Question from a Beginner

Looking south slightly southwest early evening a bright star appears - i'm
in south London - it's so bright I'm thinking it might be a planet? Is it
Mars or Venus?

ROBBIE

--
'Death to Picasso.' Evelyn Waugh, Letters.
Nick Garrett;

ASK A POLICEMAN wrote:
Looking south slightly southwest early evening a bright star appears - i'm
in south London - it's so bright I'm thinking it might be a planet? Is it
Mars or Venus?

Venus. Mars can also be seen at the same time, 30* (-ish) high in the E.


Best,
Stephen

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"Stephen Tonkin" wrote in message
...
ASK A POLICEMAN wrote:
Looking south slightly southwest early evening a bright star appears -
i'm
in south London - it's so bright I'm thinking it might be a planet? Is it
Mars or Venus?

Venus. Mars can also be seen at the same time, 30* (-ish) high in the E.

Many thanks. Do you know any good sites that simply tell you what to look
out for?

Nick

"ASK A POLICEMAN" wrote:
Do you know any good sites that simply tell you what to look
out for?

http://www.heavens-above.com

You type in your location when you register and it'll remember it for
subsequent logins.

The sub-page you probably want is the "whole sky chart"; it shows you which
stars and planets are your sky, and where, at any time you ask it for.

Also, and this is where your true location IS important for it to "know",
it'll tell you about forthcoming iridium flares (q.v.) that you can see
from your location.


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=fleetie

ASK A POLICEMAN wrote:
Do you know any good sites that simply tell you what to look out for?

See:
http://www.astrospace.co.uk/nightsky...lyNightSky.htm and
http://www.nightsky.org.uk/

--
Best,
Stephen
http://www.astunit.com

JRS: In article , dated Sat, 10 Dec 2005
17:03:02 local, seen in news:uk.sci.astronomy, Stephen Tonkin news05foo
posted :
ASK A POLICEMAN wrote:
Looking south slightly southwest early evening a bright star appears - i'm
in south London - it's so bright I'm thinking it might be a planet? Is it
Mars or Venus?

Venus. Mars can also be seen at the same time, 30* (-ish) high in the E.

That could be a little misleading, since in the very early evening (and
Venus seems to set between 6 & 7 pm currently, and can often be seen
before 4 pm, even in outer London) Mars may be up but not readily
visible against the still-illuminated sky at a time when Venus is
conspicuous.

Apart from heavens-above, there's also the maps that appear each month
in the Telegraph & Times. The latter is much better, but both mark the
planets visible later in the evening, describe the adjustment for
adjacent months, and mention anything conspicuous.

At the moment, Mars is a couple of degrees or so to the left of the
Moon; tomorrow night, it will be around ten degrees to the right of the
Moon.

--
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Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQqish topics, acronyms & links;
Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.

"Stephen Tonkin" wrote in message
...
ASK A POLICEMAN wrote:
Do you know any good sites that simply tell you what to look out for?

See:
http://www.astrospace.co.uk/nightsky...lyNightSky.htm and
http://www.nightsky.org.uk/

--
Best,
Stephen
http://www.astunit.com

thx