That is freaking sweet! I am getting an Android phone next week. Can’t wait to try this after getting that app!
I just used that two nights ago - my newphew asked me if the really bright spot next to the thin crescent moon was Mars or Jupiter. I held up my Android to the sky and showed him - it was Mars (Jupiter was on the screen too, down and to the right).
A couple of iPhone app “reviews”:
SkySafari - pretty good but slow (as the program/database is massive). Lots of other details about stars available.
Startracker 4S - my default. Quick to open, has night vision setting, and different representations for constellations, etc. as well as what magnitude of stars to see. I’d go with this one; however, I was just in the southern hemisphere and it didn’t have Alpha Centauri in its library or the Magellenic Cloud(s) so it is in no way the ultimate solution.
Both use the accelerometer and GPS to set your position, angle and view quickly.
I will second SkySafari on iPhone. However, it is written by a friend of mine so take that with a grain of salt :). IIRC, it’s $3 for the basic version.
Stellarium is a nice program. Don’t know if it works on a phone or not.
Thanks, all.
Celestia (for laptop or desktop) is still fun, I’m sure, for scooting around the universe.
I didn’t, and even worse, I didn’t look at his location. So, that’s on me.
Has it been determined for sure that it was Jupiter? If so, thanks for doing the legwork on this. I should have at least found out where he was located to figure out what 2 AM actually meant compared to my 2 AM.
Star Walk app for the iPhone/iPad rocks! Snag it if you don’t have it.
Me too. I bought a telescope because of it. Now I know where the planets are. The app is about as close to magic as you can get.
For telling which planets and stars are visible at any given time, location doesn’t really matter much. Especially if we’re talking about rough times, like the difference between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. The fact that his 2 a.m. may occur at a different time than your 2 a.m. is what accounts for the fact that you live in different places.
For things that are instantaneous events visible by everyone at the same time, like a lunar eclipse, local time has to be taken into account. In that case, we’re all watching the same moon for the same “event”, and my 5 a.m may be your 2 a.m. so we’ve got to compensate.
But for things that are part of the daily cycle, they happen at roughly the same local time all the way around the world. The sun rises within about half an hour of 7 a.m. right now no matter where you are (if you’re on DST).
If you want to know when the ISS is flying over in your area use this NASA site. Click on your state then the nearest town to you.
http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/skywatch.cgi?country=United+States
My guess was Jupiter or Saturn; given the time of day it can’t be Venus.
Venus, at max brightness, is the brightest heavenly body except for the Sun and the Moon.
Next, at max brightness, come Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn … but both mars and Saturn vary considerably (mars due to phase and distance and Saturn, distance and whether rings are fully visible). Mars is detectably reddish.
The easiest way to distinguish Jupiter and Saturn is with good binoculars or small telescope, you can see the rings (unless side-on), or three or four of Jupiter’s “Gallilean” moons (unless they’re all in transit or behind Jupiter. I’ve seen Jupiter many times, and only once saw a moon in transit – actually, I saw the moon’s shadow but could only see 3 moons.) What jumps out about the moons is that they’re all in a perfect line, so easy to distinguish from background stars.
All the planets mentioned above are brighter than the brightest star (Sirius), but all but Jupiter are less bright than Sirius at their minimum brightnesses.
I have no idea what’s visible in the sky at the moment. I wanna get an android phone so I can use Google Sky!
Several weeks ago, they were close together. I pulled out my binocs to check the dimmer one for rings, to rule out Saturn, and so knew it was Jupiter and Venus. Over the past several weeks (I’ve been watching when I get up at night) Jupiter has slowly moved westward, and Venus is quickly on it’s way back toward the Sun (i.e. eastward).
I second this. It works even better since I ditched my phone case which had a magnetic clasp :smack:
Hah, I didn’t even think about that. I’ve really only used it with my iPhone (caseless), but I just bought an Apple case for my iPad that is magnetic. Wonder if that’ll throw off it’s compass bearing.