Mercury 29-06-28 @ 22:20 hrs

[John]

Managed to spot Mercury just now with 11x70 binoculars. Not easy from my location - the house plus quite a few others are usually in the way !

Tonight, from an upstairs bedroom window, Mercury was above the rooflines so I popped donwstairs and hastily put my TV Ranger 70 refractor on a photo tripod , stuck a zoom eyepiece and barlow in the drawtube and ran back upstairs.

I can't open the windows fully unfortunately so I have to view through the double glazing, which is far from ideal, but even so, at 150x I could make out Mercury's phase, which is tonight just a bit less illuminated than Venus is. The apparent diameter is just 6.4 arc seconds and the illumination 63%. Nice to actually get a scope on this little world - I've picked it up in binoculars a few times but it's been a long time since I saw its phase in the eyepiece of a scope. The window glass and low elevation of the planet added a few distortions but the orientation and state of the phase were clear.

Thank goodness for very portable scopes !

After that the phase of Venus from the same location and with the same scope was a piece of cake of course and clear at much lower magnifications.

 

[Knighty2112]

Nice work John. I was observing Venus and !ercury earlier on at around 7:30pm using my goto with my C8. Saw Jupiter too, but was too pale to make out any real detail. 

[Sunshine]

Nice work getting eyes on Mercury! I recall spending a good 20 min last year trying to spot Uranus through my Lightbridge manually with just a telrad and a phone app, was great to spot it finally.

[John]

2 hours ago, Sunshine said:

..... was great to spot it finally.

Difficult to explain to a non-astronomer but I know just what you mean

[Demonperformer]

Congratulations.

Mercury is a non-starter for me at my location at this time of year, unless it and the moon are close enough to set up a daylight observation - and even then it is a struggle!

[bish]

Well done. I think I have only ever used bins on Mercury, and in my current house I have to drive up the road to see it at all. Always some sense of achievement just to spot it.

[paulastro]

Well done John.  Your tenacity is to be admired.   You're quite right about how useful small scopes are, for as long as I can remember I'm had at least one scope which can just about go anywhere.  Alas I also have the curse of windows which don't open properly, what an abomination they are.

[Grotemobile]

12 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Nice work John. I was observing Venus and !ercury earlier on at around 7:30pm using my goto with my C8. Saw Jupiter too, but was too pale to make out any real detail. 

I have been having the same problem with Jupiter lately. Saturn looked like a wobbly jelly.

Well done John in spotting Mercury. Not the easiest of targets to see. 

[Piero]

Nice report, John!

The last time I observed mercury was during its transit on the Sun, with my the TV60 at 180x. I like this telescope for observing Venus because it allows to use magnifications within seeing limits but also dim the image so that the glare doesn't wash the details.

[John]

Just as a postscript to my initial report, I went on to observe Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon and Mars as well as 5 Saturnian moons and 4 Jovian moons last night. Quite a solar system feast

I was using the ED120 some of the time, hence the 5 Saturnian moons. Mars disk was quite well defined but pretty featureless last night - dust storm still raging perhaps ? Saturn was really lovely, hints of the Crepe Ring at times with the ED120.

[niallk]

Nice - spotting Mercury is a real treat in my book... I haven't got great horizons to the west or east from home, so rare for me!

I was trying Jupiter and Saturn 2 nights ago with my 15" dob: despite my hopes with the jetstream off north, seeing plus atmospheric dispersion seemed to be making focusing hard work. I had the odd fleeting moments of half decent views of Jupiter with the GRS transiting, but nothing like what I know the scope can deliver when the conditions are right.  Saturn was quite disappointing for me, tbh.  Hey ho: only 15° alt or so.  At least i saw it, and the Cassini div.  Pretty depressing though how low the planets will be for the next few years...

During these summer months, I plan to learn my way around more of the moon.  Roll on August and the Skellig Star Party in deepest darkest Kerry

PS if I'm lucky,  maybe someone will be there with a 120ED and I'll get a look through a frac for the first time!

[cloudsweeper]

On 30/06/2018 at 02:37, John said:

Difficult to explain (spotting Mercury) to a non-astronomer but I know just what you mean

Yes, John.  I've only managed it once (other than in transit) - had to go to the coast to see it very low in the west, using binos.  Good sense of achievement alright!

Doug.