[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

Tracked down all eight planets in the Massey Alignment today.

My western horizon precludes seeing Venus and Mercury down low. So, I solved this by completing these observations just after lunch in brilliant sunshine.
Mercury - very small bright white spot against blue background.
Venus - magnificent fine crescent. Jewel like against the blue background. It’s disc is so big and imposing at this stage of it’s approach to inferior conjunction.

I was enjoying this so, I kept going

Mars - still quite bright but receding quickly. A distinct, light red against the blue sky.
Jupiter - faint disc with main bands clearly visible.
Saturn - extremely faint. It took me about 5 minutes at the eyepiece before I found it. The rings were quite distinct.

I then spent some time enjoying mother Earth whilst waiting for night fall.

Neptune - obvious small light blue disc. The Moon was about 10deg away.
Uranus - the smallest of non-stellar discs was very clear. Hint of green.

Scope - Vixen NA140SS with LVW22 giving 36X for the daylight observations and LVW8 giving 100X for the evening observations.