Observing – first week of March, 2023

Wednesday, March 1st turned out, though not good weather-wise, much better than the predicted overcast. It was a bit cold and windy, but there were significant patches in the fast moving clouds whipping through the sky. So I was found in the front driveway positioned on the eastern edge to compensate a bit for the neighbor’s westerly trees which worked to obscure the evening’s star attractions, Jupiter and Venus. Jupiter was higher on the left, with Venus brighter and a bit to the lower right. I had my AstroTech 80ED refractor with the widest angle eyepiece I’ve got, the AT 28mm UWA, for a 4.25° True Field of View. This was more than enough to put them into the eyepiece, delivering a nice, low 19.6 power wide field that resisted the thermal effects of observing the conjunction so low to the western horizon. In my eyepiece, they were mirror-reversed, so brilliant gibbous Venus was below on the left, with Jupiter higher on the right. These images from ...

james7ca on CloudyNights
... and ...
psychwolf

... are the best I’ve seen, so far, and closest to what I saw at the eyepiece. The photos are amici-prism corrected, the planets over-exposed, Venus and Jupiter appear stellar, where I saw a gibbous Venus and the squat, oblate disk of Optimus Maximus with the brown North and South Equatorial Belts against his cream colored spheroid. But the photos caught the most excellent Galilean moons Io, Ganymede and Callisto (in that order) sprawled out above Jove. Europa was behind the King of the Gods during this timeframe, just after sunset at 33.5°N, 101.88° W. Three neighbors from the house a couple east of mine came over to see the unusual sight in the sky, the two bright orbs demanding investigation. I explained the dynamics, that Earth was passing Jupiter in our respective revolutions about the Sun, and in the process of lapping Jove, while interior planet Venus was doing exactly the same thing to us on her quicker journey about Sol. Got a quick peek of the moon near zenith with the neighbor’s son Chris before his parents joined us to see the western celestial hubbub. Glad I got the chance to see it, and we weren’t completely clouded out. Was a fun time!

Friday night, March 3, found the South Plains Astronomy Club at the Lubbock First Friday Art Trail. I arrived later than I’d hoped, busy with my elder daughter’s 14th birthday celebration. She wanted to spend more time with her best friend walking about the FFAT, so they came along. I hurriedly emptied my carrier wagon and setup my AT 102ED as quickly as I could. I put in the AT 28mm UWA for a 3.25° TFOV, and put the Pleiades into it for all to see. And see it they did! Fortunately, where the Pleiades were, with careful observation, even from downtown Lubbock, a person could just make them out in the night sky, which made the cluster come to life for people. Got a lot of smiles, including from my daughter and her bestie! The slow-motion controls on my GSO Alt-Az Deluxe mount, with original Voyager pedestal and upgraded Ho wooden legs provide a nice, stable mount that people get the hang of pretty easily for manual tracking. Here’s a shot of the mount driving the C102GT. Great mount, but sadly, no longer in production.

As I was starting to remove my red dot to break down well after 9:15 (the FFAT officially closes at 9 PM), a young college student and his several girlfriends all showed up asking to look at the moon. I put back on the red dot and off to the moon we went. Well, first I showed them the Pleiades, but then we went to the moon. The gentleman wanted to see the moon at higher power, so I put in the 7mm Nagler T6 for 102 power and he got his wish. Everyone else wanted to see, too, as I explained the terminator to the small crowd. We had fun at the FFAT, as we always do.

Saturday evening walking with my wife, admiring the blooming Bradford Pears about town …

… the sky seemed to cry out to come observe. I couldn’t resist, calling my old Club member and viewing buddy Gary, he said sure, later we could give it a go. So he, Scott, and I met up around 8:30 to see what we could see at Tech Terrace Park. Gary had his wonderful 12” Orion dob, Scott brought his NexStar 8, and I took my AT102ED out again with the GSO Alt-Az Deluxe mount. The moon was an über bright waxing gibbous on the 4th – 12 days, 19 hours old, beaming from Leo Saturday night.

Out of the gate, we looked at Sirius, the dog star. No pup to be found this evening, but it was worth a shot. I caught a really washed out M31 (couldn't even see M32, much less M110). Again, M45, the Pleiades, served up a pleasing view in the AT28 UWAN. At M42, Gary got the ‘E’ star out of the Trapezium, ‘F’ winking in and out. I just got the Trapezium in my 4”-er. But h3945 (the "Winter Albireo") was a beautiful sight for all. Again, Rigel was split by Gary and me. Off to M35 but the ghostly NGC 2158 had, like a spirit in the night, disappeared under Luna's intensity.

We split Alnitak, Mintaka, Sigma Orionis, and Cor Coroli without issue. Castor required a little higher power, but we successfully turned the snowman into two distinct stars. Hind's Crimson Star (R Leporis) was found in Scott's SCT with go-to, but Gary and I searched and searched the moon-bedeviled skies to no avail. Carbon star La Superba was nice for everyone. I put the globular M2 in mine, but it was just a washed out blob. In Gary's 12", well, wasn't half bad, with the edges beginning to materialize into distinct stars. Pretty good under the moon-blighted conditions.

We looked at distant Mars. Scott and Gary got more definition, of course. There was some limb brightening in all the scopes (Martian clouds, perhaps?), but there were distinctive darker shaded markings on the interior – some mountain range? This was more apparent in Gary and Scott's larger apertures.

Scott shut down and left, and the cold got to Gary and me, too, so we packed up and after a brief chat about our aging backs, left as well.