Unorthodox Loo-trip Jupiter in the Early Hours

[Captain Scarlet]

I have a tall house and at the very top is a tiny shower/toilet with a small window looking South-ish. Over the past few weeks as I've been making trips to that room in the early hours, I've noticed with my pupils wide open but no eyeglasses (ie worst possible resolving combination for a short-sighted person) an extremely bright unfocussed blob about 30 degrees up around SSE.

Jupiter, obviously, so last night before bed I stashed my 11x70 Opticron binoculars and my glasses on the window-shelf.

Sure enough around 0330 the bladder called, the night was beautifully clear, and once the necessary business was done I took up my position, opened the window wide and had a good look, taking care of course that the door was closed to avoid letting a certain three highly mobile furry objects out onto the roof.

Jupiter, as ever, a lovely sight, 3 moons distinctly evident, on checking with Sky Guide one was too close-in to resolve.

He's right in the middle of Libra, so I checked out a couple of the stars around him too, and was greeted with a surprise: above and right was (on checking) Zubenelgelubi, the surprise being it's a coloured double! The larger one blue-white, the smaller one (alpha-1 Lib) yellow. Not in the league of Almach or Albireo (Winter- or otherwise), but nice nonetheless. Apparently it's a naked-eye double, I'll check that out in due course and get a better look with an actual telescope.

And below and right of Jupiter was Sigma-Lib, a distinct orange colour.

So a nice bit of early-hours observing.

Cheers, Magnus.

[domstar]

Very nice. Men of a certain age eh? I know it well.

[Ronclarke]

Join the club!!