Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and the Moon - 3/4 August 2013

[dweller25]

I am currently enjoying fantastic skies in France with excellent visibility to the east and west with an Orion Optics 8" Dob.

Session started out on the evening of Saturday 3rd August - Venus in the bright western sky was very low but showed a nice phase.

An hour or so later I found Saturn which still just showed a surface band, the Cassini division, the rings passing in front of the disk could be seen and the planets shadow on the rings passing behind Saturn could be seen - all a bit fuzzy now though as Saturn is very low.

Had a few hours sleep and woke up at 4:30am local time (0230UT) and set up the scope to view the Eastern sky - Just before 5am I spotted Jupiter but it was very low - no detail just a boiling mess really, but 4 moons all of to one side were easy to see.

30 minutes later with the sky already starting to loose its darkness I spotted Mars - very definite Orange colour with a bright cap - the white polar cap but again no detail as it was just too low.

By 6am local most stars had gone but Jupiter had now risen to a good height and the Moon was right below it, these two formed a nice triangle with Mars.

My final look at 6:05am ay x170 showed Mars as a very small distinct Orange globe with a phase that had a bright polar region. Jupiter was showing a little detail as it had now climbed to a reasonable height - around 20' !! - the two main equatorial bands could be seen with definite blotchy areas - the central part of the GRS was just detactable as a small oval with a large turbulant wake following it. A third belt could also just be made out as could a dark polar region.

Throw in several meteors, loads of satellites and an Owl and it was a good nights observing.

Clear skies.....

[kerrylewis]

David

great report. The planets will always be my first love. I remember a memorable night/morning around 2005 I think, when I saw all the major planets in one observing period through the night. Wonderful

I'm looking forward to Mars and Jupiter as the year unfolds.

This hobby..,,,,

K

[kerrylewis]

In fact you could have done almost the same because Neptune and Uranus are visible at the mo. not sure about young Mercury though

K

[dweller25]

Hi Kerry,

Mercury was too close to the Sun but your correct Neptune and Uranus were possible but Mars and Jupiter took all my attention