Are the heavens clear in your neighborhood? Why not go outside and look up? What might be more fun than texting?

There’s still dissipating stratus and fractus clouds here, plus light pollution :(

That’s too bad. If you’re in an urban or suburban area, you are lumbered anyway.

(What are fractus clouds?)

I live in an urban area, I can’t see diddly up in the sky.

Grrr. My telescope mount is busted. I have a part on order.

It looks like a great question to me @gailcalled. Daylight here and a bit cloudy. It is so rainy here at the moment that the light is sort of watery, if that makes sense. I don’t mean I am looking through rain. It isn’t raining at the moment, but the light is sort of weak. The light here is normally very bright and even a bit garish. It doesn’t have the softness I am seeing today usually.

Snowing here, can’t see a thing.
I wish I could @gailcalled, thanks for the heads up.

Sadly, it’s overcast here and I can’t see. :(

@gailcalled The thin, ragged-looking clouds. You usually see them broken off from cumulus and dissipating cloud systems.

Don’t you know that texting while star-gazing while driving is dangerous?

It’s cloudy here, so there’s not much to see.

@Rarebear: Forget the telescope; go outside and simply look up if you are in an area with little or no ambient light.

I just checked again. The earlier pellucid skies are now covered with a slight haze but the sky is still wonderful.

I can’t wait!
Only 6:32 in California and ust twilight now but I’ll be out under those clear, starry skies on my little mountain in a few more hours. Hot tubs fired up and come 9ish I’ll be there! :-D

@Coloma: Do a quick check at 7:30.

It is 03:46. Pitch Black.

I saw it. Fantastic. Thanks for sharing.

^^Yay. We two were lucky. Everyone else had cloud cover.

Oooh…7:18, just went out, awesome sight, so bright!
Just rising over the tree line. :-)
It’s going to be a banner night, but damn, I might have to wear ear plugs the roar of the tree frogs breeding in my neighbors pond is deafening! The peepers are peeping, a sure sign of spring! :-D

^^ I have heard the redwing black birds but no peepers yet. Soon, I am sure.

On the way back today from Milo’s monthly nail trim and vomiting in the carrier in the car, about 11:00 AM, I flushed a barred owl with a mouse in his claws out of the brush by the side of the road. My first real sighting of an owl, although I do hear them at night. Albeit brief, that was a thrill.

@gailcalled Cool! Poor Milo.

We had a snowstorm here for the past four hours. Well, snow and rain. Quite a mess. And very violent winds. Violent. We lost power twice. Personally, I think it’s awesome, as long as it doesn’t get too hardcore. I got my window open in my bedroom, I enjoy the cold air. All is calm now though, and anyways it’s too dark to tell how clear the sky is. Not very clear I’d wager, but perhaps.

I’m in an L.A. ‘burb and can still see plenty of stars tonight. We were surprised to spot so many constellations since you usually can’t see much from here.

@gailcalled Oh, I do that all the time. It’s great. By the way, my current avatar is a picture of a sunspot I took last week.

@Rarebear:I love it. Do you live in an area with good seeing? (Less of an issue, of course, during the day.)

(Winces), sort of. I live in a suburb but the skies are generally clear, but light. I do have access to a local mountain, but frankly I rarely use it and I usually image from my front yard.

I would be all over this alternative but we are overcast and been having light snow since yesterday. :(

Unfortunately with my poor eyesight, it’s been 20 years since I was last able to see stars. No that I miss much; it’s just about permanently cloudy here anyway. I can see the lights on overhead aircraft as they approach the local airport (about 4 miles away). That’s about it.

Does anyone know if the nighttime display will be that good again tonight? (Sunday) I’d love to get a look at it.

^^The only object that will move or change noticeably is the moon.

PS. The planets will move slightly in relationship to the background of stars, so you will see really bright Venus and very bright Jupiter in the same spot at the same times but in a slightly different configuration. Impossible to mistake them for anything else, however.

@wilma; Where do you live?

Another spring like day in my neck o’ the woods. Clear, sunny, topping out around 72. I’m going for an encore performance tonight. Venus & Jupiter are mind blowingly bright! Maybe a few meteors too, maybe. I can usually see at least one every night if I keep my attention focused on the Northeast skies which afford the best view from my tubby. :-)

@gailcalled rural Michigan. Not a lot of light polution and possible clear skies tonight!

If it’s clear or semi-clear, go outside and simply look up in any direction.

If you are coming from a well-lit house, you may need 15 minutes or so for your eyes to acclimate to the dark.

Unless the sun is out. Don’t look in that direction. :-)

From tonight through March 17, in the west after sunset, Venus and Jupiter will be practically close enough to rub noses. Sky chart and details here.

Also be checking to see if the Aurora will be visible for the next few days. That coronal mass ejection was a big one. We had some dim northern lights last night. Tonight they should be better.
I suppose that there might also be the Aurora Australis too, for those of you who are down under.
I think they would be, wouldn’t they? I’m not sure how that works.

@wilma: That would be exciting. Where are you? At what time did you spot them?

I’m in Michigan. I saw them faintly as the moon was rising. After that the moonlight was too bright to see anything so I went to bed. I think they may have been more visible later on.

Here is a video of the lights over Lake Superior in Marquette Michigan, taken last night or the night before. That is north of me. Up there they were spectacular.

I have stood out in my back yard at night and seen the wonder of them shooting and dancing in the night sky. What a treat!
I did see Jupiter and Venus last night, they were lovely with that full moon.

@wilma: Beautiful video.

What direction were you facing when you spotted them in your neighborhood.

The one time they were visible here, they were in the northern sky just after sunset. That makes sense, of course.

I usually see them in the northern sky, but I have also seen them in the eastern sky.
Once when I was a kid, my mom called us all out into the back yard. It was a warm summer night. She said “look up”. There was the most amazing display that I have ever seen. They were in a circular pattern directly over head. All around us and moving down the side of the sky, (I know that sounds silly) instead of rising up from the horizon in the north as we usually see them, they were above us and moving out from that center.
I’ll never forget it.
I hope tonight we get a good look. It’s cold here today and won’t be as comfortable to be outside, but I think I’ll make myself a hot drink, get out a reclining lawn chair and get comfy.

8:15 on the west coast and Venus & Jupiter are shining brightly!
Pefect timing before a couple new storms roll through this next week. :-)

For an added bonus, use decent binoculars to find comet Garradd over the next week or so.

It will look like a slightly blurry mothball between the cup of the Big Dipper and the cup of the Little Dipper.

Star chart

The sky was really clear around here last night, and even with all the light pollution in my neighborhood, I could see the stars and planets(?) beautifully!

Man today was so nice out. It was all spring like. In fact it’s still nice out…all my windows are open, letting in the night air.

The only thing that sucks about nice weather is that I can’t sleep under so many blankets. :/ I just know I was meant to be an Inuit or a Viking.

Here’s another easy way to find the two planets tonight, if it isn’t cloudy.

Planets