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The sky at night (meteors, Iridium flares, the moon)


Colin
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Guest Lone Wolf
^ Cheers. It's a big almost empty ocean out there tonight, maybe best without the colour :-

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb479/beenister/sdnortseabw.jpg

 

Stunning photograph Stilldellin. I agree, B&W gives it and eerie feeling of emptiness and emphasizes the moonlight better

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Guest Lone Wolf

I've found Stellarium very useful for sorting out what's what up there as you can programme it with your own location, put the ground in to give the view some perspective, add in constellations and their names etc.

 

On a dark night it's pretty easy to find many favourites, like the planets, the main stars, Andromeda galaxy, Orion nebula and so on with just a pair of ordinary binoculars. I've even managed to watch a man-made satellite as it tracks across the night sky

 

http://www.stellarium.org/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Saw a few meteors earlier tonight, the geminid meteor shower is supposed to peak tomorrow night, so hopefully be clear skies...

 

The 2012 Geminid meteor shower will peak on the nights of December 13/14 and 14/15, with the nod being given to the former. Meteor numbers intensify as evening deepens into late night. The greatest numbers fall an hour or two after midnight (December 14 and 15) – when the meteor shower radiant point looms highest in the sky – as seen from around the globe. But you might see a Geminid meteor any time this week. That’s because it takes some weeks for Earth to ford this meteor stream in space.
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Guest Lone Wolf

Thanks Crofter, I'll be looking out for them.

 

For non-star gazers, they'll be in the constellation of Gemini (Castor and Pollux - the twins). At about 11pm tomorrow the twins will be SE and about the same height in the sky as Jupiter in the South (the brightest 'star' up there). Simply find Jupiter in the south skies and turn a little to your left.

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My pooch woke me up at 3am so I went outside to have a peek at the skies - clear as a bell & no wind, so I got the tripod out and took dozens of long exposures. Got to see loads of long, bright trails (seemed to radiate from further north than Gemini?) but as luck would have it, they ocurred just after I'd closed the shutter. every. single. time. :x

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