Bob, your comments captured my impressions too. Europa and Io were in very close conjunction which added to the scene as Glen noted.
We had clear skies here at 4.00am and I started observing with my 85mm Ziess spotting scope at 25X which allowed me to capture Mars, Jupiter and the wide pair Zubenelgenubi in the same FOV, along with a sprinkling of other field stars. It was a magnificent field.
I then swapped to my ED103S on a goto mount as I want to track the progress during the day. I found my Panoptic 24 giving 33X the best option as seeing here is just average.
At 5.30am, 10 minutes before sunrise, Jupiter’s disc had faded to a faint yellow with the main bands still very visible and the four moons starting to fade from view. Mars was a pretty bright pink. Mars was still almost vertically above Jupiter but had got noticeably closer to Jupiter.
At 8.30am, Jupiter was pale white against the blue sky with the main bands still visible. Mars was a bright pink. By now, the orientation of the two planets had clearly changed, reflecting the Earth’s rotation sweeping the two across the sky. Keeping Jupiter in the centre of the FOV Mars has clearly rotated clockwise. Note, my scope is showing a horizontal mirror reversed image.
At 9.30am, the pair are very close to culmination. Mars is now at about the 1.30 clock-face position relative to Jupiter.
I think closest approach is at about 11.25am, so Ill have another look then. I’ll visit Mercury and Saturn and view bright double stars in the meantime.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tropo-Bob
WOW! These are really close. Its like a visual double, a bright white and a lesser red.
Using a 120x ortho EP, I can comfortable fit both in the same field of view.
All Jupiter's Moons are strung out to one side, and Mars is roughly perpendicular to them, but only a about 2.5 times the visual distance as from Jupiter to outermost Callisto. Very impressive.
Although Mars is the less bright of the two, when I view it through the scope, it can be seen that it is brighter per unit of its surface area. There is just so much less of it.
No detail seen on Mars at 120x. Conditions are only fair. There is the largest ring around the Moon that I have ever noticed; over 20 degrees in radius. So more rain is probably on the way.
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