I stepped outside for a moment looked up to the East and thought: that’s a bright star! It couldn’t be Venus, because it was in the wrong direction — since Venus is closer to the sun than Earth is, it is always near the sun, which had set a few hours ago in the West.
I grabbed the binoculars and took a look. With a sizable bright disc and 4 clearly visible moons, this was no star. Stellarium helped me out: Jupiter and its four large moons, known as the Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
You need to be quick in Wellington. Even as I watched, the cloud came over. But that brief view made my evening!
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{ 4 comments }
That is so cool. I have been using binoculars for astronomy for a few days and I have been having a lot of fun. I just wish that I had a little more field of view because I suck at finding stars in the sky.
Hey, binoculars have a pretty good field of view.
One way is to start with the things that are easy to find, and then kind of work your way across, up or down from there.
good luck with the binoculars. I haven’t used mine much lately because of time and weather constraints, but they are fun.
Hi dudes,
I’m new at using the binoculars and am having a little trouble focussing..how do you get rid of the glare and get down to resolving an actual object …when I look at Jupiter and especially venus…all I see if bright lights…am I doing something wrong?
Hey Simon.
Do you have your binoculars on a tripod, or are you just holding them?
It may be a good idea to start with looking at something nearby during the day. Look at some trees, buildings or something else that you can clearly see with your naked eye. Then practise focusing.
Do the binoculars clearly resolve those nearby things? If not, then you may have a problem with the binoculars themselves.
Once you can clearly see some nearby objects in daylight, try looking at something much further away. Again, practise focusing on the horizon, or faraway buildings and things.
Once you feel comfortable with daytime viewing try for the moon at night. You should probably be able to see some craters.
When you look at planets and stars you may only ever see a pinprick of light or a fuzzy ball for the bigger and brighter planets.
What size are your binoculars? If they are only small you are unlikely to see any kind of detail on Jupiter, Saturn or Venus.
Take a look at this article for some useful info: http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=2225
Please let us know here though how you get on.
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