Last night

[AlanThorpe]

Hey there,

Finally a clear night here last night, if a bit to bright with the moon, but was still good! I'm still trying to find my way around the sky, so plenty of searching with not much in the way of results!

But had some great views of Jupiter and it's moons, at least it wasn't hard to find!! Just wondering what was accompanying Jupiter as it made it's way across the sky, it was up at an angle of maybe 60 degrees from jupiter and maybe 2 finder scope views away (5 degree field of view). I presume it was a planet following along the elliptical but I have no idea what it was!

Had some great views of the Orion Nebula too and for first time could actually see the dust and gas cloud shape, amazing!

I spent most of the night trying to find 2 objects with no luck at all.....any hints or tips would be much appreciated please!! I was searching for M51 and NGC 891, each seemingly just a bit off to one side of Alkaid and Almach.....I had no luck at all!

I was using 32mm EP, with 8 " Newtonian, with a fairly bright moon. Really looking forward to finding these, but witll have to give another bash soon, maybe with 16mm?

Any advise would be greatly appreciated!! 

Thanks,

Alan

[AlanThorpe]

Hey there,

Finally a clear night here last night, if a bit too bright with the moon, but was still good! I'm still trying to find my way around the sky, so plenty of searching with not much in the way of results!

But had some great views of Jupiter and it's moons, at least it wasn't hard to find!! Just wondering what was accompanying Jupiter as it made it's way across the sky, it was up at an angle of maybe 60 degrees from jupiter and maybe 2 finder scope views away (5 degree field of view). I presume it was a planet following along the elliptical but I have no idea what it was!

Sorry, it was nowhere near 2 Finder Views away.........it was visible in the finder along with Jupiter, up around the 2 o'clock position.

Thanks!

[Astro Imp]

Suspect what you saw was Pollux which was about 7^o north east of Jupiter early this morning.

Have a look at Stellarium.

Not downloaded Stellarium yet? Get it here:- http://www.stellarium.org/

[AlanThorpe]

Suspect what you saw was Pollux which was about 7^o north east of Jupiter early this morning.

Have a look at Stellarium.

Not downloaded Stellarium yet? Get it here:- http://www.stellarium.org/

Ah Pollux!!! Thanks very much for that, I'll check it out. Meant to download that ages ago, will have a gander. Cheers!

[Astro Imp]

Pleased to be of help.