The Night Sky with Binoculars

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With all the clouds we have had for the last three months it was nice to see a brief break the other night.  I grabbed the binoculars and out I went, whatever you do don’t neglect the night sky because you lack a telescope.  I had no problem seeing three of the four Galilean moons; these are the same moons that were discovered by Galileo (and maybe Simon Marius, a story for a different day) back in 1610.

I decided it would be a fun project to see how many other planets I could see with just binoculars and part of the rules includes not using the telescope to find them first.  I would guess the dimmest planet I could probably see is one that is brighter than a magnitude 8 and that’s debatable.

I considered Mercury and Neptune the two toughest catches; Neptune because it is approaching my magnitude limit at 7.59, and the other is Mercury, why?  Because Mercury is Mercury is all.  It spends a lot of the time either behind the Sun or in its glare and I just have problems seeing it.

As luck would have it I could have hardly picked a better week if I had planned it far in advance.  Everyone of the planets from Mercury to Neptune will be parading across the sky this week.

What’s even better is Mercury and Venus make a nice pairing that should be able to be seen about 20 minutes after sunset in the western sky, if you are not able to see them keep watching because they won’t set for almost 20 additional minutes.  When you do find one, you will find the other because if you hold out your arm straight you will just about cover them with your pinky, Mercury will be the lower of the pair.

Wait another 15 minutes and Mars will have moved close to the same place Mercury/Venus were when they became visible.  Actually with binoculars you should be able to put Mercury/Venus on the lower right side of your view and Mars should be on the left middle to upper.

In the image above (click it) you will notice that Saturn is actually about half way between the Sun and Venus, I think the sky will be much too bright to see it.

Whatever you do DO NOT LOOK FOR THESE PLANETS UNTIL AFTER THE SUN HAS SAFELY SET!!  YOU CAN BE BLINDED BY LOOKING AT THE SUN  I’M NOT KIDDING IT’S NOT WORTH IT!!

The first three planets should be pretty easy as will Jupiter.   Uranus and Neptune are going to be a challenge. I will put up a finders chart for later in the week for those three as they will be appearing a little later.  A couple of things to look for is one see if you can see what phase Venus is in, it might be possible.

So if you’re a mind to, give this a try. Get the kids involved in this one, it’s good science and safe as long as the Sun has set AND you do not need binoculars at all to see these planets.