Stellarium investigation of object seen while observing Jupiter

[troybecker]

When I observed Jupiter tonight I observed another object that resembled a moon but was out of line. I thought I observed it moving over time (relatively quickly) but as I did not make a drawing or anything I cannot be positive. It easily could have been a different angle or side I was viewing the eyepiece which made me think it had moved.

Anyway, I came inside to look up the sky on Stellarium to see if there was a star in the background, but nothing came up. So now I'm wondering if it was just a star?

I am new to Stellarium. Maybe there is a setting I can set to show fainter stars. I am checking that out right now. No, there doesn't seem to be.

It was more reddish than the moons.

How do I investigate further, or can somebody help me out with what I saw?

[Barrykgerdes]

What version of Stellarium
Have you added all the star catalogues up to #8
If you are running on XP you won't be able to see both catalogues 7 and 8. They all work on Vista.

Barry

[chrisp9au]

Hi Troy,

A quick check on Stellarium V0.10.2 reveals a mag 8.8 star out beyond Callisto last night. Catalogued as Hipparchos 106710, spectral type G8/KOIII. Googling that reveals that spectral type G8 stars are white through yellow, KO stars are orange through red. So, whilst I am pretty much a novice myself, I reckon this is what you may have seen. Stellarium screen shot attached.

Welcome to IIS by the way, I trust you will get as much enjoyment and enlightenment from this site and it's members as I do!

Cheers :thumbsup:
Chris

[chrisp9au]

Troy,

For more stars in Stellarium, click on Configuration, select Tools, the bottom section offers to download additional catalogs, click on that and away you go.

Cheers :thumbsup:
Chris

[troybecker]

Thank you all. I will try to get more stars in Stellarium according to those instructions (and what I can find with Stellarium forums). I have XP but I'll see what I can do.

That screenshot is indeed what I saw, but in a different position, due to time difference...

I have been enjoying Stellarium, and it's a good motivation to use this little telescope I have.

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi

Downloading the full compliment of stars for stellarium will take some time. The largest two contain over 1 GB of data. If you are using XP you will normally be only able to use either catalogue 7 or 8, not both. It appears to be something to do with how XP allocates memory and hasn't been solved yet.

One way to see both cats' 7 and 8 is to leave cat 6 out

Below is a screenshot of the previous attachment with stars from cats 7 and 8

Barry