Another look at Mars

Being blessed at Seattle Astronomy headquarters with the rare-for-December occurrence of consecutive clear evenings, I ventured out again last night with the telescope to see what could be seen.

My prime objective was Mars. Seeing and transparency were somewhat better than there were on Monday evening. While the view of Mars through the telescope was much more stable, there was again very little detail to be seen. I've come to the harebrained conclusion that Mars may simply be too bright! This is seldom noted as a problem in astronomy. Usually things such as galaxies and nebulae are too faint to be seen, especially in a city where light  pollution is an obstacle. I have, however, noticed with other planets such as Jupiter that the best views may be in twilight when the contrast between the object being looked at and the sky is not so great.

The Moon from Seattle Astronomy
headquarters on Dec. 1, 2020.
 Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

I may be in touch with our friends at Cloud Break Optics to see if they can set me up with a Mars filter, STAT. The forecast for tonight is another clear one.

There was better luck with the Moon, which being a couple of days past full was still pretty big but clearly on the waning side. I managed to capture a nice (by my standards) photo of the Moon using a handheld iPhone camera. I always have trouble finding the exit pupil with the smallish lens of the phone cam, but got a decent one after a few tries this time. I always use a disclaimer that I'm not really an astrophotographer, but do like to grab the occasional snapshot, just to prove I was there!

I'll be out again tonight if the weather forecast proves true!

Mars glistens; Jupiter-Saturn conjunction approaches

Not the view through my telescope!
This image of Mars was captured by
the Hubble Space Telescope in 2018.
 (Credit NASA, ESA, and STScI)

It was a nice, clear night last night and I dragged the telescope out of the basement for a look at how Mars was coming along. The answer: swimmingly! That is to say, neither the seeing nor the transparency were very good despite the "clear" sky. One look at the nearly full Moon revealed that there was plenty of moisture in the air, as its orb was surrounded by a rainbow halo of light. 

Thus my views of Mars from last night were mostly on the wobbly side. In the occasional moment of steady seeing I was able to spot the Red Planet's southern polar cap, but couldn't catch much else in the way of surface features.

This is not to say that the views of Mars were bad. Though we're nearly two months past its closest approach to Earth for this particular apparition, Mars is still bright red and it's quite high in the evening sky. Maybe the view was even better without a telescope! Our forecast in Seattle is for another clear evening today, and I plan to give Mars another look.

Another sky spectacle is approaching. Jupiter and Saturn have been hanging out together for much of the year, and they've pulled noticeably closer together in recent weeks. The two are headed for a great conjunction on Dec. 21, 2020, when they will appear less than one degree apart in the western sky! In fact, they'll be within six one-hundredths of a degree at their closest and will appear as one bright object! For reference, the full Moon appears about half a degree wide.

This article from Sky at Night magazine explains the conjunction, which will be the closest of our solar system's two largest planets in about 400 years! Fingers crossed for clear skies that night!

Pink supermoon

I always note that I’m not really an astrophotographer, and this is readily apparent to anyone who sees my shots, but I do occasionally like to take a snap just to prove I was there. Thus, here’s my photo of the full Moon of April 7, 2020.

There are those who call this the pink Moon, even though it isn’t pink, and a supermoon, which may be an exaggeration even though the Moon is excellent. I’ve read a few sources this morning claiming that we “often” call the April full Moon the “Grass Moon” or the “Egg Moon.” This may well depend on just how you define often.

The super bit comes from the fact that this particular Moon does appear to be slightly larger in the sky–about seven percent bigger than the average full Moon. That’s because the moment of fullness came when the Moon was near perigee, its closest point to Earth during its orbit around us.

For those into photo specs, I made this with a simple Canon PowerShot A530 pointed through the eyepiece of my 8-inch Dobsonian at 50x magnification.

The Moon will be pretty close to full this evening and almost as super, so check it out if you can.