Airborne astronomy.... :-)

[Stu]

Just got home from the airport having travelled back from Germany this evening. The plane came in over London and we were in a holding pattern for about 20 mins over the city and out to the east.

Flying can be a right pain, but this was one of those times I really enjoy. I had a window seat and the lights of London were amazing (despite the obvious lp! ). There was a wonderful sunset, with the western horizon a gorgeous deep orange colour.

To cap it all, every time we banked at the western end of the loop, the Moon, Venus and Jupiter were very nicely placed in my window . I could also see something bright down near the horizon in the right place for Mercury, haven't checked if it is still visible at the moment, didn't think it was? Also caught Mars at the other end of the loop.

A very different way of seeing the planets, I enjoyed it alot

Stu

[iwatkins]

Nice

But setting up a mount to track anything would be pain with the "ground" moving

(Actually, NASA have a telescope that flies on a modified 747 with a very accurate mount that takes into account the movement of the aircraft, so not impossible).

Cheers

Ian

[Stu]

Yes, that is a minor challenge to be overcome . Even using binos on the plane would be near impossible, I just enjoyed the view as it was.

That NASA plane is incredible, saw it on tv a little while back, quite amazing what they can do.

Still need to work out if it was Mercury I saw or not.

Stu

[Stu]

Just confirmed that as a very definite no . I hadn't checked on it for a while, didn't realise that it had popped round to the other side of the sun already

Stu

[iwatkins]

Little blighter doesn't hang about Stu. Only caught it myself twice earlier this year.

[Stu]

Too true. No idea what I saw in that case. Definitely not a plane because it was static for about twenty mins. No other bright stars in that area.

There were quite a few strange lights around, I can only guess they were helicopters. Two in particular were floating around together for quite a while over london