Tales from Grenada

[Mrbloke]

Part 1 - The planets

Arriving in the evening, the first thing I noticed is that the moon had moved.  A lot.  Instead of gliding gracefully along a mostly southern sky, it stood, bold and proud on a path directly overhead.  It makes perfect sense of course, it's just not something I had ever thought about.  Having had a long daytime flight to our resort,  I headed for an early night to get some much needed recuperation.

Waking naturally at just before 5am, I stepped out to reveal a beautiful, if only partly familiar sky.  It was still dark and I could see the Big Dipper, skirting along the sea directly ahead of me - Polaris lost in the haze of the horizon.  The hillside behind (due south) did not bode well for my attempts to view LMC, but that was an early evening object so would have to wait anyway.

Looking up, I could see Jupiter bright in the west.  Reaching for the purpose bought 10 x 50 Helios naturesport plus binoculars revealed three of its close companions escorting their host in the big black sky.  The fourth must have been too close to split at the time with unskilled hands.  Moving along the ecliptic, Mars was next.  It's red hue apparent using eyes alone, it hung triumphantly near zenith.  Then, there was Saturn.  Smooth and pale cream, this is always a highlight to view.  I could tell it wasn't spherical, but there was not enough clarity/magnification to see rings.

Further down toward the hills, the brilliance of Venus was unmistakable.  It looked pretty much full phase, and was dominating in the pre-dawn sky.   Below it, a small cloud in the form of stratocumulus drifted slowly across, hiding the most elusive of our visual planetary family - Mercury.  A few minutes passed and I waited with baited breath...

There it was, stunning and brighter than I ever expected it to be, just below Venus.  I have never observed Mercury before - it was obvious in the sky, but we are so reliant on its position, our position and the weather.  I cast my eyes back to the sea and realised, to my amazement, I had completed an unplanned visual marathon of the six visible planets.

Six balls of rock and gas and liquid, all moving harmoniously through the cosmos.  What an amazing start!

[laudropb]

Very nice report. A joy to read.

[glennbech]

Nice read. It's always interesting and sometimes confusing to look at the sky when you travel