Software or books/maps? What is best to locate planets and moon?

Mountain_Wanderer · #1 16-07-2010, 10:18 AM

G'day all.

I bought Atlas of the Southern Night Sky, and also bought a star disc to help me locate stars, constellations and other cool deep space objects.

Ofcourse, the motions of planets and the moon are completely different in terms of how to go about locating them. What in your opinion is the best product available to help me locate planets and the moon? Would a book and/or numerous charts/maps be the way to go, or is software better? I'm trying to avoid using software if possible because it would be good to bring everything I need outside with me. However, perhaps it's better to plan ahead inside the house first with a software program before venturing outside to look for planets?

Paddy (Patrick) · #2 16-07-2010, 12:06 PM

I use books and charts for deep sky objects, but as the planets move, the only useful books are almanacs like Astronomy 2010. Free software like Carts du ciel or stellarium will enable you to print maps for planets. Venus, Saturn and Jupiter should present little problem if you look in th paper and see what time they rise and set as they are very bright and obvious. Uranus and Neptune will require maps. I prefer Carts du Ciel to Stellarium, google will get you to the download page.

PS Astronomy 2010 is also very useful for finding out which moon is which when you're observing jupiter etc and is well worth the investment as its chockers with good stuff. Bintel have it, and Mike sells it through IIS but I'm not sure if he'd still have it in stock this late in the year.

astro744 · #3 16-07-2010, 12:59 PM

I second Astronomy 2010 (and each year thereafter) as it will give you all the info you need on planets, Moon and so much more. I also recommend Stellarium to give you a virtual planisphere that closely matches the real sky. I don't use my notebook at the telescope as even with a red (night sky) theme I find the display too bright continually ruining night vision for the evening.

If you do want to invest in some excellent observing software I recommend SkyTools 3 Pro as it has all you will ever need. I use this for planning an observing session. I then print out a list and any charts needed or use Sky Atlas 2000 charts as SkyTools3 can cross reference chart numbers for many popular other atlases.

The Pro version of SkyTools3 has the real time option should you want to connect your telescope to your PC plus it has a lot more stars than the basic version. In my opinion it is worth the extra.

Mountain_Wanderer · #4 16-07-2010, 02:47 PM

Cool. Software may seem to be the choice. Just wondering if there are any other good software programs recommended? Also, any cool websites out there to track planets?

Mountain_Wanderer · #5 17-07-2010, 10:00 AM

Wo! Just bought Astronomy 2010 book. Bloody fantastic. Stuff computers, this is awesome. Many thanks for the advice.

renormalised (Carl) · #6 17-07-2010, 05:06 PM

Best way to find the planets and the moon?....for the Moon...look up

You can't miss it

For the bright planets (Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, Mars), grab your books and your software, read up and learn about the constellations and how to run your software, then take your books etc, off to an astronomy club in your area and mix with the seasoned observers. They'll show you where the objects are and then you can relate that to your charts. Practice, practice, practice....that's the only way to learn where things are and how to recognise the constellations. After awhile, where things are will become second nature to you. For those dimmer planets and such, you'll need binoculars or a telescope to see them. Then it's a matter of recognising star patterns and asterisms to navigate to the objects in question. Then you have to know what they look like to tell them apart from stars etc. You'll also get to learn what other objects look like....nebulae, globular clusters, open clusters, galaxies etc. It all comes with experience and that means time out under the stars.

renormalised (Carl) · #7 17-07-2010, 05:17 PM

Oh, another thing....those pretty pictures in the book. That's not what you're going to see when you finally catch these objects. Jupiter will show some colour and cloud bands, Saturn will show some colour too and the rings (depending on their orientation to us). Mars is an orange-red dot most of the time (can see some surface details when it's close by). Neptune and Uranus are just bluish dots. Some stars will show colour, especially when they're binaries (colour contrasts), but unless you have a fairly large scope, forget about colour in anything else. Except a possible pale yellow-green in the bright nebulae, like M42, M8, Eta....your eyes just aren't sensitive enough or gather enough light to see the colour there, and when they do it's because they're seeing the green light, which your eyes are most sensitive to.

I'm afraid much of the universe looks pretty bland, but don't let that put you off looking

ZeroID (Brent) · #8 18-07-2010, 08:14 AM

As Astro744 says, Stellarium for those cloudy nights so you can explore and visualise before hunting down the real thing. I find it excellent to familiarise myself with the region and object I'm seeking so I can recognise it when I find it.
And you finds lots of other cool stuff as you go.

And it's free ...

Esseth (Alan) · #9 18-07-2010, 03:18 PM

I bought Star Walk app for the iPod touch and it is nice and handy to take on the go, as it does not require a net connection. Shows you all the planets/stars based on your location... helped me spot Uranus for the first time last night, but Neptune went missing...

Not a bad program at all for $3.99

Mountain_Wanderer · #10 19-07-2010, 09:45 AM

My word...

Last night at twilight me and my wife had a shocker of an evening trying to spot planets. Astronomy 2010 is decent but for an absolute beginner I really need some pinpoint locations of where to look for planets. Even if I found something that looked like a planet I wasn't sure which one it was!

I'm gonna download some free software, perhaps Stellarium, and see how I go...

Liz · #11 19-07-2010, 10:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jowel

My word...

Last night at twilight me and my wife had a shocker of an evening trying to spot planets. Astronomy 2010 is decent but for an absolute beginner I really need some pinpoint locations of where to look for planets. Even if I found something that looked like a planet I wasn't sure which one it was!

I'm gonna download some free software, perhaps Stellarium, and see how I go...

Yes, its tricky but Stellarium will help.
Many of us know where the planets are in the west cos we are watching them regularly. Venus is blazing away, so thats one you cant miss. Mercury is quite bright but very low on the horizon. Mars and Saturn are not so bright at the moment as they are a long way away.

Check out this pic taken by Stephen a few days ago (in solar system imaging section).

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/a...se.php?a=79231

Esseth (Alan) · #12 19-07-2010, 06:16 PM

I think i spotted Uranus the other night, but ill have to confirm it tonight as the scope for not collimated, so it was kind of a blob lol

Mountain_Wanderer · #13 26-07-2010, 07:18 PM

Hey I installed Stellarium and it's bloody fantastic! It really simplifies the ability to find a planet for the beginner like me!