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Mars & Jupiter nearing conjunction


Special K

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On 1/5/2018 at 14:00, Special K said:

You must get some excellent skies in San Luis @Jay F being next to the National Forest. I lived in Grand Junction when I was about 9 and what I wouldn’t give to have those views again!!!  My older brother used to make comments about the Milky Way which I didn’t really understand at the time. 

We do have many dark clear nights.  It's a great place for watching the stars.  Ideal really, in many ways. It's about 50x100 miles of flat-as-a-pancake farmland, ringed with mountain ranges and national forest that they are close enough to get to quickly, but far enough away to not be too much of an obstruction to the horizons, maybe only 10-15 degrees are blocked.  It's also very sparsely populated, mostly potato farming with a few small towns scattered about.  Not only that, but there is a national wildlife refuge about 5 miles south of where I live which is about 20 square miles without a single light, plus a not-insignificant Amish population in the area, also with minimal to no lighting at night, so very little light pollution, low humidity, and lots of clear days year round.  The downside is that the valley floor is at about 8000 feet, so the cold air from the mountains really settles down here and keeps it really cold here in the winters.  No complaints though, it's a good place to live.

The milky way is pretty stunning and definitely lives up to its name, even without any visual aids, on those clear nights.  I'll bet you do miss it.  What took you so far away?  Do you ever get back on this side of the world?  Is so, I would highly recommend a visit to this area :-)  Grand Junction itself may have grown since you were 9, but there are still plenty of dark spaces near there also on both the Colorado and Utah sides.

Back on topic, however, for this event, we currently have cloudy skies, with 3-6" of snow projected overnight and through Sunday afternoon, so chances are slim to none that I'll be able to see anything in the morning.  I did get to see how close Jupiter and Mars were this morning however.  It's like you said earlier, they seemed to close the distance from where they were yesterday morning so quickly!  You could hold up one finger and cover them both.  Wow!  We should have clear skies again on Monday and Tuesday mornings, so I'll be out watching.

Kind regards, Jay

 

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Same for me too Gavin, poor seeing, only the two main bands visible but at least clear sky so we could see it. Nice positioning of the moon's, and a lovely colour contrast to the pair naked eye I thought.

Cloudy now....

That can be an entry for the Smartphone imaging competition at least :), possibly even a StuPOD ;) 

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1 hour ago, Littleguy80 said:

Despite going to bed after 2am after a few drinks at a family party, I still got up to see the conjunction! Well worth the effort. I’m pretty pleased with my iPhone pic too :) 

03E84B61-0DFC-42B4-8988-04F10AC76655.thumb.jpeg.fa460ef60052e9bd012baaacb8c0304e.jpeg

 

That's a great shot!

Dedication to the cause, getting up after a late night! Well worth it though :) 

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Have still got both planets in the eyepiece, between the clouds. No moons visible any more. Will pop out in a while and see if they are still there! Good old AZGTi tracking well.

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1 minute ago, dweller25 said:

Poor seeing for me too but both planets were in the eypiece at x150 - a great sight.

 

That must have looked good, I could only manage x82, just got orthos at the moment  so couldn't go any higher and still fit them in!

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Shame those clouds rolled in at just the critical time, but great to see that most got a look in!  I put the ED80 on target both Saturday and Sunday morning and got a little viewing time at 68x. Agree the seeing was terrible!!!  

Mars looked due south of Jupiter at 6:30 and this was quite a change to its position from Saturday. Though I couldn’t get any detail, it was interesting to experience the progression and observe the color difference between these planets directly.  That was a fine view of the twin moons either side.  I would have liked more time to take it in before clouds rolled in so will try again tomorrow. There’s also a GRS transit at 6:18 if the seeing could settle down a bit...

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Got up at 4.30 and waited patiently for the planets to clear the neighbour’s roof. What a great sight naked eye! Like having a nearby double with two stars contrasted in colour and brightness.

Set up the big Vixen last night. Lovely views at varying magnification. As others have noted, seeing was no great shakes although it gradually improved a little, but great to see the small orange disc of Mars contrasted with big bright Jupiter. 

‘Interesting to imagine the view in 3D as we look beyond Mars to Jupiter way beyond. 

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Great image!

I finally gave up on Jupiter at around 9.40am. The mount kept track of it very well amongst the clouds, eventually I lost it behind a shed roof. Mars was long gone, as were the moon's, but I could still see the Equatorial belts when I lost it. A bit of fun.

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Last night I got the apollo 15 x 70 bins out for a grab and go session.  Identified some easy targets including Ngc 1647 and 1746 in Taurus, M44. M45, M42. M35,36,37 and 38, collinder 65 and 69 at the top of Orion, collinder 89 in Gemini. Failed to find M67, M50 and M48.  One thing that amazed me was looking at Sirius and seeing the constant colour change. I had never seen this before and it was quite mesmerising to me. Decided to get up at 6am to see the Mars Jupiter conjunction. It was good with the naked eye and excellent in the Meade etx 125 with binoviewers.  I didn't get any pictures though and I was slightly disappointed with the seeing as I could only just make out jupiters bands intermittently and no detail on Mars, it was clear though and in this country we take what we can get! Best views for me at x95 with 20mm eyepiece. After I'd spent about 40mins on this, switched to the moon which was just amazing with the binoviewers at x240, seeing allowed more mag with the moon as expected. Mainly focused on Mare serenitatis near the terminator and saw lots of (new to me) details and overall had a great session.  Nice to get so much done early in the morning rather than late at night. In fact I think I preferred getting up early compared with going to bed late. Bet I won't say that later! 

Steve 

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I was up at 4.30, had a quick look through the 10” dob on the EQ platform, then focussed the canon on the moon in preparation. Took a few of that whilst I was on it. Big bank of cloud came over and it started raining. Carried the scope into the garage, made a drink, came out again and it was partially clear, so started over, :) got quite a few subs but haven’t processed them yet. :) 

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