Another Planetary Conjunction

[Littleguy80]

I must have been excited for this one as I woke up at 4:25 AM, a full 20 minutes before my alarm. I wrapped up and put my 10" dob outside. The skies were clear overhead but there was a big bank of cloud around the horizon. Not what I wanted to see. The post lady had delivered an SQM-L meter yesterday so I gave it a go. 19.77 near the zenith. During astro darkness on a good night, I guess I'm getting closer to 20. While I waited for the cloud to clear, and the planets to rise, I took another look at Comet C/2019 Y4. A distinct hazy glow in Ursa Major.

As I sat frowning at the cloud, a small point of light caught my eye. I pointed the dob at it and there was Mars. A slight adjustment in position and Saturn joined the red planet in the FOV. The view was fleeting as the cloud soon covered the pair but I'd at least managed to see it. After a few minutes, Jupiter rose up above the cloud bank. The seeing was terrible and I couldn't even see the equatorial belts. I counted the 4 Galilean moons though. Io sat above Callisto in a nice pair with Europa and Ganymede further out. Breaks in the cloud started to appear and I was able to return to Mars and Saturn. I tried a few eyepieces and eventually settled on the ES82 30mm as framing the conjunction the best. This was giving 50x mag which still showed Saturn and it's rings nicely, Mars being a fine point. Both suffered at higher powers from the poor seeing. In the dawn sky, all three planets could be seen clearly naked eye now. As the sky lightened, I started to think about returning to bed. Before I went back to my warm bed, I went back for a final look at Jupiter. It had now risen a good bit and the benefits to the view was obvious. The equatorial belts were clear and I could even see the GRS. Moments of steadier seeing revealing some nice detail. The movement of Callisto from my earlier observation was quite noticeable with it sitting a bit further out from the gas giant now. I ended staying with Jupiter for quite a bit longer than intended. It left feeling quite excited for the rise of the planets over the coming months.