsGruff]

I've downloaded Stellarium. For some reason the names of objects aren't displaying properly. Every word has been cut in half horizontally, with only the top half visible.

[Eden]

Hi Billi,

I'll try and help you troubleshoot it.

With Stellarium running, move your mouse pointer to the bottom left hand corner. This will bring up the settings toolbar. Click on the question mark. Once you've done that, go to the Log tab and copy and and paste the contents of that log into this thread so I can see if there are any issues on start-up that are causing Stellarium to render the label text incorrectly. :)

[BilliGoatsGruff]

2015-10-06T12:24:57
Unsupported Windows version
Compiled using MSVC++ 12.0 (Visual Studio 2013)
Qt runtime version: 5.3.2
Qt compilation version: 5.3.2
Addressing mode: 64-bit
Total memory: 8093 MB (unreliable)
Total virtual memory: 8388607 MB (unreliable)
Physical memory in use: 26%
Processor speed: 1696 MHz
Processor name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3317U CPU @ 1.70GHz
Processor speed: 1696 MHz
Processor name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3317U CPU @ 1.70GHz
Processor speed: 1696 MHz
Processor name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3317U CPU @ 1.70GHz
Processor speed: 1696 MHz
Processor name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3317U CPU @ 1.70GHz
C:\Program Files\Stellarium\stellarium.exe
-------------------------------------------------------
[ This is Stellarium 0.13.3 - http://www.stellarium.org ]
[ Copyright (C) 2000-2014 Fabien Chereau et al ]
-------------------------------------------------------
Writing log file to: "C:\Users\BB\AppData\Roaming\Stellar ium\log.txt"
File search paths:
0 . "C:\Users\BB\AppData\Roaming\Stellar ium"
1 . "."
Config file is: "C:\Users\BB\AppData\Roaming\Stellar ium\config.ini"
Detected: OpenGL "2.1"
Driver version string: "2.1.2"
GL vendor is "NVIDIA Corporation"
GL renderer is "GeForce GT 630M/PCIe/SSE2"
GL Shading Language version is "1.20 NVIDIA via Cg compiler"
GLSL Version Number after parsing: 1.2
This is not enough: we need GLSL1.30 or later.
You should update graphics drivers, graphics hardware, or use the MESA version.
Else, please try to use an older version like 0.12.4, and try there with --safe-mode
Config option main/ignore_opengl_warning found, continuing. Expect problems.
Cache directory is: "C:\Users\BB\AppData\Local\stellariu m\stellarium\cache"
Sky language is "en_AU"
Application language is "en_AU"
Loading Solar System data ...
Loading star data ...
"Loading ".\stars\default\stars_0_0v0_5.cat": 0_0v0_2; 4963"
"Loading ".\stars\default\stars_1_0v0_5.cat": 1_0v0_2; 21598"
"Loading ".\stars\default\stars_2_0v0_5.cat": 2_0v0_2; 150090"
"Loading ".\stars\default\stars_3_1v0_3.cat": 3_1v0_3; 428466"
Finished loading star catalogue data, max_geodesic_level: 3
navigation/preset_sky_time is a double - treating as jday: 2.45151e+06
Loaded 10051 NGC records
Loaded 343 / 351 Barnard records
Loaded 313 / 313 Sharpless records
Loaded 158 / 158 Van den Bergh records
Loaded 181 / 181 RCW (Rodgers+) records
Loaded 1787 / 1787 LDN (Lynds' Catalogue of Dark Nebulae) records
Loaded 1125 / 1125 LBN (Lynds' Catalogue of Bright Nebulae) records
Loading NGC name data ...
Loaded 1031 / 1031 NGC name records successfully
Loading star names from ".\skycultures\western\star_names.fa b"
Loaded 339 / 339 common star names
Loading star names from ".\stars\default\name.fab"
Loaded 4502 / 4502 scientific star names
Loading variable stars from ".\stars\default\gcvs_hip_part.dat"
Loaded 6916 / 6928 variable stars
Loaded 88 / 88 constellation records successfully for culture "western"
Loaded 85 / 85 constellation art records successfully for culture "western"
Loaded 88 / 88 constellation names
Loading constellation boundary data ...
Loaded 782 constellation boundary segments
Intializing basic GL shaders...
Creating GUI ...
Loaded plugin "Exoplanets"
Exoplanets: version of the format of the catalog: 1
Exoplanets: loading catalog file: "C:\Users\BB\AppData\Roaming\Stellar ium\modules\Exoplanets\exoplanets.j son"
Loaded plugin "FOV"
Loaded plugin "MeteorShowers"
MeteorShowers: version of the format of the catalog: 1
MeteorShowers: loading catalog file: "C:\Users\BB\AppData\Roaming\Stellar ium\modules\MeteorShowers\showers.j son"
Loaded plugin "Novae"
Novae: version of the catalog: 1
Novae: loading catalog file: "C:\Users\BB\AppData\Roaming\Stellar ium\modules\Novae\novae.json"
Loaded plugin "Oculars"
Ocular plugin - press Command-O to toggle eyepiece view mode. Press ALT-o for configuration.
Oculars::validateIniFile ocular.ini exists at: "C:\Users\BB\AppData\Roaming\Stellar ium\modules\Oculars\ocular.ini" . Checking version...
Oculars::validateIniFile found existing ini file version 3
Loaded plugin "Satellites"
Satellites: loading catalog file: "C:\Users\BB\AppData\Roaming\Stellar ium\modules\Satellites\satellites.j son"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "FLOCK 1B-22" "40428"
Satellite has invalid orbit: "FLOCK 1B-12" "40460"
Loaded plugin "SolarSystemEditor"
Using the ssystem.ini file that already exists in the user directory...
Unable to find module called "TimeZoneConfiguration"
Loaded plugin "TimeZoneConfiguration"
Intializing planets GL shaders...
QTextCursor::setPosition: Position '1' out of range
QTextCursor::setPosition: Position '3619' out of range
QTextCursor::setPosition: Position '1' out of range
QTextCursor::setPosition: Position '2552' out of range


TIA :)

[Eden]

Thanks Billi,



Your video/graphics card driver needs to be updated, here is a direct link to the driver for your system:

http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/91808

Let us know how you go :thumbsup:

Cheers,
Brett

[Eden]

I nearly forgot -- if you're running Windows 10, you'll need this one:

http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/91814

[BilliGoatsGruff]

:lol: I'm sticking with windows 8. It's a pain, but my fiance had so much trouble with windows 10

P.S It looks great now :)

The only issue that I have is that it's displaying as dawn, even though it's the middle of the day. I've checked the time settings and they seem right. When I changed it from pm to am it changed to daytime, when it should have been night. I have no idea why that's happening.

[drylander]

Have you put in your location? Mine kept doing that and then I noticed it was defaulting to Paris when I restarted it the next day.:eyepop: All fixed now, I had failed to make my location the default :rofl:
Pete