Our Australian skies are sparkling at the moment so why not get outside tonight under the stars from your own backyard. Sure it’s cool but you won’t be disappointed with so much on offer for now and the start of July.
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Remember, the starlight you see coming from all those stars tonight left there hundreds, and in most cases thousands of years ago, and it’s just arriving now! “When you stargaze you’re looking back in time,” said Dave Reneke from Australasian Science magazine. “When you use a telescope you’re using a time machine. Cool huh?”
If you’re new to astronomy the hardest part is learning all those stars. Relax! It’s a lot easier than you think, but you won’t do it sitting inside at your keyboard. Some people say that we spend too much time indoors and not enough time observing the things around us, like the stars and planets.
But what if your screen, in this case your Smartphone or tablet, can actually help you appreciate the skies more? Well they can and they’re amazingly simple to use! “Here are some of my favourites,” Dave said. “Sky View will identify almost everything above your head at night and its fantastic!
If you want an easy target try ‘MoonPhase’ for your lunar viewing, then download a free NASA app spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings to catch the space station passing over your area.
This one is a knockout. On your tablet or laptop download an app called ‘Star Chart.’ It puts a virtual planetarium right in your pocket. It uses state of the art GPS technology that will show you the current location of every star and planet visible from Earth. Now that’s technology!
“Hey, want to see something really cool?” Dave said. “After sunset all this week the two stunners, Jupiter and Saturn appear in our winter skies all evening. This is magic! Get the family outside and just marvel at two of the best celestial sights you’ll see.” They’ll be with us all week then, things change dramatically in August! More about that later.
Venus however steals the show this week because it looks like a brilliant white beacon high overhead. In real terms, the planets are millions of kilometres apart, but to us here on Earth they appear to fairly close together. It may be cold outside buy winter skies are the clearest. Go look, you may surprise yourself!
