Astronomy Lecture. Observing the night sky. Planets. Reasons to like astronomy.

Computerized Telescope Skymax-127-GO-TO 1500.

Astronomy Essay. Part Three. Planets.

Of course, to observe the sky should you you would need just a pair of binoculars or a small telescope. But if you use a telescope, you will still have better results in your observation. You can enjoy a higher magnification of the planets or the Andromeda galaxy, etc ...
If you have a larger budget there are now computerized telescopes that have a control screen where you can achieve anything you want to see from a list of items, by clicking, and the telescope will go directly to the that region of the sky, as long as the telescope is installed and set correctly. These are called go-to telescopes. They almost "spoils" the fun by looking for objects in the sky manually, when you had to go from star to star to reach the desired object. Now just click the screen and telescope goes to it. The good part is that these computerized telescopes gathers a number of more admirers of astronomy enthusiasts.

Some telescopes, shows the image overturn and others do not. Those that do not give you the image upside down, are good and land observing, eg observing wild life, or spy on neighbors, and these images you want to see them standing not overturned. But on observing astronomical objects is not so important whether or not the image is upside down.

The most important reason when people wants to buy a telescope, is planets. What planets are seen through the telescope, how you see them, and what you can see on them in particular?

The planet Saturn through telescope. Date: March 24, 2012.

At Saturn, for example, you can see the ring which is the most important feature of this planet. Without the ring, that is not Saturn.
If you have a good eyesight, or a better telescope, you can see the ring, and that the ring is divided in two by a black band. This is the "Cassini Division".

Jupiter through telescope. Date: November 13, 2013.

At Jupiter, you can see the bands surrounding it. Not only the bands can be observed, but also a huge storm, or the "Great Red Spot" (GRS), which is already known to exist for over 300 years because there are reports about this stain spot then.
If you are lucky, you can see one of the largest satellites of Jupiter, called Galilean satellites, projecting the shadow on the planet. During the passage by the face of the planet, you may not distinguish the satellite if it has the same color as the planet, but you can still see its shadow on the planet.
You can see the satellites moving from night to night or even from hour to hour around Jupiter, especially on the satellites (moons) which are orbiting at a very short distance from Jupiter, as is the case of Io.

Video capture Venus illuminated 28%, 29 April 2012.

On the observation of Venus is another story. This planet is closer to the Sun than we are, and therefore we can see its phases, like those of our Moon. On the planets that are farther from the Sun,  we can not see this phenomenon, because these are seen from the Earth almost full, or lit almost 100%, but Venus and Mercury are the only planets closer to the Sun than we are (more inside) and therefore we can see them when they are on their orbit on the other side of the Sun with respect to the Earth, ie the Sun is between us and Venus, but we also see when the planets are on the same side in their orbit with Earth, ie the Sun is not between us and Venus.

In the next article, we will talk about the stars.

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