The Westronomy Blog

This comet (and the weather) teased me a bit. Viewing circumstances were never going to be great for mid-northern latitudes. The morning of Saturday, January 11th turned out to be an exception, as I got reports of the comet being spotted with the naked eye from 40 degrees north. But when I went to bed on Friday evening, it looked like rain was turning to snow. I was surprised and chagrined to wake up to clear skies on Saturday morning, a bit too late to chase a comet. The comet was to make a close approach to the Sun on Monday the 13th, swinging around north of the Sun before plunging back south. There was a chance the comet might brighten enough to be visible during daylight. I got up early on Sunday morning, but there were too many clouds near the horizon. I tried for the comet at midday on Sunday, but there had been a frost overnight and little particles of ice and frost were moving through my binocular field, the more distant and nearly stationary ones looking like annoying false ...

 Monday evening 1/13, I got to see the Moon occult Mars. The forecast was for clear skies, but there were variable clouds throughout the day, and the Moon wasn't visible when I left work after 5pm and headed for my observing site.  The western sky an hour after sunset Clouds near the Moon After a nice sunset, the Moon broke through, and I was able to start a photo sequence (Canon 90D, 100-400mm lens plus 1.4x teleconverter) and get to my 10" scope just after first contact. The seeing was pretty bad, with no detail on Mars.  Mars about to disappear While Mars was covered, I turned to Jupiter and caught Ganymede, Io, and Callisto in a tight diagonal line on one side of the planet. Europa was on the other side. It was a pretty unusual configuration. Jupiter and moons at 6:27pm The clouds had thinned out as I prepared for Mars to reappear. I got the camera set up, and then went back to the scope. Seeing was a little bit better. The first bit of Mars that peeked out seemed to ...

Thursday, January 9 th had a lot going for it. First, I worked Sunday through Thursday this week, so I would have Friday off. Next, the forecast was for clear skies. There was an air stagnation advisory, so the atmosphere looked to be relatively steady. And there were some interesting lunar and planetary events: Io and its shadow transited Jupiter in the early evening. Two of the main stars in the Pleiades were hidden by the Moon, and would reappear off its bright limb. Ganymede would emerge from occultation by Jupiter, and later would be eclipsed by Jupiter’s shadow. The Great Red Spot would be visible on Jupiter. Besides that, Venus was half-lit in the western sky, with Saturn above it. The Moon was in an 83% waxing gibbous phase. Mars was a week away from opposition, and 4 days away from being occulted by the Full Moon. I hadn’t been out with the scope since early November, so it was a good night for a shakedown. To prepare, I packed my 10” Dob in the car the previous evening...