Venus looks like nothing else in the sky. ...
I remember reading in a book somewhere that, at the extremes of its orbit >(relative to the Earth’s), it might be visible up to three hours before >sunrise ...
On Sat, 7 Jun 2025, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
Venus looks like nothing else in the sky. ...
I remember reading in a book somewhere that, at the extremes of its orbit >>(relative to the Earth’s), it might be visible up to three hours before >>sunrise ...
At its maximum brightness, on a fine day you can actually see it in
the daytime if you know where to look. It is quite plainly there in a
deep blue sky, obvious even.
(Hey, with all the religio/ideo/political crap in both these groups, why
not have some *non*-religio/ideo/political crap ;)).
I was up about an hour or so before dawn a few days ago, and noticed a
very bright object high in the sky. I was back in bed before I realized it was the planet Venus.
Venus looks like nothing else in the sky. To my eyes, it’s noticeably something more than a mere point of light, like everything else in the
night sky (except the Moon, of course). It looks bigger, and you can
almost notice that it isn’t perfectly round, because it shows phases (like the Moon, but only properly visible through a telescope) when it’s on the same side of the Sun as the Earth. Its colour is noticeably a bit off-
white.
I remember reading in a book somewhere that, at the extremes of its orbit (relative to the Earth’s), it might be visible up to three hours before sunrise (as a “morning star”, as it is right now), or up to three hours after sunset (as an “evening star”, when it’s on the other side of its orbit relative to us). A quick peek forward in time with KStars indicates that it is slowly moving back closer (from our viewpoint) to the Sun,
though I think we have a couple months left before it disappears from
view.
I tried looking for it again a day or two ago, but was stymied by a solid blanket of winter fog. Takes effort to get up that early. ;)
Anyway, give it a try, to see if you have better luck in your particular corner of our planet. ;)
I tried looking for it again a day or two ago, but was stymied by a solid blanket of winter fog. Takes effort to get up that early. ;)
Anyway, give it a try, to see if you have better luck in your particular corner of our planet. ;)
(Hey, with all the religio/ideo/political crap in both these groups, why
not have some *non*-religio/ideo/political crap ;)).
I was up about an hour or so before dawn a few days ago, and noticed a
very bright object high in the sky. I was back in bed before I realized it was the planet Venus.
Venus looks like nothing else in the sky. To my eyes, it’s noticeably something more than a mere point of light, like everything else in the
night sky (except the Moon, of course). It looks bigger, and you can
almost notice that it isn’t perfectly round, because it shows phases (like the Moon, but only properly visible through a telescope) when it’s on the same side of the Sun as the Earth. Its colour is noticeably a bit off-
white.
I remember reading in a book somewhere that, at the extremes of its orbit (relative to the Earth’s), it might be visible up to three hours before sunrise (as a “morning star”, as it is right now), or up to three hours after sunset (as an “evening star”, when it’s on the other side of its orbit relative to us). A quick peek forward in time with KStars indicates that it is slowly moving back closer (from our viewpoint) to the Sun,
though I think we have a couple months left before it disappears from
view.
I tried looking for it again a day or two ago, but was stymied by a solid blanket of winter fog. Takes effort to get up that early. ;)
Anyway, give it a try, to see if you have better luck in your particular corner of our planet. ;)
Try finding the Milky Way, which is the thick layer of stars that
thrilled our ancient ancestors.
The Milky Way is there every night but it is always invisible due
to LIGHT POLLUTION.
I rememer seeing as a child, growing up in a small town. But I
haven't seen it since moving to the big city, decades ago. Sad.
Farley Flud wrote:
Try finding the Milky Way, which is the thick layer of stars that
thrilled our ancient ancestors.
The Milky Way is there every night but it is always invisible due
to LIGHT POLLUTION.
I rememer seeing as a child, growing up in a small town. But I
haven't seen it since moving to the big city, decades ago. Sad.
Seeing Jupiter and Venus together is great, since they are in
different directions relative to us.
On Sat, 07 Jun 2025 10:58:08 -0500, chrisv wrote:
I rememer seeing as a child, growing up in a small town. But I
haven't seen it since moving to the big city, decades ago. Sad.
You are lucky. I have never seen it nor will I ever see it.
Although I could travel to some distant region, for various reasons
I have no desire to do so.
However, what gets me truly angry is the lack of Milky Way images
available online. The Internet is supposed to be the information
"super highway" yet a Google search for Milky Way images returns
only a few paltry examples -- and most of these are on junk commercial
sites.
There must be hundreds of thousands of high resolution images of the
Milky Way available but where the fuck are they?
The Internet as an information source is failing rapidly and none
of these idiots could care one iota (as long as they have their Ubuntu).
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