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can someone tell me how to find or where to find information on finding planets in the sky a website would be great
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Planets in our solar system or extrasolar planets?
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in our solar system
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The easy way would be to buy a computer-controlled telescope that finds the planets for you...
Bright planets like Jupiter or Venus are pretty easy to find, they will be the brightest "stars" in the sky. For dimmer planets, you have to find a star chart with their current position. You can download a free program that draws star charts http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/]here.
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thanks I appreciate your help
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All of the planets in our solar system are on the ecliptic plane, except Pluto but it's debatable whether that is even a planet. You can tell the ecliptic plane by the path the sun takes in the sky as it passes overhead. Gravity has fixed them on this plane. The moon is 5 degrees off of the ecliptic. Now if you know the order of the planets orbits you will then know that Mercury will always be found close to the sun, only visible for a few minutes after the sun sets or before sunrise. Venus is next and easy to find as it is by far the brightest thing in the sky after the sun and moon. The other planets are more difficult to find with the naked eye but there are some very good computer programs that can help you. I have one called universe explorer that I simply put in a date and it shows the position of many planets, nebula, and stars.
Remember the inner planets are most visible when they are farthest away from us so the sunlight hits them directly then is reflected back to us. When the planets are close to us in their orbit they then have their dark side toward us and we can't see them at all.
Polaris is the north star and not the brightest in the sky as some say. Actually it is very average in brightness. Everything spins around Polaris. If you drew a line from the south pole to the north pole and kept going it would almost hit Polaris directly. If you can find the big dipper, then find the two stars that make up the dippers cup wall farthest from the handle. I think they are Mizo and Mizar. These two stars always point to Polaris. If you measure the height of Polaris above the horizon it will tell you your latitude on the earth.
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