Jupiter tonight

[Maitland Bottoms]

>>>>> "jfi" == Terry Fox <tfox at knology.net> writes:
jfi> I don$,1ry(Bt know how the skies are in DC, but down here in Charleston we can see Jupiter

Thanks for the heads up. I was able to tell that the moons were there
with my binoculars before the clouds rolled in.

And if anyone reading this list is interested, but the clouds are in the
way, I have to let you know of some very nice free software...

To get a feel for where to find Jupiter relative to the Moon, I fire up
Stellarium[1]. Sure enough, what I saw in the sky matched what I saw on the
computer screen - including the positions of Jupiter's moons.

The other application is Celestia[2]. That program has a Solar System
browser menu that allows me to "Go To" Jupiter. And then look at the
orbits of its moons, and view them from out of the plane of the solar system.
(That I was not able to do with my binoculars.)

-Maitland

Notes:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellarium_%28computer_program%29
http://www.stellarium.org/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestia
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/