Any astrophysicists/astronomers here?

[flyboyx]

nerd!

seriously, my brother is really into this. I have a buddy here in Houston with a monster telescope too. there is a really cool nebula in the sword of Orion's Belt that you could probably see with your scope.

saturn and Jupiter are pretty interesting to look at because of the rings and moons and stuff.

[ForcedFirebird]

Ok, so "dooms day" planetary alignments have been subject...since forever.

Starting in June, all the major planets and most of the dwarfs will actually be all on one face/side of the sun. Not quite the typical "planetary alignment" you can google search, but only a few dwarfs will be opposing. (best to use a modelling program to FF/RW)

Not that it matters much, but until 2045 we won't be able to view all the majors in the sky at once.

Bought a nice scope for the kids last Xmas, and in this month alone was able to view Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, even Neptune is a dot out there. Not powerful enough to see Pluto. As of now, Mercury is about to make the turn where we will all be in the "bright side of the Sun" and all be within the 180° plane looking down from Polaris.

This happens along the line of every 1.6 billion years in the solar sytem pattern.

Anyone else find this interesting, or am I totally geeking out?