<p>As I walk home along my road most nights in winter, I see the Moon and one-or-more planets.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, over the last 2 months, if it's been the same planet and it (and the Moon) has been in roughly the same place if I've arrived home at the same time.</p>
<p>If I stood in the same spot at the same time each day and took the same photo, I would be able to see Jupiter moving / appearing to move across the sky.</p>
<p>I think I've been told that we're now sufficiently good at Solar-System scale planetary mechanics that given a spot on earth and a date/time it's computationally trivial to recreate that night-sky.</p>
<p>Thus I conclude that that given any arbitrary Long-Lat, and particular time of day, and an arbitrary period ... it would be possible to draw a graph/chart of the locus of the planet (Jupiter, as it happens) over the course of that period.</p>
<p>... if you have the software and know how to use it </p>
<p>Is there a site / program which will JustDoThis for me?</p>
<p>Is there a (free/cheap) program which will do this for me if I spend long enough learning how to configure the software to express what I want to see?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-22T15:03:35.450Z
Apologies, I'm not au fait with the tags - feel free to add/remove appropriate tags
Brondahl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-22T15:04:21.093Z
I'm pretty sure I've seen charts like this produced for, e.g. Venus, and that it was (IIRC) a cool a repeating pentagonal loop sort of thing.
Brondahl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-22T15:12:37.477Z
Example ... this sort of thing: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/OrbitsHistory, or this: https://www.shadowandsubstance.com/venus-in-the-morning-sky-2018-2019-animated/
Brondahl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-22T18:19:54.157Z
95% sure you can do this Stellarium, but I'd be lying if I said I knew how. Related: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/54104/analemma-for-a-specified-lat-long-at-a-specific-time-of-day
user267545
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-22T19:58:57.660Z
FWIW, i have a couple of those pentagonal Venus diagrams here: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/36489/16685
PM 2Ring
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-22T20:12:58.003Z
Your description is a little puzzling. The Moon's motion relative to the stars is quite rapid. It moves (roughly) an angular distance equal to its own diameter in an hour, and it moves 1/4 of the way around the celestial sphere in a week. So it can't be in the same place at the same time from one night to the next. But maybe you're only noticing it when it's prominent in the evening.
PM 2Ring
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-23T06:29:44.117Z
`But maybe you're only noticing it when it's prominent in the evening` That's entirely plausible, especially when combined with British weather that's frequently cloudy enough to render the entire concept moot :)
Brondahl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-23T10:46:41.723Z
I second @user267545: Stellarium is free and pretty easy to use. It can do exactly what you want, and if you're having trouble using it, there help to get on this site :)
pela
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-23T10:46:47.637Z
I also second @PM2Ring though: The Moon revolves around Earth in (a little less than) a month and hence moves ~10° per day wrt. the background stars. If you stretch your arm, the width of your fist shows you roughly how much it should move per night.
pela
<observational-astronomy><planet>
Is there a noob-friendly website/app for tracking a astronomical body's apparent movement over time?
Brondahl
# Is there a noob-friendly website/app for tracking a astronomical body's apparent movement over time?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-01-22)

As I walk home along my road most nights in winter, I see the Moon and one-or-more planets.

Unsurprisingly, over the last 2 months, if it's been the same planet and it (and the Moon) has been in roughly the same place if I've arrived home at the same time.

If I stood in the same spot at the same time each day and took the same photo, I would be able to see Jupiter moving / appearing to move across the sky.

I think I've been told that we're now sufficiently good at Solar-System scale planetary mechanics that given a spot on earth and a date/time it's computationally trivial to recreate that night-sky.

Thus I conclude that that given any arbitrary Long-Lat, and particular time of day, and an arbitrary period ... it would be possible to draw a graph/chart of the locus of the planet (Jupiter, as it happens) over the course of that period.

... if you have the software and know how to use it

Is there a site / program which will JustDoThis for me?

Is there a (free/cheap) program which will do this for me if I spend long enough learning how to configure the software to express what I want to see?

**Tags:** observational-astronomy, planet

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Apologies, I'm not au fait with the tags - feel free to add/remove appropriate tags  
> **username_0**: I'm pretty sure I've seen charts like this produced for, e.g. Venus, and that it was (IIRC) a cool a repeating pentagonal loop sort of thing.  
> **username_0**: Example ... this sort of thing: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/OrbitsHistory, or this: https://www.shadowandsubstance.com/venus-in-the-morning-sky-2018-2019-animated/  
> **username_1**: 95% sure you can do this Stellarium, but I'd be lying if I said I knew how. Related: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/54104/analemma-for-a-specified-lat-long-at-a-specific-time-of-day  
> **username_2**: FWIW, i have a couple of those pentagonal Venus diagrams here: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/36489/16685  
> **username_2**: Your description is a little puzzling. The Moon's motion relative to the stars is quite rapid. It moves (roughly) an angular distance equal to its own diameter in an hour, and it moves 1/4 of the way around the celestial sphere in a week. So it can't be in the same place at the same time from one night to the next. But maybe you're only noticing it when it's prominent in the evening.  
> **username_0**: `But maybe you're only noticing it when it's prominent in the evening` That's entirely plausible, especially when combined with British weather that's frequently cloudy enough to render the entire concept moot :)  
> **username_3**: I second @username_1: Stellarium is free and pretty easy to use. It can do exactly what you want, and if you're having trouble using it, there help to get on this site :)  
> **username_3**: I also second @PM2Ring though: The Moon revolves around Earth in (a little less than) a month and hence moves ~10° per day wrt. the background stars. If you stretch your arm, the width of your fist shows you roughly how much it should move per night.  

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## 0 answers

