What do you enjoy viewing in the night sky?

If you don't yet have the app ''Stellarium,'' you should consider downloading it. If you hold your phone up to the sky while the app is open, you will see the names of stars, both visible and not visible, depending on the weather in your area. It makes star gazing a bit more fun.
 
Tonight, the moon is big and bright shining high above the trees, and Jupiter is right above it. No visible stars tonight, though.

But, this bright moon is enough.
 
wegs said:
Tonight, the moon is big and bright shining high above the trees, and Jupiter is right above it. No visible stars tonight, though.

But, this bright moon is enough.
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I noticed that last night as well. My only star gazing these days seems to be when the cat poops, I scoop it up and walk out to the deck and toss the poop into the border of the backyard and then glance up at the sky on the way back in.

I noticed the very bright Moon and Jupiter very near it.
 
Seattle said:
I noticed that last night as well. My only star gazing these days seems to be when the cat poops, I scoop it up and walk out to the deck and toss the poop into the border of the backyard and then glance up at the sky on the way back in.

I noticed the very bright Moon and Jupiter very near it.
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Maybe that’s your cat’s secret agenda to get you star gazing, again. ;)
 
So, the temps over the holiday break finally cooled down, with very low humidity. Finally. And this means, there were a few starry nights to be had.

Early last week, I was able to see (not using a telescope) Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and the Andromeda Galaxy but over the past couple of days, the air has become more humid, the temps are rising, and the stars have been hiding, once again. I'm hopeful the temps/humidity will drop again, soon. For longer this time, fingers crossed.
 
Now that we’re back to humid, super hot days in the SE, the stars aren’t visible at night. Three months at least of starless night skies… :redface:
 
I enjoy watching the night sky with all its stars knowing that there are other civilizations out there who are doing the same thing.
 
This is for Wegs mainly I guess but ... I just ordered this.
Dwarf II micro-telescope. You can look up YouTube videos. It's mainly a camera disguised as a telescope but it's easy to use for find and photograph nebula and other deep sky objects.

It uses Bluetooth and WIFI so you put the unit on your walkway (for example) and control it from your phone or tablet or Chromebook and you take multiple pictures and stack them to be able to see deep sky objects that you probably couldn't see with your home telescope anyway with just your bare eyes.

For example....

Yes, I ordered one, no I'm not paid to promote it as my day job or otherwise. I don't have stock in the company.
 
wegs said:
That’s epic! How far do you need to be away from light pollution to be able to pick up these details?
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You can't be in more light pollution than I am but think about your statement...this is the Sun! :)

You take pictures like this in the daytime with a neutral density filter that filters out all but .001% of the Sun's light. Even then you have to use a shutter speed that is high enough so that the Sun is "dark" enough to be able to see the sunspots.

I haven't been able to take pictures at night yet due to light pollution and due to what is available in the narrow view I have from my house. Due to trees, I can only see due South and higher up in the sky (not near the horizon). There needs to be a few brighter stars in that area for the "calculation" feature to work.

In the PNW it doesn't get dark until 10 pm and it's light by 4:30 am so even though the skies are generally clear of clouds at this time of year, it's not dark and the view I have is limited.
 
Man, you all get all the cool toys. Naked eye observer on the tower, I mean earth island here.

What do I enjoy most about the night sky? My landscape is mostly limited, but ... Moon phases and sometimes cloud formations passing in front of it. I like stars too, but I'm hard pressed to recognize much more than the dippers, so .... I can see the other islands out there in that vast sea, but there's too much water or (space) to make heads or tails of what they look like. The moon is the closest, so I tend to focus more on it and what's underneath here from earth island.
 
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