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See Mars get very close to Neptune at dusk on 7 December

paulastro

By paulastro
in Celestial Events Heads Up

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Ludd

Ludd

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I've just had a very quick look through my little 70mm ED scope with an 18mm BST eyepiece and 2.5x barlow to give a modest 58x mag.  Mars is looking nice and bright salmon, Neptune only very slightly bluish.  Maybe I should get the C8 out for higher resolution and more image scale.

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Ludd

Ludd

Posted
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7 minutes ago, John said:

Lovely bright pass over of the ISS just happened to add to the enjoyment :grin:

 

Indeed!  An extra delight, just caught it heading into next door's bay tree.  

Edit: Yes, the C8 is better. 

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Demonperformer

Demonperformer

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Well, the rain held off just long enough for me to get set up and aligned. Just about to slew to Mars and the heavens opened. Mad dash to get everything back in as quick as possible. Now in the process of drying everything.

Still, not a total failure. For the first time I got the automatic positioning in Sharpcap working (did a 2 degree adjustment on Deneb,  putting it right in the middle of the screen). So slowly but surely I am making progress.

Congrats to everyone who is having more success with the conjunction than I did.

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paulastro

paulastro

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Went into observatory at 5.10 with roof only slid open 1/4 way to stop rain blowing in.  First view with the little 72ED at 5.14 and watched it off and on between cloud and rain showers until 5.45 when the rain increased too much and was blowing in so I had to shut the roof.  Started pouring with rain by 5.50 pm, and still is pouring down!  Lovely views using Baader Mk111, very nice colour contrast between Mars and Neptune, nice star field too.  Could see phase of Mars easy at x52, highest power at the 8 mm end of the zoom without the barlow.  

The first mission for the 72ED and a great success, perhaps I ought to quit while it has a 100% success rate ?.

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Stub Mandrel

Stub Mandrel

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Got plenty of imaging time at 1200 and then 3600mm - first serious session with my x3 ED barlow. Then cloud coming in so packed up. By timer packed away, clear again!

Came up here, logged on to this thread and read observations thought $%^*(%%!!!!!

Ran downstairs and discovered just how fast it is to set up a big dob! Then had to dig around to find finderscope.

Saw the pair of 'em at x62, then at x160, Mars too bright in the 10" to detect real detail but neptune blue ? Then cloud!

Packed up again and, of course, it's clear again!

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AdeKing

AdeKing

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Just had a quick look with my 102 f/11. Windy so the view was trembling on the whole time and there was light cloud building so I couldn't see any colour in Neptune, but according to sky safari I was looking at the right thing.

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CraigT82

CraigT82

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First light for my new 102 f11.... had exactly the same issue with the trembling view! For a bit I thought the AZ4 was not going to be up to handling the long tube but once I moved into the corner of the garden out of the wind it settled down and I was able to crank it up to 183x with a 6mm BCO., although focusing was a bit of an issue (tweak, wait... tweak, wait...) it's usable on the AZ4 at this mag. 

Syrtas major just about visible and a nice white polar cap visible in moments of clarity. 

Neptune a small, dim dark blue disc. 

It's very nice to view mars without diffraction spikes for a change! 

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dweller25

dweller25

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16 hours ago, Peter Drew said:

Lovely view of the conjunction here at 5pm in the 16" SCT, both easily in the same field at 400X. Very strong wind so unable to take advantage of what looks like good transparency.    ?

I should have driven over Peter - it was 100% cloudy over here !!!

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Stub Mandrel

Stub Mandrel

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Strange results - first time I have had planetary image that has responded best to unsharp mask rather than  the usual face-off between wavelets and deconvolution.

Definitely an ice cap just up from 6 O-clock. With a bit of imagination a slightly dark patch in the north-east for Olympus Mons.

mars.thumb.png.5b8025b8dec631379f222648b3a1dd68.png

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maw lod qan

maw lod qan

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Very light clouds moving across the Florida sky, but when it got right, I could definitely make out the tiny bluish speck.

I couldn't get both Mars and Neptune together dealing with eyepiece projection, but hopefully I got some of Neptune.

Waiting for Mars to break from the clouds, I took a peek at Saturn low power, low pn the horizon.

I hoped to look to Andromeda with the camera set up, but the clouds stopped that. 

While waiting though, I watcheda beautiful meteor. Just a bright orb moving across the sky beneath Andromeda that left no ion trail, but flared several times before disappearing.

I do have a question. I believe I could see Neptune with my naked eye as I was going back in. a small star, very low magnitude, with a blue tint to the lower right of Mars. Approximately at 4 o'clock.

Took the wife out to look and she said she could see the blue star too.

Can you see it naked eye. Or was I imagining it.

 

 

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John

John

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44 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

I do have a question. I believe I could see Neptune with my naked eye as I was going back in. a small star, very low magnitude, with a blue tint to the lower right of Mars. Approximately at 4 o'clock.

Took the wife out to look and she said she could see the blue star too.

Can you see it naked eye. Or was I imagining it.

 

 

Neptune is around magnitude 7.7. This is beyond naked eye visibility as far as I am aware.

 

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Ouroboros

Ouroboros

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Duh!  I planned to get out there about 7 pm. I glanced out of the window about 6pm to see Mars in clear skies. By the time I went out to look it had clouded over. Congrats to those who saw it though. Nice to see the pics. 

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Jojo204

Jojo204

Posted
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Ah how I love my home in Somerset! Always got the darkest skys!

Oh and the cloudiest ones ?

It was tipping it down all night so I didn’t even bother but I enjoy looking at your guys results haha.

 

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