Mars and Moon Conjuction This Tuesday

[refractordude]

Hello There

The weather news report a clear night sky this coming Tuesday the 17th. Looking at Stellarium I noticed there will be a Mars-Moon conjunction on the 17th. They will be about 3 degrees apart before 12 midnight. This should be great with my 20x80 binoculars due to the 3D effect. I may stay up later to use my scope and Celestron UFF 30mm. Around 2am they should be around 1.5 degrees apart.

https://whenthecurveslineup.com/2024/11/30/2024-december-17-sky-view-mars-moon-conjunction-mercury-emerges/

Clear Skies

[leon]

Hey there, that is cool, nice imaging, well done

Leon

[Leo.G]

That should be interesting but we're expecting a huge southerly change locally sometime this evening (or so I've been told) and I've been told it will be dropping down as low as 8c overnight.
Yeah, sleeping weather again before another heat surge on Friday.
I may however see if I can take some binoculars out weather permitting though cloud is forecast, how unusual, it's not even an eclipse.

[VK3EDW]

How were your results??

[refractordude]

Hello There

The observation tools I used were a six inch aperture F8 achromatic, three inch aperture F5 achromatic, 20x80 achromatic binoculars, and 7x50 achromatic binoculars. The six incher was not useful because I miscalculated how far apart they would be. Even with the Meade 56mm plossl I could not bring the two into view. The 20x80 binoculars put up a decent view, but Mars was to bright/not sharp for my achromatic binoculars at 20 mag. The 3 incher with a 32mm plossl showed a very nice view of the two. The best view was with the 7x50 binoculars. Mars with the 7x50 binoculars was a lot sharper with a 3D view.

I turned my attention to Orion. Using the six incher with a four inch aperture mask the Trapezium stars were tight airy disks. However, I could not detect the E, F, and G stars. Rigel star was pretty but slightly unsharp at high mags with my SvBony 7-21 zoom eyepiece. However, It's B star companion was very obvious and special. I backed away with my GSO SuprView 30mm which gave me a sharper bluer view the B star still very obvious. With the GSO I watched the companion stars cross my view about a dozen times. Rigel is very beautiful. It is very bliss.

Jupiter was high and asking for some attention. The 6 incher with mask did a great job. Observed a few bands and some swirls. Tried Jupiter with out the four inch mask and used a Yellow #8. I did not like the color change.

By the way I own a Celestron 30mm UFF, but decided to use the GSO SuperView bench warmer. With a F8 scope the GSO is really great. By removing the eye cup the entire view was sharp right to the edge with no blackouts. Great budget eyepiece.

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