Jupiter and Venus?

[SunflowerOfHappiness]

Hey there~!
I'm a total newbie at this but these few nights [when the thick layer of clouds at night finally cleared off], these 2 really prominently bright stars catch my attention even during the evening sky when the sky is still kinda baby blue-ish.

I thought "omg no way it's Saturn and Spica cause it's still kinda early."
And then today, I opened a page I had bookmarked earlier on, on mah browser, to find that Venus and Jupiter are real close in Feb and March :DD

I attached a crappy picture I took tonight with my phone and awful skills xD
If it's really Venus and Jupiter, I'll be over the moon!!
These few nights, I've just been staring at them and being amazed at their unwavering brightness

http://www.mediafire.com/?4ywv81khex2m4n6

[Gary]

Hi there. Welcome to the forum. Yes, they are Jupiter and Venus. The brighter star-like object to the right in the your photo is Venus. Mars is reddish star-like object in the sky now. Saturn should be visible soon at a comfortable elevation in the East. You can install the free stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org) or free planetarium apps if you have a smart phone (e.g. google sky map for android, stellarium for iphone/ipad) to find out more about the objects in the sky. Happy planet hunting!

[vivid]

I was looking at Saturn and some other stuff last night from about 11pm to about 3am.

[Gary]

Good. Your stuff arrived already? Did you see Saturn's rings?

[vivid]

Yeah no problem with the rings and the shadow of the planet on the rings. The AR152 is surprisingly sharp. I could only detect a slight hint of Saturn's cloud bands but not very clearly/contrasty so i am not sure if that is due to slightly out of collimation or due to seeing. I'll try to see if the cassini division on the rings is visible during better seeing. I still gotta check the collimation via out of focussed stars though, so far the seeing has not been good. Surprisingly I could not detect any CA on Saturn but that is my definition as a photographer. Time to look for Jupiter, must find one day to bring it up to the roof.

Something like this, just not as big. LOL! (Coz 32X, 70X and 147X) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6firEZHUqI

The delivery was last monday, but i only got to use it since 3 days ago as i was in Beijing. The night flight's view was really breathtaking, forget about rich star fields, i though i counted like at least 10 fuzzies with the naked eye just on 1 single side of the plane and even stars barely 5 deg above the horizon is rock steady. Of course being adapted for 3-4hrs in the near pitch black cabin helps.

[Gary]

Hi Vivid. Sounds like it's the seeing. Your scope should not have issues with Cassini division. Glad you had a great experience in the plane. Hand-carry a bino for next night flight? Haha. Do continue to share with us your astro experiences!

[SunflowerOfHappiness]

Thanks so much for the replies and tips!! (:
My uncle told me that Jupiter turns really fast o.o
But I've never seen it before >.<