Waddensky

Welcome Shaun! Sounds like a very interesting field of study.

Hi and welcome! What kind of telescope did you get?

Great, welcome! The New Forest is lovely in many ways besides the night sky. I am happy to live a few kilometres from a Dark Sky Park, so I have easy access to dark skies too. Binocular astronomy is very rewarding under these circumstances, I tend to be out more with my 10x50 than with my 8" dobson. A lot of open clusters, globular clusters, galaxies and double stars are well within reach of binoculars or small spotting scopes if the skies are dark enough. Yes, this is a good time of year to view the Virgo constellation in the late evening. The brightest star of the constellation, Spica, can easily be found using the Big Dipper and the phrase: "Arc to Arcturus, Speed on to Spica" (the link has a nice finder chart). The other stars of Virgo are not as bright as Spica so it may take a while to recognise the traditional constellation shape. When you found it, look for the lion-shaped Leo to the right (= West) of Virgo. Astrophotography is a whole other kind of hobby I'm not very familiar with, I'm sure others are able to help you with that. Have fun!

This is the amount of stars you get with SkySafari 6 Pro, without the GAIA add-on (mag 15.0). Plus has a magnitude limit of 12.0.

Cartes du Ciel lets you export finder charts as images, but I'm not sure PDF export is available. But as others have said, SkySafari 6 Pro has stars down to mag 15.0, the GAIA extension offers stars down to 17.0 (G magnitude). The free TriAtlas C edition (PDF) has a stellar magnitude limit of 12.6.

Yes, star colours are readily visible without filters. The colour constrast of some double stars is striking. Enjoy!

Separation is now about 2.8" with a magnitude difference of 2.2. I'm pretty sure it can be done with your scope, but you need steady air and a decent magnification, Izar can be tough to split. Good luck!

About table-sized. Source.

Your latitude is the altitude of Polaris above the northern horizon. Or is that not what you mean?

Although I recognise the sentiment, we'll have to wait until they are in their final orbits to really get an idea of the brightness of these satellites. They are in low-Earth orbit, so in theory they should only be visible after sunset or before sunrise (except perhaps maybe in the Summer). The first batch of satellites was invisible to the naked eye quite soon. There is one Starlink satellite in orbit that has a coating to reduce its brightness (dubbed 'Darksat'). It's just a reduction of about a magnitude if I recall correctly. No, we can't do much if 'the world' wants fast internet access everywhere and lives in large cities without any noticable night sky. But we can express our concerns, and do what we always do: create awareness and tell people about the wonders of the night sky.

Here's a nice drawing from Wikipedia that explains oppositions, greatest elongations and conjunctions very well. As you can see, at opposition a planet is placed on the opposite sides of the celestial sphere as observed from Earth. This can only happen for planets that have orbits farther from the Sun than the Earth. The 'inferior planets' (Mercury and Venus) can never be between the Earth and the Sun, because they are always closer to the Sun than Earth. That's why they always appear close to the Sun as seen from Earth and in most cases are visible only in twilight. The fact that Venus can currently be observed during astronomical darkness is because of the favourable elongation and the large angle the ecliptic makes with the horizon this time of year. Venus is just as much in the eastern morning sky as it is in the western evening sky, but I guess people are more familiar with the evening sky. Edit: the skin of SGL renders the image invisible due to the transparent background. Here's a link to the image.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink

The first batch launched a few months ago was invisible to the naked eye quite soon, not really sure about these though. They seem a lot brighter from what I can see. It's kind of mesmerising to watch them pass over. They're not all equally spaced, some are 'out of line' and some are clearly slower than the rest.

Without a doubt SpaceX's Starlink satellites. You can find visible passes for your location here.

The 1572 supernova had many first-hand accounts besides Brahe, here's one by Reisacher for example. Don't know about any translations though.

Craig's picture is excellent, but I really like your image too. The crop is nice, gives it a kind of artistic ambiance. If this is your first decent image, then it's a very good start I think!

Here's a chart comparing the features of all editions. They differ primarily in database size (object count), but some advanced features are avaiable only in Plus or Pro. Interestingly, the basic edition is free on Android but paid for iPhone...

Wonderful! What a detail!

Just went out for the first comet hunt since the last full moon. Armed with my 10x50, C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) was - as expected - nowhere near as bright as it was the last dark nights before the full moon. A dim, slightly elongated smudge near 42 Cam. According to the latest observations, the comet is now around mag 9.3. C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) was a whole other story. Bright, large, and easily seen without averted vision near Gam Cam. Mag 8.2. The other bright ATLAS, C/2019 Y1, was a bit doubtful. It's easily located in Cassiopeia's 'W', but it's quite a crowded field over there. According to SkySafari, it's very close to HD 3224 (mag 8.8) but I noticed a small patch of light about the same brightness a few arcminutes lower. A bit more concentrated and smaller than T2. Not really sure. Mag 8.7 according to recent estimates. Nearby NGC 129 was wonderful, with a few individual stars resolved using averted vision.

Yes, Polaris is not the pole star on the Moon but as far as the night sky goes, everything looks exactly the same as seen from Earth. The distances to the stars involved are just too large to make a difference on about 400.000 km (remember that Earth travels way larger distances around the Sun through the year). Even the planets are on the same location, maybe with some slight parallax on the nearest planets Mars and Venus but I doubt that it will be visible by the naked eye. The Sun looks the same as seen from here, but without daylight. A mag -26 disk in a pitch black night. But! The most eye-catching, unsettling difference would be the appearance of the stars. No scintillation, no twinkles, no flickering, just steady, constant, lifeless points of light. Stellarium is great to visualise this. Software like Celestia or Space Engine allows you to land on any planet (or any star) to observe the night sky from there. Really insightful!

I have one. You can't go wrong*, it's a great all-round scope that comes with eyepieces that are good enough to get started with. *edit: as long as you're a visual observer.

What equipment are you using? If you wait a few days, the Moon will be below the horizon during the first hours of astronomical darkness. That will make comet hunting a lot easier. Look out for a small, fuzzy patch of light. Small apertures won't reveal a tail or other details. Since the desintegration of C/2019 Y4 the brightness has plummeted (it's now mag 9.8), so bear in mind that it might be difficult to spot, depending on the conditions. Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

Welcome Gavin! Yes, a dobsonian is a great scope to get started with. You can get a decent second-hand 6" or 8" dobson for your budget, if you are able to stretch your budget a bit you may even be able to find a new 6" dob (I'm thinking mainland Europe prices, maybe it differs a bit in the UK). They are great scopes that will give you a lifetime of stargazing. But some people find them a bit heavy and cumbersome, especially the base. Are you able to observe from your own home or do you need to travel to a dark location? What kind of celestial objects would you like to observe? Planets, galaxies, nebulae, double stars? A dobson is only for visual use. Maybe you can take a quick snapshot of the Moon or some other bright objects, but that's about it. To start with photography, you need a different scope and some other equipment, and as far as I know, we're talking about much higher budget requirements. But I'm strictly visual myself, so I'm sure others will chime in.

Yes, the Moon is roughly on the ecliptic, so if the Sun has a high altitude (in the summer), the full Moon (opposite of the Sun) has a low altitude. That's because the Earth's axis is tilted about 23 degrees with respect to the ecliptic (the orbit of the Earth around the Sun). Another way to look at this is the constellations on the zodiac. In summer nights these constellations are low above the horizon from the northen hemisphere (like Scorpius and Sagittarius), so all objects moving through these constellations (the planets and the Moon) have a low altitude too. In the winter, the zodiac constellations are high up: Gemini, Taurus, and so are the planets and the Moon.

Yes, there's an Astronomers Telegram on the recent developments, and another one confirming the change. The expected light curve based on recent observations is updated too, with a maximum around mag 3-4. Still, comets are erratic and unpredictable, so we'll have to wait before we know anything for sure.