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Where can I find the planets in our solar system and at what times?

benjiman46

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benjiman46

benjiman46

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hi Im very new to astronomy and was just wondering where can I find the planets in our solar system and at what times do they appear? I have a tasco 302012 with .96" optics and ive read on websites that theyre pants, so I've just ordered a new Orion Spaceprobe 130 EQ telescope that can aparently see the rings on saturn. Id very much like to see saturn as well as jupiter, mars, mercury and venus. But being a beginner, I haven't a clue where they can be seen or what times of year and day they appear. Can anyone help? Thanks all. Ben.

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barkis

barkis

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Hi. Ben.

A good help to you would be to download a free Planetarium Software programme,

called Stellarium. Type The name in a search engine, and it will reveal a download site for you.

Jupiter is visible at night. It is in the south, but very low down,, so If you have a clear southern horizon, you should see it ok. It will be the brightest looking starlike object visible to your eye, but reveal itself as a planet with four major moons through a telescope.

Whoops, beaten to it. :laughing2:

Ron. :D

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SteveL

SteveL

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err... no. The planets move slowly over the course of the year. Right now Jupiter is low in the south, and will eventually disappear into the western horizon, but Saturn is due to start rising in the east soon.

I think you need to install Stellarium to give you an idea of where things are and how they move over the course of the year.

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Vega

Vega

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Hi Ben, welcome to this brilliant hobby!

Jupiter is just about the only naked eye visible planet around at the moment, its the brightest 'star' in the sky at the moment low on the Southern horizon. As long as your Southern horizon is not blocked by trees or a house you cant miss it :D

With Stellarium you enter your latitude / Longitude details (it defaults to

somewhere in France when you first fire it up I think!). So using the lat/long co-ordinates you can show the sky as seen from anywhere in the world.

If you dont know your co-ordinates, just go to multimap.com, type in your postcode and the lat/long co-ordinates are shown at the bottom :(

Bye the way its Page UP / Page down (or mouse wheel) to zoom in and out. Took me ages to work it out on a pc without mousewheel!

Fantastic software.

Matt

ps please feel free to keep asking questions cus we love answering them

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brympton

brympton

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Bye the way its Page UP / Page down (or mouse wheel) to zoom in and out. Took me ages to work it out on a pc without mousewheel!

When I first installed it I read the pdf guide and started making a hot key template...until I got to the letter "h", F1 is useful too if you like to flip between windows...

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