h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

check out a free program found in my PC mag'

celestia 1.5
open source project - data gathered by E.S.A.

I have Celestia, Prof, many thanks

ok flower, is it ok ? I'll have a look see after I've got everything back on the pc(that I can remember had)

ST sent me it, Andrew uses it more than I do!
He loves the "click to get the constellation shapes" option, and he likes to fast-forward to about 5,000AD before the thing has a fit and needs rebooting

I just load it and

I hope you RL star-gazers are having the same sky I've got tonight: Arcturus and Capella and Jupiter and I'm off back out at midnight to see if I can catch some early Perseids

I've got enough with the stars in my head to contend with

Partial lunar eclipse tonight, folks

And us with clouds in the way - some desert this is

Same here!

It's your fault, GB...

YOU announced it too early, so the Weather Gods had enough time to gather the clouds together. You may as well have said "I'm having a barbecue later", that has the same effect!

may be you should have said in denial with a diversion way
...I am not gonna bbq, in stead I am going to a sauna...

I'm in a philosophical quandary about this. An eclipse of the moon is where the shadow of the earth passes over it, right?

But everyone knows, and it's observable too, that there are no shadows on cloudy days - and there's no reason to suspect that this shouldn't also be true at night, though that's not quite as observable.

So, since it's cloudy, there can be no eclipse of the moon, but it can't be proved since the moon isn't visible on account of the clouds.

It's all rather circular

Well it definitely happened, because I watched it on Celestia! The moon looked like an without the holly topping

Is anyone else seeing this clear sky?

After a massive rainstorm earlier, with thunder, lightening, etc., I didn't imagine the sky would look like this now, no moon and acres and acres of

I just collected Andrew from his Club and we were counting constellations walking back from the garage

I'm off back out now, armed with my binos

Nope. I could just see Cassae... Cassei... Cassyo... Casio... ermm.. That W shaped one... but other than that, almost complete cloud cover!

Cassiopeia was right overhead. I'm afraid to say I didn't stay out very long even though there was such a gorgeous view. Just had a good look around, kept going back to beautiful Vega, stunning this time of year

and now I can't type

Whereabouts is Vega?

(I suppose I *could* spend time researching that, bound to be a good site somewhere, but I'm sat here with a and trying to catch up on backlogs...)

Vega - you need your back to Cassiopeia. Look west and up, it's the brightest star in that area.

Right, I just collected Andrew and almost crashed the car when I saw the moon It's low in the south, huge and orange, looks about 70% full, and just above the moon and to the right (about 2 o'clock) is Jupiter, (3 deg north of Moon).

We must be in the eye of the storm, because it's thrown it down all day, and more is forecast for tonight/tomorrow. But it's lovely and clear out there now, sky full of stars, and quite balmy.

A40696121 upcoming alignments

If you get chance (and good weather) tonight after sunset, Venus, Jupiter and the will all be in the same general direction. Should be quite a sight

The moon will actually occult Venus _before_ sunset but we won't see that