BBC Focus Magazine

[Thinker]

We've bought our 11 year old a fairly basic telescope for christmas from John Lewis and besides showing him the moon, is there anything that I could point it towards that might get his astronomical juices flowing?

[M Paul Lloyd]

Jupiter which is very prominent just now and well worth a look, you may even be able to make out some subtle bands of cloud and of course the four largest moons which change position with each night that pasess as they orbit the planet.

Also the Pleiades M45 a cluster of very bright bluish stars in the consellation of Taurus, the bright moon has been obscuring them during the early period of the night but if you train your scope East around 10pm you should bump into them.

Some details of this instrument would be helpful (objective diamter and focal length) to guage its potential.

[Thinker]

Ah yes! Well, that's where we are a bit limited until the yuletide bells start a ringing and he opens said present. But I will return with all such information.

[M Paul Lloyd]

If you could give me the name from the box I could do some checking.

[ChrisH]

One programme I find useful is Stellarium.
It is a planetarium which shows the positions of stars, planets etc. It uses your pc's clock to plot the objects in their correct position and you can also speed up or slow down time which is useful for finding out where planets will be at a later date.

It is free to download http://www.stellarium.org/

Once you load the programme you should press F6 to set your location. The rest is pretty straightforward.

[Thinker]

I'll endeavour to do so MPL.

And thanks for the suggestion ChrisH!

[M Paul Lloyd]

I'm rather hoping its the Celestron FirstScope C21024 table top reflector, over the two John Lewis branded Telescopes ?

Just been trying out that Stellarium you recommend ChrisH and I'm well impressed. A nice one for the cloudy wet nights that.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I'm wondering Thinker, have you read this?
choosing-an-amateur-telescope-t65.html

[KingPhillip]

ChrisH, thanks for the stellarium link. The program has its quirks but it's workable.

One interesting feature of the program is the ocular function. This brings up a close-up image of the object selected. However, this image is not full-screen, nor is it in the National Geographic Hubble Telescope full-color-spectrum.

I was once atop a University roof looking through its telescope at an eventful comet passing by. No, it didn't actually move, unlike in the movie A Walk To Remember with Mandy Moore and Shane West. What a hoot when I saw that scene. Anyway, the telescope on the roof wasn't resolved beyond the comet's range.

Questions: are the stellarium ocular images the real deal? Does anyone experience a letdown of sorts when the color images are nowhere to be seen?

[M Paul Lloyd]

Does anyone experience a letdown of sorts when the color images are nowhere to be seen?

To be honest KingPhillip I find the 'false' colour enhanced images we see in many publications really quite irritating at times if only because that when people look at these objects through a small telescope they are often disappointed to find that it actually looks quite dull by comparison.

[ChrisH]

I'm pleased that on the whole you found Stellarium interesting.
I first discovered it on a cd included with the "Sky At Night" magazine a few years ago. I had a fairly cheap telescope at the time and found what I assumed was Jupiter and three of its moons. I checked with the program and found that Jupiter was indeed where I was looking. It also helped when looking at Saturn.
You can zoom right into some objects for a closer view as well.

[KingPhillip]

"To be honest KingPhillip I find the 'false' colour enhanced images we see in many publications really quite irritating at times if only because that when people look at these objects through a small telescope they are often disappointed to find that it actually looks quite dull by comparison."

I find pleasure looking at the published color images. But there is a skeptic in me niggling with doubts about the software that processes the data to produce such images. Perhaps in an effort to promote astronomy and inspire budding stargazers, these images are produced. Alas, reality arrives in black and white.

@ChrisH,

I've seen star charts and I've seen photos of the night sky showing the galactic plane. The two types seem unrelated. Stellarium merges the two, along with constellation charts.

[...]

well u all beat me to it with some great targets, Jupiter will be centre stage christmas day at around 7pm due south. may i add the orion nebula, this is in the middle of his sword sheath hanging from the famous orions belt which gets to it highest point in the sky due south at about 10pm christmas day, although its at a viewable height from around 7pm in the south east

and yes chrisH, stellarium is a great FREE tool i've been using it for a long time post3749.html?hilit=Stellarium#p3749

[...]

well u all beat me to it with some great targets, to expand a little on what MPL said Jupiter will be centre stage christmas day at around 7pm due south, and may i add the orion nebula, this is in the middle of his sword sheath hanging from the famous orions belt which gets to it highest point in the sky due south at about 10pm christmas day, although its at a viewable height from around 7pm in the south east. also, if you scan the western sky slowly you will pick up some of the billions of stars in the milky way where you'll find lots of stuff to look at. but remember to wrap up warm and that your eyes take around 20 minutes to get to their best, oh and theres no moon that night so as long as its not cloudy it should be great

and yes chrisH, stellarium is a great FREE tool i've been using it for a long time post3749.html?hilit=Stellarium#p3749

I KNOW ITS THE SAME POST BUT IVE ADDED A BIT MORE AS I WAS LOCKED OUT OF ORIGINAL WHILST EDITING IT

[Jamie]

You should all check out Celestia too.

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

Welcome to Celestia
... The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy.
All movement in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit.
Celestia is expandable. Celestia comes with a large catalog of stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. If that's not enough, you can download dozens of easy to install add-ons with more objects.

And you can download the Death Star.

[ciaran]

If you have a smartphone there is a fantastic App called pUniverse whereby you can search for all the visible planets in the sky at any time. With the iPhones inbuilt compass you can search the sky for any planet simply by holding the phone up and it will identify whatever is is you are looking at. It also gives a to the minute forecast of when the ISS will next be visible in your area and has helpful information for beginners on how to identify the constellations and nebulae. I'd highly recommend it.

[M Paul Lloyd]

That sounds seriously cool ciaran, thanks for pointing it out.

[Jamie]

I think Google Sky does the same thing too.

[...]

they are all good programmes thinker, but of them all, for stargazing, you cant beat stellarium for ease of use. It plonks you in your back garden and shows you where everything is in real time and can be scrolled forward or backward in time, a stargazer cant ask for more

[M Paul Lloyd]

It also works well on a net-book with limited processor capacity which is a huge plus.