For you astronomers out there, what is your favorite time of day to star watch? What time of year?
815988
It depends on what you want to see. The sun can be very interesting viewed with the appropriate equipment. For stars and the aurora late night works well, especially in cooler climates as the cold air causes less distortion of the stars. A good site to see is spaceweather.com.
1183464
Sky and Telescope and Night Sky
331089
Let’s start with a couple basics…\n\nWe see basically the same stars (throughout the course of a year, if not night to night) as our ancestors saw thousands of years ago.  Furthermore, all the stars we see in our night sky are part of the Milky Way Galaxy; the most distant stars we can spot without the aid of a telescope lie perhaps a few thousand light years away and most lie within a few hundred light years.  That means that the light from these stars took only a few hundred (or at most a few thousand) years to reach us.\n\nStars live for millions or billions of years, so although the light we’re seeing on a starry night is perhaps tens or hundreds (or maybe thousands) of years old, that’s not much compared to the lifetime of a star.  So the stars we see haven’t changed much in the time that it’s taken for their light to reach our eyes on Earth.  In the millennia that people have observed the sky, maybe one or two or a few stars have flashed “on,” and a similar number may have flashed “off,” but you’d be hard pressed to find even a single example in all of recorded history.\n\nStars indeed move over long periods of time (we’re talking about changing the shape of constellations here, not just seeing stars rise in the east and set in the west as they do every night), so over hundreds of thousands of years, one could see the Big Dipper distort into a different shape.  But again, this happens on a time scale much longer than a human lifetime—and again, longer than recorded history. \n\nSo the stars (and the patterns we see them form, the constellations) stay pretty much the same—not only as long as we live, but as long as our cultures have existed.  So the “Three Kings,” by which I’m guessing you mean the three stars in the belt of Orion, will be easy to spot for as long as you decide to go out star-gazing.\n\n\nRyan Wyatt\nRose Center for Earth & Space\nNew York, New York
204819
I think that this site is really great since it is so visual:\nhttp://stardate.org/nightsky/moon/
64343
It varies place to place and even month to month.\n\nWhat one needs to consider are three things: which are the brightest stars in the sky (as these are going to be the first to be seen as the sky darkens), what times of year are these stars visible RIGHT AT DUSK, and from which parts of the globe are they visible?\n\nThe brightest star in the night sky is Sirius.  Siruis is located in the southern sky, but is visible from the vast majority of the Northern hemisphere because it isn't too far south.  If you're in a part of the world where Sirius can be seen (all but Canada, Alaska, Russia, Scandanavia, etc), and at a time of year when it is in the sky right at dusk (mid winter to early spring), then Sirius (also called the Dog Star) will be the first to be visible.\n\nOther bright stars:\n\nCanopus (visible primarily from the southern hemisphere and the tropics or subtropics)\n\nArcturus (visible throughout the Northern hemisphere, would be in evening sky probably from spring to mid summer)\n\nAlpha Centauri (the closest of all stars, visible primarily from the southern hemisphere and the tropics or subtropics)\n\nVega (the one in the movie Contact, visible throughout the northern hemisphere, in evening sky around late summer through autumn)\n\nCapella (visible throughout the Northern hemisphere, probably in evening sky around winter into early spring)
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I found these charts\nhttp://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=198\nhttp://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=136\n\nAs you can see the sunrise off by exactly one half hour on May 5.  Then it slowly diverges, b/c it differs by 1 min each day in philly and often 2 mins in London.  I am sure this is due to latitude.\n\nIt looks like the times are slowly converging the closer we get to the solstice.
757289
I saw an article that said the West Coast will miss the peak.  It's supposed to peak at 11:45 PM Eastern which is 8:45 PM in California.  The article did say if you get up real early tomorrow while Leo is still visible, you should see around 10 per hour.  The article also said that the science of predicting meteor shows was in it's infancy and not alway accurate.
775144
i have only been in a place with a dark night sky a few times in my adult life, but when i was i was excited that i could see many more stars that i usually could not see.  i could also point out things and tell others about them.  i am fascinated by nature and natural science, especially astronomy.  curiosity motivates me, and i want to learn about the bodies in the universe and the evolution of those bodies.  i also want to learn about the origin, structure, and evolution of the universe as a whole.\n\none of the astronomy classes that i have had were lab at the sommers-bausch observatory in boulder, colorado.  we made silver iodide photographs with the twenty-four inch ritchey-chrétien telescope, but the most colorful sight was the trinary system albireo.  albireo b is blue.  albireo a is a binary system, but it looks golden yellow. \n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albireo
149595
Sure, astronomers just love stars.
306388
This is entirely dependant on your latitude.\nIf you go to Amazon, and search for planisphere, you will find an array of maps which you can use to determine when stars will be visible. You will need to know your latitude before you buy one though, as they are calibrated for particular values. You should be able to find the same in a local bookshop, and these will probably be at the correct latitude for you.
75380
There is a surprisingly simple answer to your great question: Each month we see different stars, so to answer for a specific night of the year at your specific location on Earth depending on your eyesight and how bright the city lights around you are might be hard to pin down. \n However there is a magnitude scale that astronomers use to describe how bright objects in the sky are. Without getting into details on how that works, the average human being can see down to about magnitude 6 ( brighter objects have lower magnitude until you reach zero. Then even brighter objects use negative numbers for their magnitudes which is a bit weird, isn't it?) Therefore, all you have to do is get a map of the whole sky showing anything brighter than magnitude 6 and count the stars. If you are fortunate to be away from bright city lights and you can see the Milky Way, you would be really surprised to know that you can only see about 6,000 stars. That's the number of stars above magnitude 6 in the entire sky.
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A very bright "star" that's usually reported is the planet Venus. It rises and sets close to the sun and has therefore in ancient times been given the names Eveningstar and Morningstar. \n\nIf you see a star that sets or rises just hours before or after the sun and is exceptionally bright, you're with highest probability looking at our neighbour planet Venus.
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y Peijean Tsai\nDaily Bruin Contributor\n\nOn a clear day you can see forever. As long as the sky stays clear over the next two weeks, astronomy lovers will witness a cosmic opportunity that will not reoccur until 2040.\n\nUntil May 15 sky watchers will find the five visible planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter – clustered together within 35 degrees of each other in the Western sky as they make their orbits around the sun.\n\nThe rare sight will be visible above the horizon just after sunset and can be viewed with the naked eye.\n\n"We'll all be dead and in the grave before the planets line up like this again," said Jay Farihi, a UCLA graduate student studying physics and astronomy.\n\nStudents and visitors to the UCLA campus have been able to get a closer look at the alignment with the help of telescopes atop the Math Sciences Building.\n\nThe ninth floor houses five telescopes, each 24 inches in diameter, that are used by members of the UCLA Undergraduate Astronomy Society.\n\nThe UAS also hosts weekly planetarium shows on Wednesdays, extending viewing opportunities to community members of all ages, said Matthew Barczys, a UCLA graduate student who helps organize UAS events.\n\nCloudy weather on Wednesday, however, prevented sky watchers from seeing the alignment.\n\n"The weather couldn't get worse than this," said Farihi, expressing disappointment. "Hopefully next Wednesday will be better."\n\nFor Greg Walth, the UAS vice president and a third-year physics student, looking at alignments captures both the entertaining and educational aspects of astronomy.\n\n"You look and you learn, and then you want to learn more," Walth said.\n\nWhile some people fear that planetary alignments could have dangerous effects in the universe, this planetary gathering has no astronomical significance, said Margaret Kivelson, a UCLA professor of earth and space sciences.\n\n"It's just an interesting coincidence, just a very pretty sight in the sky," said Kivelson.\n\nThis particular alignment is not too special for Barczys, who has seen similar arrangements before. He looks forward, however, to May 13 when all five visible planets and the moon can be seen after sunset.\n\nThe same five planets grouped together in May 2000, but the alignment was difficult to observe because of the position of the sun which bleached out the sky, according to the Cranbrook Institute of Science.\n\nMay 2006 there is a possible bright comet: Comet S-W3 73P, Comet 73P / Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, possibly may be a bright sight in the sky, from May 13-June 6. It is closest to earth on May 13 and closest to the sun on June 6 (6-6-06!
757196
Betelgeuse is a constituent of Orion, which should be visible in the evening at this time of year.  Use a star chart to see exactly which star of Orion it is.
1041232
An equinox in astronomy is the moment when the Sun passes over the equator. The event occurs twice a year, around March 20 and September 23. The word equinox derives from the Latin word for equal night. The equinoxes are the two days each year when the middle of the Sun is an equal amount of time above and below the horizon for every location on Earth.
446423
Oooh, doing their star chart? If you don't know it, guess noon and a city in the central northern time zone such as Chicago, I believe is the general advice. Of course you could always go with the city where they live now.
931600
Watch the stars outside if it's a clear night