Astronomy: So You See a Bright Light?

i saw saturn last night through a 150mm reflector telescope, it was amazing, rings looked wonderful

Might I also suggest to those that "see a bright light", and it is moving that they record the Alt/Azi twice, at the points where the light was first seen and also where it was last seen. How long in seconds the object took to move between start and end points would also be useful, as the angular velocity of the object can then be calculated.

This information can help to identify the object and its trajectory/orbit, and in the case of meteors can even help in the location of a possible fall site and recovery of meteorite fragments.




Yes - I use Sky Map Pro and you can easily toggle between AD and BC. The limits as far as I can see are between 4713 BC and 9999 AD.

[edit on 29-7-2007 by C.H.U.D.]

[edit on 29-7-2007 by C.H.U.D.]

Just to add, since editing my previous post will not let me add this info for some reason : If you do see a bright (-3 mag. or brighter) fireball/meteor, and want to report it there is a fireball report form on the International Meteor Organization's web site. More info can be found on this page about fireball reporting.

August 24th 2008
21:00 pm GMT
Anglesey North Wales 300ft approx
Alt:35 degrees approx
Azi:305 degrees approx

A very bright twinkling almost flashing silver and orange celestial body, as the sky gets darker the orange appears more red. As far as i can tell it is a star as it follows a course through the sky like the others, and its been there for a while i'm just perplexed by the two-tone twinkling.

i've tried using the software as suggested but as a complete beginner i couldn't follow it.

I've been watching this for about 3 days now each evening, and to be honest i don't have a clue what it is if anyone could please enlighten me i would be very grateful.

[edit on 24/8/07 by RancidCat]

I found Stellarium in the Ubuntu Linux 'Synaptic Package Manager'.
There was no need to go to the download site

This will come in handy at times.

Hi all, should i have posted my sighting as a seperate thread? or does nobody know what it is. Just thought this was the right one considering the thread title.

Once again any help appreaciated.