Yay I see it too

Very starry night last night and saw Jupiter sitting there near the moon. Cheers for the reminder.

If anyone is interested, there's an eclipse of the moon on Saturday. It won't be that impressive viewing from the UK though. The further north and east you are, the better.

Look to the north-east around 3-4pm

This star is out nearly every night and has been for a couple of years. Also moves very quick.

It's not once a month or just on the occasional night, any clear night it can be seen with the naked eye clearly you dont need a nosy neighbour telescope or nocks to view it.

Looks like a couple of cats eyes.

Anyone read about that Keplar planet, pretty cool eh?

Wonder if anyone lives there.

Gotta be plenty of planets out there with some proper creatures/animals on them. That telescope has found 200 earth sized planets within the habitable area and over 2000 planets within habiltable areas. Would be so cool if we could zoom right in on them and see if anything lives on them. Maybe in my lifetime we will find a very earth like planet somewhere.

It's only 600 light years away. I'll start walking....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16040655

You'd better get a move on... Voyager 1 which launched 34 years ago has only just reached the edge of our solar system.

It amazes me NASA can still get data from it when it is about 11 billion miles away!!!

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/de ... yager.html

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html

I'm going to cheat and hitch a ride on a swiss neutrino.

I should get there in 2610

They'll get there before you do...

i wanna know how many weird animals r out there. 50 billion planets in our galaxy alone, we cant be the only ones.

crazy world, crazy universe.

Too cloudy in Leeds

Venus was very bright last night and quite close to the moon (to the west, bottom left of moon) - had no idea what it was so I got my phone out - good old Google Sky!

Tonight is something a little different. An asteroid is coming close by, not quite close enough to panic buy petrol but pretty close as these things go apparently. Gonna need a telescope to spot it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16756450

I wondered which planet that was, thanks Murf.

Banarama???

If you look tonight... There's the Moon in the south with Jupiter below and to the right and then a bit further right and downwards is Venus.

All nearly in a line. You have to be quick to see Venus though because it's quite low in the sky.

Just above and to the left of Venus is Uranus but that's so far away, it's pretty impossible to see with the naked eye.

The Moon and 3 planets in a row!!!

The crosshairs show where Uranus is...

[quote="DixieDean"] The crosshairs show where Uranus is...

The CROSS-HAIRS show where your anus is are they they ones with dangleberries on.

I suggest one trims them or yanks em out.

One day... far, far away you will learn to quote someone properly.

Shouldn't it be........."Just below Venus is Uranus", and yes Uranus is impossible to see with the naked eye unless you squat on top of a mirror.

Look to the East tonight...

....and you will see a very low and very pink moon* - at least you can from my house.

....and a couple of inches above you'll see Mars





(* = no jokes necssary)

Some amazing videos from Nasa for you to enjoy, absolutely stunning:

Flight over Earth at night:

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Videos/CrewEarthObservationsVideos/persian_iss_20120101/persian_iss_20120101HD_web.mov

Flight over African Storms + the Milky way:

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Videos/CrewEarthObservationsVideos/milkyway_iss_20111229/milkyway_iss_20111229HD_web.mov

The UK to India, I wish I could get there this quick:

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Videos/CrewEarthObservationsVideos/europeindia_iss_20111019/europeindia_iss_20111019HD_web.mov

Good stuff Footy...

Check out this 360 degree view of the Milky Way. Truly astounding:

http://media.skysurvey.org/interactive360/index.html

Cheers Dixie very cool. I zoomed right into the moon, u can see all its detail.

Its just absolutely insane. I don't think people think about the universe, our galaxy etc etc enough its a eff crazy place. We just get on with siting at our desks boring our asses off at work, walking our dogs and picking up their turds, thats our live's but eff me these types of videos etc make you think what the eff am I doing here, this world is insane. There is so much to explore yet we can't reach it. I feel like we should all be exploring the massive couldron that is our Universe, yet we are stuck here in crappy cold Britain getting shat on by seagulls.

I think I have explained my thoughts nicely.

If you look to the west tonight there are two bright lights. (although they are now getting lower in the sky...)

The one to the left (dimmer) is Jupiter... the one to the right is Venus.

Through a telescope Venus looks like a half moon. WOW!!!

My daughter and I can now sign The Earth, The Moon, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn off our target list. The next one to go for is Mars and hopefully The Orion Nebula.


Go out and look up. You'll be amazed if you have clear skies. Enjoy

Dixie, excuse my ignorance but both myself and my girlfriend can see this out here in Bucharest, but we came up with a question.

How is it so?

We are between Jupiter and Venus in relation to distance from the sun. So are we seeing one beyond the sun, on the other side of it's orbit? If so, wheres the sun, cos it's night?

It must be true, as I have read it elsewhere, but can you help 2 fkwits work it out?

Neither are directly behind the Sun as they are just on a particular part of their orbit where they're visible to us though as Jupiter is the furthest away it's the other side of the Sun from Earth though not in a line directly through the Sun when this event occurs.Night time being when the Sun is the other side of Earth so as they're a particular distance from the Sun they can be seen at the same time while the Sun isn't in view.Venus orbits the Sun every 224.7 days and Jupiter orbits every 11.86 years.Their orbits are just lined up to be in a straight line from the Earth.
Here's the Venus orbit and is visible often in daylight yet seldom seen in a straight line to Jupiter.

And we cast a shadow on Venus (from our perspective) but Jupiter is so much bigger and a hell of a lot further away, so we don't cast a shadow. In fact if I remember rightly the Earth would fit in the Great Red Spot and not even make a dent. Jupiter is bloody massive!!!

I'm not an expert so I hope I've given the right info.

Planet facts:
http://theanswermachine.tripod.com/id2.html

The small and rocky planet Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun. Temperatures on Mercury's surface can reach a scorching 467 degrees Celsius, but because the planet has hardly any atmosphere to keep it warm, nighttime temperatures can drop to a frigid -183 degrees Celsius.

Ok thank you. Actually get it now

If you have clear skies tonight, sneak a peek at the Moon. It's a bit low down in the sky but it's bloody enormous!!!