phillips planisphere

[ollypenrice]

The trouble with phone apps and pointing them at the sky is that they actually tell you very little. They tell you the name of the one thing you are pointing at.

These will not help you to learn the positions of the other stars, the shapes of the constellations, etc. Nor do they show you, as a planisphere does, the movement of the night sky during an evening. A planisphere and a little time and effort will give you far more useful information and information that will build up into a systematic understanding of the sky. Surely that beats,

What's that?

Sirius.

What's that?

Cor Caroli.

etc etc.

Olly

[Woking]

You can screenshot save stellarium and print off too. In the settings menu you can also switch to black/white as per star maps.

If you also set-up your ocular views, you can then print off 1. sky map with the constellation the target it's in; 2. view in your finderscope; then 3. view through one of your EPs (possibly your lowest mag one).

Useful if you want to plan a night's observing session for planets, comets, and Vesta etc.

Saying all this, it was of no use when we tried for Uranus and Neptune, but that was more down to the pesky moon, cloud and London light pollution in the east lol

it also provokes some odd looks from work colleagues picking up the prints from the office MFD too;)

[JimStan]

Hey Boba,

I started with an app, then got Stellarium. However i still take nothing outside with me apart from my notebook, red torch and Binos. I spend a little bit of time, probably an hour before i go out to observe weather permitting and make a plan of what i'm going to look at. I have found this is the best learning process there is. Seeing the objects in the sky is the confirmation that I have completed the process successfully and for me, writing it down in a plan is a sure fire way for me to remember ironic though it is.

May the force be with you.

The last few posts have hit the right solution ! Take Stellarium or any of the good planetarium programs ( The Sky 6 is my favorite ) and print out the sky chart for the evening. It will be extremely current, with planets, etc. almost right on the money !

AFA Jupiter, just look to the east after midnight. You can't HELP but see it over there ! That works for anywhere in the Northern hemisphere , right now.

"Clear skies" ! - from the E. coast of the U.S. where we don't expect anything like that for the next couple of days !

[ollypenrice]

The last few posts have hit the right solution ! Take Stellarium or any of the good planetarium programs ( The Sky 6 is my favorite ) and print out the sky chart for the evening. It will be extremely current, with planets, etc. almost right on the money !

AFA Jupiter, just look to the east after midnight. You can't HELP but see it over there ! That works for anywhere in the Northern hemisphere , right now.

"Clear skies" ! - from the E. coast of the U.S. where we don't expect anything like that for the next couple of days !

Yes, this is a great way of doing things.

Olly

[jango fett]

ok i admit lol im still using the phone app however in conjuntion im using the phillips planisphere

[MorningMajor]

Jupiter is the brightest thing in the south sky around 11pm - look up about 55 degrees you can't miss it.

Have I got this wrong, but isn't Jupiter low in the east at that time, Kim?

[jango fett]

I admit now the planisphere is a handy tool ...im understanding it and yes you can learn alot from it