A Fistfull of Targets

[lenscap]

Sunday 24th May, from 7:30pm BST, 200p F/5, EQ3-2, diy Onstep Goto.

I've enjoyed watching Venus wane to a thinner & thinner crescent recently, but have never observed Mercury. Having the 2 planets & the Moon only a few degrees apart this week was an opportunity not to be missed. But the gap between the trees & the hill to my West is only about 1 "fist" wide - maybe 40 minutes of observing time. And the late sunset time means Venus would have moved behind the hill before becoming naked-eye visible.

I don't have a permanent setup & can't see Polaris from my patio so I observe from  a very rough "polar alignment" & have marked the tripod leg positions on the patio so I don't need to Polar, or Star align every session.

So, having made sure to "Park" the scope at the end of the previous night's session I could just plonk the setup on the marks, "Unpark", "Goto Venus" & lo and behold a tiny crescent Venus appeared about 1 degree from the centre of the  the  9x50 Finder in a sky that was clear of cloud but still pure white from the solar glow !  Isn't Goto wonderful ?

Venus was such a beautiful thin 4% crescent with "horns" stretching to the meridian. At first it was shimmering  but that must have been a heat plume because a tiny tweak of the focus steadied the image. The seeing was surprisingly good for the low altitude. I enjoyed the view at up to X250 (4mm TMB), before a Goto to Mercury.

Mercury was not visible in the Finder but was a tiny  dot in the 32mm Plossl. At higher powers I saw it as a 45% crescent. I know it was about 62% illuminated  so the sky must have been too bright for me to see its full extent. I don't claim to have seen any detail - the brightness just reduced steadily from the limb towards the terminator.

I still couldn't see the Moon naked eye so did another Goto & looked in the Finder. Nothing !  But the bright sky must have been fooling my eye because when I forced myself to focus at infinity it popped in sight. The visible crescent was about half the thickness of a crosshair !  In a 20mm Plossl I could see about 6 medium sized faint, ghostly craters along the limb of a 4% crescent.

So in about half an hour I had my first sight of Mercury, & seen my thinnest crescents of Venus & Luna. Isn't this hobby fantastic ? 😀

[des anderson]

A great evening , some great observing done as well,and the best part you enjoyed yourself. Des

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Good result. Well done bagging Mercury.

Lingering clouds, a street lamp right in line of sight of the planets and then a row of houses killed Venus & Mercury, but...

For ten minutes as a consolation prize I showed my partner that she could see the whole ghostly dark disk of the moon through the binoculars (rather than just the naked eye crescent) and the gold colour of Arcturus. She was actually slightly impressed! 

 

[Stu]

Very nice report Lenscap. Sounds like you have some challenges in terms of being able to observe these low down objects but your persistence paid off!

I was observing exactly the same three objects, and believe this is the finest I’ve seen Venus too, really lovely. Have never observed a phase on Mercury before either so it has been really good to have seen that.