Seeing Caelum and Centaurus from the English West Midlands

[Matt1979]

<p>Hi, I am new to the forum. I live south of Wolverhampton and my views to the western horizon are sadly blocked by a 777ft. hill a quarter of a mile away. I have sometimes had to take my 60x spotting scope to the hill to see low in the west - I saw Piscis Austrinus for the first time in early December.

I have Stellarium on my computer and the program shows that Caelum and Centaurus (the parts visible from the UK) are just below my horizon. However, a book I have recently bought secondhand called A Guide to the Constellations, published by Astronomy Now in 2002, doesn't say that Caelum and Centaurus would be below the horizon in central England. The book does say, though, that Grus and Corona Australis would only be visible from southern England. How accurate is Stellarium?

[cantab]

Considering it even factors in atmospheric refraction of objects low on the horizon, I suspect pretty accurate. From Birmingham I get Gamma Caeli as rising just over two degrees above the southern horizon. That might as well be not visible. Theta Centauri, the northernmost Bayer-designated star in Centaurus, fares even worse barely scraping more than a degree above the horizon.

[Matt1979]

Considering it even factors in atmospheric refraction of objects low on the horizon, I suspect pretty accurate. From Birmingham I get Gamma Caeli as rising just over two degrees above the southern horizon. That might as well be not visible. Theta Centauri, the northernmost Bayer-designated star in Centaurus, fares even worse barely scraping more than a degree above the horizon.

Thanks for letting me know. So it seems that it would be hard to see Gamma Caeli unless the horizon was very clear. I am not sure how often the horizon would be clear enough to see Theta Centauri - I have not seen any stars that low yet. In early December when I was looking at Piscis Austrinus, I also looked at some of the stars in Saggitarius (I hadn't really observed Saggitarius before as I was busy with many other constellations) and I couldn't see many stars above the horizon and the southernmost stars were hidden in the murk