February skys yield five naked eye planets

[Joanne98]

What a treat...five planets that will be visible to the naked eye.



"Doorstep Astronomy: Spot 5 Planets"

by

Joe Rao

February 13th, 2009

SPACE.com


This month you'll have an opportunity to see all five naked-eye planets – but not all at once. Two of them are evening objects, while the other three are clustered together low in the east-southeast sky deep in the dawn twilight.

The planets move around in our sky and become brighter and dimmer over time depending on where they are in their orbits around the sun. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are never visible to the naked eye.

Here's what you can look for:

The Evening Lantern

If you ever wanted to see a planet so bright it will take your breath away, this is your week and Venus is the planet. It hangs lantern-like, high in the west as darkness falls. It's so bright now that you should have little trouble finding it even before sunset in a clean, deep blue sky – which is also a good time to look at its dramatic crescent shape in a telescope.

As dusk starts to fade, this unrivaled heavenly lamp can scarcely be missed â€" you won't need a map. Venus sets more than 3 hours after the sun.

Venus is now at the pinnacle of brilliancy for this current evening apparition. Viewed through a telescope in the coming weeks, its crescent grows larger but thinner as the planet approaches the Earth in the celestial scheme of things and shows us more of its night side. By month's end Venus is similar in apparent size to Jupiter – but less than one-quarter of it is lit.

http://philosophyofscienceportal.blogspot.com/2009/02/februrary-skys-yield-five-naked-eye.html

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. Thanks for posting this. n/t

[BlooInBloo]

2. And for anyone who doesn't know: The Morning Star IS The Evening Star!

:rofl:

(and they're both Venus)

:rofl:

[sarge43]

3. Venus is truly spectacular right now.

It's a tiny disk rather than a point of light.

[petronius]

4. Really cool - thanks for posting this! (nt)

[Cirque du So-What]

5. I'll never forget my first sighting of Mercury

back in younger days. After watching a spectacular sunset in an altered state of consciousness, I saw a bright, nonsparkling 'star' just over the horizon. I attempted to rouse my compatriots by trying to portray the little planet as a 'UFO,' but I couldn't maintain the ruse for long.

[bertman]

6. Many thanks for posting this, Joanne98. For any DU'ers who are into the movement of

the sun, moon, stars and planets, there is a free download for an application that is MIND-BOGGLINGLY COOL. It's called Stellarium and you can set it up so you can view the sky (daytime or nighttime) from any point on the planet on any day or hour of the day or night.

I have it set up so I can tell what constellations, planets are where and when they will rise and set.

Stellarium is so easy to use that even I had no trouble setting it up quickly. And that's saying something.

Try it. You'll like it.

[sarge43]

7. Can you post a link, bertman? Thanks. n/t

[elizfeelinggreat]

11. I think this is it

http://www.stellarium.org/

I'm not bertman but this looks right.

"Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go. "

[sarge43]

13. Appears to be. Thank you.

Off to do some traveling.

[bertman]

14. Thanks elizfeelinggreat. That's definitely the place. Enjoy.

[elizfeelinggreat]

15. Thanks, we are

I've had my family looking and going outside to find things! What fun!

[starroute]

8. Uranus actually is just barely visible to the naked eye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus

Though it is visible to the naked eye like the five classical planets, it was never recognized as a planet by ancient observers because of its dimness and slow orbit.


http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004475.html

Uranus can—on rare occasions—become bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, if one knows exactly where to look; normally, a good set of field glasses or a small portable telescope is required.

[LastDemocratInSC]

9. The author failed to mention that a 6th planet is also visible

The Earth.

(there's nothing like a good sense of humor, right?)

[truedelphi]

10. K & R for reading later. n/t

[elizfeelinggreat]

12. thank you for this!