Observing planets in winter

[JoeBlow]

I usually avoid observing planets during the cooler months, from my experience nights of good seeing are few and far between during this time. I like to observe at magnifications in excess of 200x to resolve fine details, but conditions here in Sydney seem to really deteriorate once the weather cools.

With Mars at opposition in mid winter this year I don't have much choice...

I was wondering what's everyone else's experience? How often do you find conditions settle in winter to allow for high magnification? Is it worth the time and patience?

[Tropo-Bob]

More like: Is it worth getting up so early?

Its generally better conditions here on winter mornings, so yeah, if something good is happening, it is worth it. That said, Cairns temps only get to aprox 12 degrees during the coolest of mornings and I use smaller refactors, so temperature adjustment is not much of an issue.

I was up at 5.30 looking at Mercury this morning. Unfortunately, the other 3 planets were behind clouds so I went back to bed.

[Nikolas]

Last night in Melbourne it would have been perfect if not for the effing smoke haze and a full moon. Crisp clear nights seem more stable than the warmer nights with more heat ripple.

[Wavytone]

Joe it can be excellent in winter where I observe, from either of two ovals in St Ives or Killara where basically there's a lot of bush nearby and not much housing, so no thermals off nearby houses.

The seeing in suburbia is often ruined by thermals rising through the light path of the object you're hoping to observe - from hot buildings, roads and concrete heated up during the day and from my experience this is much worse in summer than winter. This stuff frequently takes all night to cool down so you've basically got no chance.

The rare exception when seeing can be really good is a cloudy day blocking the sun - or even better a good thunderstorm to cool things down, followed by a clearing sky before sunset.

In winter people may be using heaters...

All of which is assumes the jet stream isn't stuffing things up anyway.

[Startrek]

Joe,

Last winter I had some great nights and early mornings in Sydney’s south observing the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn above 150x mag

Every night is different and you just have to give it a go when the weather is clear

I found this summer to be ordinary due to the high temperatures, humidity( dew)and smoke haise around ( not to mention the mosquitos )

Give me Winter any time for observing and astrophotography work

Martin

[JoeBlow]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone.

The past 2 weeks I have actually been quite persistent in observing Jupiter, though without much luck at higher magnifications.



I have noticed this too regardless of the season. But it's also my least favourite time to observe... :ashamed:

I guess early mornings might be my best chance for mars.

[OzEclipse]

For me, in 40 years as an amateur astronomer, there are two nights that stand out as the best seeing I've ever seen. The atmosphere was so still that at 500+ magnification, the image stayed crisp and steady. One was the end of April, one was mid May both in 1984 both at Mount Tamborine Observatory.

There is less diurnal temperature variation in winter so scopes don't have as much thermal equalisation as in summer unless you keep them in a heated house.

Joe

[LewisM]

Agreed Joe. During Summer, the FSQ needs refocusing every 30 minutes during image runs. In winter, I find I need to do it twice as the night stabilises, then I can leave it till around 4am.

I have had more exceptional seeing nights in Canberra in 1 year than in all the 39 years I lived on the Sunshine Coast in QLD.

[Wavytone]

There’s another aspect - useful dark time.

Despite it not being 3rd quarter last night moonrise was 12:15am, with a good 5-6 hours of darkness before that. On a midsummer at new moon you’d be struggling to get that much time.

And some societies didn’t bother to open their observing site last night; pity because it was a fairly good night in Sydney. And tonight is looking very good.

[xelasnave]

It looked rather good here in Sydney last night and I felt guilty not having a go but it seemed so cold having been up North for a while and I still had to bring the gear up the stairs...so I passed.

I cant wear shoes because my feet heat up but it has me getting cold very fast.
I can only use open type foot ware so although my feet feel on fire the cold gets in.

In Sydney I find I can only manage very short exposures because of the light pollution and happily a 130 frames at 30 seconds works for me....plus the poor polar alignment may work as an automatic ditther:D

And never getting my polar anywhere acceptable here (because although on a pier I have been pulling the mount off to adjust stuff so frequently I only get close before I do another pull down) the short exposures hide that fact to a degree.

Alex

[Wavytone]

Alex it was pretty good, and you missed a transit on Jupiter... there’s another (Europa) on Wednesday night at 9:20

Tried sock and sandals ? Sure it’s not a good look but in the dark who cares... would make the difference for your feet.

[AndyG]

Oh Alex you crack me up :P

[xelasnave]

I put on some loose ug boots last night and stayed up till 3 am doing stuff ...couldnt get the cats paw again☺
My feet were really burning but I stayed warm...the little cube is proving functional and pack up was just close the lid..A huge step forward.
I dragged out my old 150 mm refractor (doublet) cleaned it and found a 2x barlow and a 3 x barlow but thats as far as I got with it. ...may see how my little zwo goes on Juptiter although the gear is rather poor.
Alex