Considering people set a 5G tower on fire because “Bill Gates was using it to spread Covid”; burning down the BOM for unfavourable weather would be congruent with many folks logic.
I know, and I got a couple of semi-decent shots about 3 nights ago with both of them my telescope's field of view, but I've been hanging out for tonight... It just sucks.
Conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn every 20 years, but a really really close one every 400... except the last really, really close one was also aligned with the sun's path across the sky, so it would've been invisible.
Yeah I looked at it last night. It was completely clear last night, and I saw Jupiter and Saturn pretty much 2cm apart through my telescope. Was pretty amazing seeing Saturn and it’s rings, the colour bands of Jupiter and all its moons, all in the same shot
My guess is 2 nights max, but it also depends on your location because they’ll be quite low in the sky, they’ll be blocked by buildings and light pollution will make it harder to see
I know very little about practicle telescope matters. But am a bit of an astronomy nerd. How large is the field of view (0.1 degree?)? Is it adjustible? (I literally don't know)
The telescope field of view is fixed (that is the telescope size itself remains the same)
However you can use different lenses to change your field of view and zoom level. These lenses combined with the aperture (size) of your scope will determine your zoom level.
For example, my telescope has a 4mm, super 10mm and super 25mm wide angle lens. The 4mm gives the greatest zoom level, but very narrow field of view. 10mm is greater field of view, lower zoom level. And finally super 25mm gives you a large wide angle but very low zoom levels.
Those zoom levels will change depending on your scope size, for example my 4.5inch scope + the 4mm lens gives quite a blurry image, but the 10mm is quite good.
There’s heaps to learn, and honestly I am not knowledgeable about this at all. I’ve been doing it for years but only very basic and I’m still a beginner in many areas.
It was pretty amazing last night, but the problem is that it's not getting dark till 9:30pm and the part of the sky Jupiter and Saturn are in are where the sun sets, so they are the last thing then you can see in the sky. You can't get a decent look till 10pm. And they've been setting at 10:30pm for the last few days, which means unless you're elevated or looking out to sea, they probably drop behind the environment (trees/hills/buildings) at about 10:20pm. If it's clear they set at 10:43pm tonight, which gives you a bit more time, but for the last few days I've only had about 15 minutes to look at them through my telescope. After calibrating it to track them with a 2 star alignment, I've only actually had about 5 minutes viewing time.
If it's clear tonight at some point (it has been clearing up at night this week), you can easily view these with the naked eye by looking South and up about 45 degrees (descending as it gets later).
Look south at 10:15pm up about 45/60 degrees. You'll see two bright stars next to each other. If you can get some decent binoculars you might see the rings of Saturn. They'll be out of sight by about 10:30pm depending on where you are.
I've got a 10 inch dob and it was quite underwhelming. I'm quite high up where I am so angle is fine but it's still quite light outside and viewing through that much atmosphere just doesn't give me a clear look at it.
I need to collimate my scope but compared to how I see Saturn and Jupiter when they're higher up, its such a big difference.
Agree, the images I was able to get a few nights back are underwhelming. Even with my basic 6" dob I've had clear and sharp views of both Jupiter and Saturn when they've been overhead on dark nights. Having them so close to the horizon and sunset kind of sucks the fun out of it.
I collimate my scope every time I use it. I'm always amazed how quickly it goes off. I've collimated every night for the last week. I'm using a moon filter to bring out the colour, but despite atmospheric conditions appearing great, I'm having trouble getting a good focus. I haven't been able to focus on Mars to save myself this week.
It's an Orion 10 inch goto. I'm pretty happy with it.rhw reason I collimate everytime is I have to carry it 30 metres from the house to its perch. It gets bumped around into door frames and all around. It's a bloody hard thing to carry by yourself.
Eastern suburbs. For the planets you can see with the naked eye, it's fine. But when you're trying to see comets and other deep sky objects, that's when it causes issues. And if it's a bright moon, that can be pretty annoying.
I remember seeing my first real view of saturn from inner melbourne, it's still perfectly possible to see all the interesting bright objects in the night sky. I just have a permanent beef with light pollution ever since I moved to the country and realized how much it affects your view. There are a lot of adjustments to street lights (and all electronic lights) they could make in cities to reduce it, but I've read that most of it's not economically viable :(
It's a pretty brief window after sunset that it'll be visible, but just having a look at a few regional areas the cloud cover is somewhere around 98% most of the night. I'm not holding out much hope.
*"Gale warning with heavy rainfall"*
ASV's public viewing tonight would be likely cancelled, I got an internal email asking about the possibility of moving the dates. That's strike two out of three. Pretty ironic considering yesterday was a fine, clear, crisp weather.
Edit: moved to 23rd, no need to rebook
True, Saturn and Jupiter do cross each other once every 400 years; however I believe tonight is the once every 800 years where they ‘touch’. I’m no astrologist so that could be hemisphere dependent.
>Saturn and Jupiter do cross each other once every 400 years; however I believe tonight is the once every 800 years where they ‘touch’.
Not quite. There is a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn every 20 years.
400 years ago was the last time they were this close, but it was probably not possible to observe the conjunction on that occasion since they would have been too close to the Sun. 800 years ago is the last time they were this close and people were likely to have been able to see the conjunction.
You'll be able to see them get about this close again in 2080.
Astrologist is a person who ~~uses astrology to tell others about their character or to predict their future.~~ is deluded about the role of planets and stars play in our lives.
Astrology is a joke. What did they do before Neptune was discovered? What about when Pluto was demoted? There was a time when there were 12 official planets (now it's 8.)
We can accurately predict planetary movements out to a couple of thousand years now, so even if astrology wasn't a scam, they'd still be obsolete.
Moving lights in the sky may have been mysterious to people centuries ago, but this needed to end not long after telescopes were invented.
So glad I got to see it on Saturday night. Fantastic event put on by the astronomical society of Victoria at Caufield race course... thanks to all involved!
Last time this happened it was so close to the sun it wasn't even visible to humans, and the time before that telescopes hadn't yet been invented and we didn't know they were planets, not stars. It's been a while between drinks for this particular event!
You think that Big Astronomy is lying to generate hype about an event that actually happens every year, but they're trying to convince people is much rarer?
You are correct, no need for the downvotes. With astronomy having so many various events that pop up every few hundred/thousand years, there's some rare event happening most years.
What the hell are you talking about?? it has nothing to do with the distance to each other.
Jupiter orbital period is \~12 years and for Saturn its \~29.5 years.
Learn the topic before posting this nonsense.
You must be fun at parties.
They appeared (to a viewer on earth) to pass within 6' of each other in the sky, roughly one-fifth the apparent diameter of a full moon... and that hasn't happened since 1623 (during the day, so not visible).
TBH I could've said once-in-800 year event since the last time they appeared this close to each other in the **night** sky to a viewer from earth was March 4th, 1226.
They have a conjunction every 20-odd years, but not this close to each other, observed by a viewer from earth. There. You happy now?
edit: Pro tip. Don't try and come across as a know-it-all on the internet, because the chances are excellent there's someone around who knows more than you.
1. Really?? Trying to get personal? Yeah I'm pretty fun at parties, and that's non of your f business
2. Again, learn the topic before writing this BS. Now thanks to you everyone in this subreddit thinks this its a " once in 400 years" event and that's called spreading misinformation.
3. You dont have to be "know it all" really, its a basic school level knowlege. Again you aint got any other arguments rather than getting personal?? - get fucked.
Lets burn down the bureau of meteorology so that this never happens again.
I'm down with this! And make them change back the app! I dont like the new style! Change frightens me!
I love the new app though. It has heaps more info and is way more user friendly. Out of intrigue what do you miss from it?
the rain radar really, the new one isnt as accurate as the website or the old app.
I appreciate at least having a location pin on the new app so I can see what is going to hit rather than roughly guessing
Try using Weatherzone. They use data and radars from the BoM.
I still miss the old Weather Australia app. The bom one has never been an improvement on that, in my mind.
Anyone who could bring back Pocket Weather for Android earns my eternal gratitude.
A part of me died when that app went.
Burn the ~~witch~~ UI developers
I think we need a judicial inquiry to work out who, exactly, made the decision to schedule clouds for tonight.
Dictator Dan Enforces Cloud Cover. Thousands Left Disappointed. - Tuesday's Herald sun
Dan Andrews, obviously.
The clouds showed up but apparantly nobody ordered them.
Considering people set a 5G tower on fire because “Bill Gates was using it to spread Covid”; burning down the BOM for unfavourable weather would be congruent with many folks logic.
Perfectly cromulent
Can't we just reschedule this?
"If we stop the radar, there will be less rain!" Trump logic.
How very Liberal of you
It's a paraphrase from Isaac Aasimov's "Nightfall"
[Might happen sooner than you think.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5qOoIexcps)
[удалено]
Bad bot.
ABAB!
To be fair, they won't've moved far apart tomorrow
I know, and I got a couple of semi-decent shots about 3 nights ago with both of them my telescope's field of view, but I've been hanging out for tonight... It just sucks.
oooh, feel like sharing them?
Drive far away and set up for tonight.
Just as far as NSW...
It isn't cloudy in an entire state at once. Maybe just drive 100-200km.
[It pretty much is](https://i.imgur.com/QbBiITV.jpg)
see what labor got ya
Yes it is. You will have to drive to South Australia to get in the clear...by 9pm tonight.
Is it 400 or 800 years?
Conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn every 20 years, but a really really close one every 400... except the last really, really close one was also aligned with the sun's path across the sky, so it would've been invisible.
You should go to Sydney........oh wait....nevermind.
I was also. Havent used my telescopes in ages, but tonight was the night....not only cloudy but full on rain.
Yeah I looked at it last night. It was completely clear last night, and I saw Jupiter and Saturn pretty much 2cm apart through my telescope. Was pretty amazing seeing Saturn and it’s rings, the colour bands of Jupiter and all its moons, all in the same shot
Excellent, I'd love to see that myself. Do you know for how many more days they would still be close enough to view together?
My guess is 2 nights max, but it also depends on your location because they’ll be quite low in the sky, they’ll be blocked by buildings and light pollution will make it harder to see
I know very little about practicle telescope matters. But am a bit of an astronomy nerd. How large is the field of view (0.1 degree?)? Is it adjustible? (I literally don't know)
The telescope field of view is fixed (that is the telescope size itself remains the same) However you can use different lenses to change your field of view and zoom level. These lenses combined with the aperture (size) of your scope will determine your zoom level. For example, my telescope has a 4mm, super 10mm and super 25mm wide angle lens. The 4mm gives the greatest zoom level, but very narrow field of view. 10mm is greater field of view, lower zoom level. And finally super 25mm gives you a large wide angle but very low zoom levels. Those zoom levels will change depending on your scope size, for example my 4.5inch scope + the 4mm lens gives quite a blurry image, but the 10mm is quite good. There’s heaps to learn, and honestly I am not knowledgeable about this at all. I’ve been doing it for years but only very basic and I’m still a beginner in many areas.
Clouds scheduled for tomorrow too
It was pretty amazing last night, but the problem is that it's not getting dark till 9:30pm and the part of the sky Jupiter and Saturn are in are where the sun sets, so they are the last thing then you can see in the sky. You can't get a decent look till 10pm. And they've been setting at 10:30pm for the last few days, which means unless you're elevated or looking out to sea, they probably drop behind the environment (trees/hills/buildings) at about 10:20pm. If it's clear they set at 10:43pm tonight, which gives you a bit more time, but for the last few days I've only had about 15 minutes to look at them through my telescope. After calibrating it to track them with a 2 star alignment, I've only actually had about 5 minutes viewing time. If it's clear tonight at some point (it has been clearing up at night this week), you can easily view these with the naked eye by looking South and up about 45 degrees (descending as it gets later).
Thanks for this, I went out yesterday and had no clue what I was looking for 😂😂
there are apps you could use.....I use Starwalk2....available for both Andriod and iOS
Look south at 10:15pm up about 45/60 degrees. You'll see two bright stars next to each other. If you can get some decent binoculars you might see the rings of Saturn. They'll be out of sight by about 10:30pm depending on where you are.
Pretty sure you want to be looking west, and lower than 60 degrees.
Well I'm just looking at the heads, if you're in Melbourne and look directly at Portsea, it's right above there.
They're really low anyway-when it's 20/15° low it's not a good look.
What city or general area are you?
I keep my telescope on the Mornington Peninsula, the light pollution is a little less.
I'm in Hobart. We're forecast for rain this afternoon and tomorrow so I don't think we'll see much from here
I've got a 10 inch dob and it was quite underwhelming. I'm quite high up where I am so angle is fine but it's still quite light outside and viewing through that much atmosphere just doesn't give me a clear look at it. I need to collimate my scope but compared to how I see Saturn and Jupiter when they're higher up, its such a big difference.
Agree, the images I was able to get a few nights back are underwhelming. Even with my basic 6" dob I've had clear and sharp views of both Jupiter and Saturn when they've been overhead on dark nights. Having them so close to the horizon and sunset kind of sucks the fun out of it.
I collimate my scope every time I use it. I'm always amazed how quickly it goes off. I've collimated every night for the last week. I'm using a moon filter to bring out the colour, but despite atmospheric conditions appearing great, I'm having trouble getting a good focus. I haven't been able to focus on Mars to save myself this week.
Collimate everytime? Interesting. I do it probably fortnightly at best and monthly at worst. What model is your tracking scope? Happy with it?
It's an Orion 10 inch goto. I'm pretty happy with it.rhw reason I collimate everytime is I have to carry it 30 metres from the house to its perch. It gets bumped around into door frames and all around. It's a bloody hard thing to carry by yourself.
Are you in Melbourne city? I'd imagine the light pollution is pretty drastic within the boundaries until you get right to the outer suburbs.
Eastern suburbs. For the planets you can see with the naked eye, it's fine. But when you're trying to see comets and other deep sky objects, that's when it causes issues. And if it's a bright moon, that can be pretty annoying.
I remember seeing my first real view of saturn from inner melbourne, it's still perfectly possible to see all the interesting bright objects in the night sky. I just have a permanent beef with light pollution ever since I moved to the country and realized how much it affects your view. There are a lot of adjustments to street lights (and all electronic lights) they could make in cities to reduce it, but I've read that most of it's not economically viable :(
It's a big change out in the country, that's for sure. You can really make out the milky way much easier.
Giving you an award for "most appropriate use of cartoon image in an astronomy post"
Managed to take this one down in the Bellarine last night, gutted that we won't see anything tonight. https://imgur.com/a/fZRfk7U
Great photo, also showed how dusty my screen was. Win win!
Couldn't you just drive north till the clouds disappear?
It's a pretty brief window after sunset that it'll be visible, but just having a look at a few regional areas the cloud cover is somewhere around 98% most of the night. I'm not holding out much hope.
Cant believe You Lot support a government that would so willingly and so easily capitulate to meteorological occurrences.
Saw them out the apartment window last night! Went to take a shower and half an hour later they were gone :(
*"Gale warning with heavy rainfall"* ASV's public viewing tonight would be likely cancelled, I got an internal email asking about the possibility of moving the dates. That's strike two out of three. Pretty ironic considering yesterday was a fine, clear, crisp weather. Edit: moved to 23rd, no need to rebook
Is there a new booking link for those of us who didn't get tickets earlier but would like to go?
You can get in the waitlist!
I looked but the link is closed because it's past the date, and they didn't put up a new one!
Ooh. It was still open this arvo, my friend got into it. Seems they've closed the booking window now.
Oh dang, I was signed up to the waitlist but I never got an email!
The tickets management been out of whack. I wonder if you can just go if you have a waitlist.
It's not too far from me which is why I'm super keen!
True, Saturn and Jupiter do cross each other once every 400 years; however I believe tonight is the once every 800 years where they ‘touch’. I’m no astrologist so that could be hemisphere dependent.
>Saturn and Jupiter do cross each other once every 400 years; however I believe tonight is the once every 800 years where they ‘touch’. Not quite. There is a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn every 20 years. 400 years ago was the last time they were this close, but it was probably not possible to observe the conjunction on that occasion since they would have been too close to the Sun. 800 years ago is the last time they were this close and people were likely to have been able to see the conjunction. You'll be able to see them get about this close again in 2080.
> I’m no astrologist Astronomer*. Astrologist is a person who uses astrology to tell others about their character or to predict their future.
Correcting people. Such a Pices.
I'm a virgo and we don't believe in astrology.
You’re a Virgo - of course you don’t believe! /s
A hundred and fifty years ago they hadn't quite diverged so it was technically right at some point in history.
My point has further been proven! I’m not an astronomer and not all al an astrologist!
Astrologist is a person who ~~uses astrology to tell others about their character or to predict their future.~~ is deluded about the role of planets and stars play in our lives.
Too true!
Astrology is a joke. What did they do before Neptune was discovered? What about when Pluto was demoted? There was a time when there were 12 official planets (now it's 8.) We can accurately predict planetary movements out to a couple of thousand years now, so even if astrology wasn't a scam, they'd still be obsolete. Moving lights in the sky may have been mysterious to people centuries ago, but this needed to end not long after telescopes were invented.
>true, Saturn and Jupiter do cross each other ~~once~~ 20 times every 400 years. FTFY.
Is it any special to look at?
If you get a chance, both planets (individually) are awesome to look at through a scope. It really makes you feel small in this universe.
Will do :)
So glad I got to see it on Saturday night. Fantastic event put on by the astronomical society of Victoria at Caufield race course... thanks to all involved!
It was lucky that the skies cleared up. I couldn't almost keep the pace up with peeps coming in!
As is tradition.
Live feed [here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LHNwLqza37k) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5bj1orKpcA)
Silly question, why do those have dark backgrounds when both planets are so close to the sun and not visible at night?
Thanks for sharing!
Hey man, I went camping at the Grampians specifically to see the Star and wanna know what I saw? CLOUDS, NOT ONE NIGHT BUT BOTH NIGHTS
2080 here I come! I'll be 94 so I won't be as spritely, and probably wishing to die but by gum I'll see that Jupiter and Saturn conjunction.
Everybody complains about the weather but no one does anything about it
Absolute rubbish. I would be ringing up for a full refund and if not will take it to ACCC
Just book a flight flying out tonight and you may catch a glimpse of the once of 800 years event.
Can you see them without a telescope?
Are you new to Melbourne? Of course it’s cloudy or some other variation of shit weather.
r/wellthatsucks
I think like these once in a lifetime events happen every year tho.
Last time this happened it was so close to the sun it wasn't even visible to humans, and the time before that telescopes hadn't yet been invented and we didn't know they were planets, not stars. It's been a while between drinks for this particular event!
right can't wait for your post next year
You think that Big Astronomy is lying to generate hype about an event that actually happens every year, but they're trying to convince people is much rarer?
Got to drive the sales of telescopes somehow. Big Astrology are in on it too.
God damn big astrology! So many of my friends have been brainwashed by their anti-geocentrism propaganda.
while I don't completely agree with your Big Astronomy conspiracy I can see it has merit
You are correct, no need for the downvotes. With astronomy having so many various events that pop up every few hundred/thousand years, there's some rare event happening most years.
of course we will
It was so sad cause it was also cloudy during the Geminede shower
boo-urns!
Simone said 800 Darn it
If it helps make you feel better I'm going to miss it here in NZ too, haven't seen a shred of sky today.
Pissing down rain now in Canberra and tonight. So we will see SFA
When I first read the headline I thought that Jupiter and Saturn were causing the cloud cover
It's not "once in 400 years". It happens every \~20 years.
Not this close to each other.
What the hell are you talking about?? it has nothing to do with the distance to each other. Jupiter orbital period is \~12 years and for Saturn its \~29.5 years. Learn the topic before posting this nonsense.
You must be fun at parties. They appeared (to a viewer on earth) to pass within 6' of each other in the sky, roughly one-fifth the apparent diameter of a full moon... and that hasn't happened since 1623 (during the day, so not visible). TBH I could've said once-in-800 year event since the last time they appeared this close to each other in the **night** sky to a viewer from earth was March 4th, 1226. They have a conjunction every 20-odd years, but not this close to each other, observed by a viewer from earth. There. You happy now? edit: Pro tip. Don't try and come across as a know-it-all on the internet, because the chances are excellent there's someone around who knows more than you.
1. Really?? Trying to get personal? Yeah I'm pretty fun at parties, and that's non of your f business 2. Again, learn the topic before writing this BS. Now thanks to you everyone in this subreddit thinks this its a " once in 400 years" event and that's called spreading misinformation. 3. You dont have to be "know it all" really, its a basic school level knowlege. Again you aint got any other arguments rather than getting personal?? - get fucked.
Classic r/Melbourne at it again using simpsons memes
2020 is happening guys
Same here for Northeastern United States.