That astro...thing....

[kats]

Hey iceman, was that convergence of the planets you talked about earlier just for last night. I missed it. Will I be able to see much of anything tonight>?

[Soldant]

DAMNIT! I was out there last night and I forgot all about it

[iceman (Mike)]

That was Mercury, Venus and Saturn (and the moon).

The moon is not visible atm, and the planets are getting further apart each day, but you will still be able to see the 3 planets if you get up early (around 5am eastern time).

Venus is easy to spot, it's the brightest looking thing in the sky in the north-east, rising at around 4:00am. Saturn is above and to the left of it, sort of yellowy looking.

Mercury is the hardest to spot, as you only get to see it for a short time before the sun rises.

[Kulth]

Hey everyone, this is my first post here. I heard about Iceman's webpage via Gamearena, and was reading the info about the '1 moon 3 planets' occurance that happened a few nights ago.

I've always been into astronomy, but never to the extend that I've actually purchased any proper viewing equipment, something I'd love to get more involved with in the future. Much of my recent exictement towards space comes from my beliefs and ideas about the universe, but that night when observing saturn, venus and the moon so closely aligned really changed my perceptions on things. Not just space, but reality as a whole!

I didn't get the chance to really spot mercury, I'm in brisbane and at around the time i was viewing the first rays of light were appearing from the east. I'm sure if I stayed a bit longer I would have seen mercury too, although its proximity didnt seem as close as the saturn/venus/moon alignment.

Well I've always looked into space at night - I'm really privalged at the moment to have an apartment that has an elevated view of their entire brisbane CBD and southern suburbs. Although the earth lights definately hinder the experience somewhat, there was some great viewing that night with beautiful clear skys... something about that time of the day, the silence, the crispness of the air, it really gave me a sense of my own place in this infinite space that we reside in.

So I was viewing the moon, saturn and venus rising over the city skyscrapers, which seems to small and laughable in comparison to this great moon of ours and other planets. Whenever I've looked into space in the past, I guess I've never grasped a sense of its depth before. Although its enormity is apparent, it was always difficult to understand the vast distances between our solar system and others - after all, it can sometimes just been viewed as a 'blanket of stars', I could comprhened their relative distances on a horizontal and vertical plane, but 'seeing' the depth has always been hard.

Well viewing saturn orbiting near the moon with venus close by totally changed that. For the first time (it seems, perhaps im a bit late with this understanding) I could so easily the distance in terms of depth that saturn held to our planet, and how venus was indeed in front of saturn, and how our moon was in front on venus. I guess seeing small white dots make this hard for me to see in the past, but that night I understood. It was this shift of consciousness, I can't fully explain it, and perhaps this is all too much philosophy for such a place, but I know i'll never forget that night for the rest of my life: The first time space really revealed itself to me in it's fully 3-dimensional form, with me observing that huge depth between the moon and saturn only with my own eyes, and not just a black space in between that always would seem so small!

Has anyone else felt or seen this? did it just take all this time in my life, despite hours of watchinfg satellites and stars in the sky, to understand this depth and distance?! I'm glad it happened now than never, that's for sure.

Woah, that was all very long-winded. But I guess I own thanks to you Iceman, for informing me of that night!

I often get the most amazing views of the rising moon from my place, the colors are just astounding at times, and its size can be overwhelming too as it oftern seems to rise in the late afternoon.

One last thing: I've been here in Australia for 3 years now, studying at uni (nothing astonomy related, anthropology in fact!) and I've always been interested in viewing constellations and stars that aren't visible in the northern hemisphere (where I've spent most of my live). I'm sure ive seen the southern cross etc.; what other constellations are unique to this side of the world?

unfortunately I'll have to leave this place within a month, I just hope I can find a place with more great views! Have fun!

[Soldant]

I'm actually fairly new to astronomy too. The thing that only recently kickstarted me to get out there and actively start looking and learning was grabbing the old 7x50 ex-military binocs and pointing them at a few objects. Ever since then I've been hooked.

I'm also in Brisbane too , but I'm not sure what is special to the south (apart from some objects and things like the southern cross), since they don't really interest me except to find objects.

[iceman (Mike)]

Great post Kulth.. Astronomy can have that impact on people - it can be really enlightening.. it can also put things in perspective, when you realise how small and insignificant we are in the whole context of the universe..

and when you do more research about how our solar system (and earth) was formed, and about how life evolved on our earth, it really is quite a fluke that we are here today.

I'm sure there's a huge philosphical discussion that could go on for hours, that I don't want to get into right now

but I liked reading your post and I hope this site can inspire others into astronomy, because it's a great hobby - it can open your eyes up to a lot of great things.

Soldant - astronomy with binoculars is great! I started with binoculars as well, and it's amazing what you can see just with binoculars. I love nothing more than scanning the milky way with my 11x70's, seacrhing out globulars, star clusters and nebula.

[Soldant]

Yep, I still have a pair of 10x70 that I take with me as well. Or sometimes I just can't be bothered lugging stuff around, so I just take them.

[kats]

Astronomy Givs my quite the opposite impression Iceman

[Mutant]

Originally posted by kats
Astronomy Givs my quite the opposite impression Iceman

Guess it depends from which side you view the strong/weak anthropic principles

Edited to add linkage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle