Summer Stars

[beren]

With Orion culiminating early in the evening now and the Southern cross getting higher in the southeast the night sky at this time of the year is amazing , my favourite period , well worth the effort to ignore the urge for sleep , air-conditioned comfort and Day/night cricket . What do you all reckon, whats everyones favourite period [early evening observing]
:)

[Striker]

I have no bloody choice.....once the clock goes past 9:30pm brisbane time weekdays...weekends I can probably stretch another hour If I am lucky...the monster(Wife) awakens from her cave and demands my presence indoors......cant wait for Jupitor to come into my time frame.....I think its 4 mins earlier each night.....is that right.

I have heaps to learn about the skies so I have started to look at the NGC104...thats all I am upto atm...sorry..dont know much more...lol

I havn't even seen the Omega Cent NGC5139.....its still too late for me.

I would like to look at some more Star Clusters.....I have heaps in my book...any you recommend for the early evening?

[iceman]

M45, the pleiades.. the best open cluster in the sky. It's heading north-west at the moment, about 45 degrees above the horizon for you in QLD I imagine.

You won't be disappointed with it, but use your widest field lowest power eyepiece, or binoculars.

[Starkler]

Download RTGUI (http://www.rtgui.com) its freeware !

Its a fantastic tool for finding out whats up at any time.
You can search by object class, magnitude, minimum altitude or any other parameter you can name.

It can also suggest a best objects tour for your location and time.

I recommend that everyone with a telescope and a computer should get it !

And Tony it will even drive your LX200 for you :)

[[1ponders]]

Late night for me. Both giant planets, M42. Even got to see M65/66/95/96/105 in Leo for the first time the other night. But mostly the southern band of the Milky way, from Centaurus to Vela. Best patch of sky anywhere. (In summer/autumn that is)