Can someone confirm for me?

[Akyra]

I just looked at Stellarium to see what might be out tonight, I found Cardiff Observatory in the list, and using Google Earth got my North, South, East and West bearings. In Stellarium it shows Venus just below the Auriga constellation, I know where Venus is from my back garden so I looked that way with just my eyes and could see a bright star up and to the right. So i looked at the constellation and think I saw 'Capella'.

Can anyone confirm this, I'm quite excited LOL

[Greg]

Did you actually find out which way your garden is facing..?

Greg

[Greg]

At this time of night it's probably Venus...

[BWBlackett]

Akyra,

Yes Venus is in the East (West - woops), in Auriga. At x120 it looks like a small version of our Moon about 75% full.

Brian

[Akyra]

Yes using google earth with its little compass in the top corner.

I know which one Venus is, I have looked at it through the scope, but up and right from it was another star which I was hoping someone could confirm to be Capella.

[CELESCOPE]

Venus is in the West not the East, and yes that will be Capella,

Rog

[Greg]

Here's a pic from tonight..

Capella is NNW

[Akyra]

I am finding it easier to learn the sky by using Stellarium! I will take my laptop outside with me next observing session and face the screen/Stellarium the same way I am looking at the sky and see what I can spot

What program did that screenshot come from?

[Ant]

Starry night by the look of it.

You can pckup SN4 pretty cheap now. The current version is v6 (I think) but I still use v4 as it supports a 800x600 resolution.

Ant