Stellarium...

[summerstars]

How do I change the location on it? It says I'm in Paris.

Thanks.

[AstroGeek99]

If you are using the one I am, go to the bottom left corner and go up the side options to the Location window, then change it to whatever you want. If not, then sorry! :/

[summerstars]

Have found it now. Thank you. :-)

[Torin]

Don't forget to set it as default - otherwise it will skip back.

[summerstars]

Have done that, thanks.

Will I find out on there what time is best to go out and view Saturn?

[Torin]

Yes - you can use the time controls to skip forward on the right hand side of the bottom control bar.

[tibbz2]

Yes - you can use the time controls to skip forward on the right hand side of the bottom control bar.

This basically. I think the best time for Saturn at the moment is around about 1am-2am.... However it's quite high already.

[JamesM]

Tonight for example for us down in the south, Saturn starts to appear above the horizon from about 10:07 pm and then reaches it's peak in the sky at around 02:30am before it dives back down again. The 28th of this month is when Saturn will be 'opposition', meaning the earth is directly between the Sun and Saturn so as soon as the sun goes down, Saturn will appear and will remain in the night sky till the Sun reappears. Technically is will also be at is nearest distance to the earth but given that it is so far away, it's not going to make a great difference to the view, unlike say Mars where the distance is more noticeable.

Clear skies and happy hunting

James

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Brilliant peice of kit is Stellarium. On cloudy nights you can load it up and its almost like people outside yourself

[Pyrodave]

Yes great piece of software

Especially that you can set it up so that you can see a view more or less what you will see through your eyepieces

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Yes great piece of software

Especially that you can set it up so that you can see a view more or less what you will see through your eyepieces

Yep, I love the ocular feature. BTW, it gives more realistic FOV circles if you enter the field stop diameter of the EP. Pincushion distortion means computing the actual FOV from apparent FOV divided by magnification can be far off.

[KJ Dalley]

Great piece of software. Helped me find Panstarrs recently. You can fast forward in time and see how the sky will look in your area (clouds permitting!) many years in advance. For example 20/05/2014 at 2300h in my part of the world both Saturn and Mars will be visible in the Southern skies. A few years later and you can see Saturn and Jupiter coming together that, clouds and life force remaining, would be something to look forward to!

[northwalesparry]

What I found is if you take you laptop/tab out with you make sure that you set it to night vision mode, this will stop your eyes adjusting to bright light.

[bod00]

I love Stellarium, all what people have said above is very true but i like the fact that you can change the ocular view to be the same as the equipment you have so in effect giving you a Telescope simulator so i have found it very useful during these bad viewing nights to see what i would have seen if they had been clear!

Maybe not a big feature for some people but i am currently looking to upgrade my scope so again you can put the specs in of the scope(s) you are looking at and see what kind of improvement you might be able to achieve

All in all an amazing bit of software and although i have not had many hours out in the cold i have had plenty in the warm of the house

Good Luck, skies are looking ok tonight so fingers crossed for a decent night!

[northwalesparry]

Yep, I love the ocular feature. BTW, it gives more realistic FOV circles if you enter the field stop diameter of the EP. Pincushion distortion means computing the actual FOV from apparent FOV divided by magnification can be far off.

how do you set this up please mate

[bingevader]

Tonight for example for us down in the south, Saturn starts to appear above the horizon from about 10:07 pm and then reaches it's peak in the sky at around 02:30am before it dives back down again. The 28th of this month is when Saturn will be 'opposition', meaning the earth is directly between the Sun and Saturn so as soon as the sun goes down, Saturn will appear and will remain in the night sky till the Sun reappears. Technically is will also be at is nearest distance to the earth but given that it is so far away, it's not going to make a great difference to the view, unlike say Mars where the distance is more noticeable.

Clear skies and happy hunting

James

Hopefully, weather permitting, you will be surprised.

It's not just the smallest distance, but the angle of reflection (or lack of it) too.

I'm hoping there'll be a day or two when we'll be able to enjoy it at its brightest.

Cheers

[nameunknown]

...move to Paris? - the light pollution is terrible, but the food supermarkets are fantastic: if I could have a point-to-point teleport device in the house the other end would be outside a "Galeries gourmandes" in Paris:-

tins of confit de canard and bottles of Chateau de Chasselet go down very well...

P

[faulksy]

just down loaded it on my phone havnt tried it yet but should be good for when your at a dark location

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Ive often thought about getting it on my phone. Have to let us know whats its like.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

how do you set this up please mate

Go to the "settings" dialogue, chose "plugins", and select "ocular". You can enter scopes, EPs, camera sensors, etc. Activate during the session using Crtl-O

[faulksy]

Ive often thought about getting it on my phone. Have to let us know whats its like.

it is like a mini version of the p.c one,cant find plugins though but havnt played with it that much, but one good feature is you can set it to phone mode and the sky moves with the phone