Moon-Venus

mickmackey1

Nice sight at the moment with the Moon and Venus visible in the same binocular field of view. Some claim they can see Venus with the naked eye in broad daylight, now is a good time to try.

blindsider

Absolutely gorgeous in Cork now. Beautifully clear in the SW sky. :-)

January

Same and with Mars up above the moon. Beautiful. The kids were fascinated.

mrcheez

That's the planet currently visible on bottom right of moon from midlands at the moment?

Fantastic view from Leitrim last night with no light pollution. First time I've seen the milky way from Ireland too.

Koobcam

Incredible view the last two nights of the crescent moon, venus and Mars visible and seemingly lined up (well I'm assuming it was Mars, according to my app, Neptune was basically in the same spot, but Mars is a lot closer, so...) If only I had a camera up to the job...

looksee

We were travelling on a rural coastal road in Waterford last night and pulled into a cliff-top viewing point to look at the sky. It was totally spectacular, absolutely no light pollution and no moon but a huge 360 degree horizon and an arc of stars that were brilliant and visible, including the milky way which was very clear.

coylemj

The air was very clear last night, I could clearly see the dark side of the Moon with the unaided eye in Dublin city even though it was a four day old crescent at which point typically the brightness of the crescent blots out the dark side.

mrcheez

Could see (what I think is) Orion quite prominently as well, beside Mars I recall.

Only reason I believe it's Orion is that it looked similar to the logo at the start of Orion films like Robocop in the 80s

mickmackey1

That's Orion alright but it's not that close to Mars, almost on the opposite side of the sky in fact.

mrcheez

Odd. Could swear I saw a red planet fairly close to (or even in) it.. but perhaps that was Betelgeuse which seems to give off a slightly different wavelength of light

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(constellation)#/media/File:Orion_3008_huge.jpg

pawrick

I use sky map on android which is very handy for people like me with a casual interest, pretty much just point phone towards the area you're looking at and it tells you whats in that area of the sky there on the screen.

mickmackey1

mrcheez wrote: »

Odd. Could swear I saw a red planet fairly close to (or even in) it.. but perhaps that was Betelgeuse

Yes Betelgeuse is strikingly red, particularly in binoculars. One day it will be as bright as the quarter-moon -

mrcheez

Well I'll be.. that's what I saw and I swore I was looking at Mars... clearly I missed Mars that evening

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Orion_Head_to_Toe.jpg