Moon & Mars Companion (Now!)

[gaa_ian]

If your up reading this post ......
Walk outside right now & check out Mars above the moon ....awesome :eyepop:
A map is hardly needed but here is the blog post that went to my nightskysecrets.com mailing list last night to get em out looking up :thumbsup:

http://www.nightskysecrets.com/blog/2007/11/mars-and-moon-together.html

Enjoy the view !

[Ric]

Clouded out again down here. :mad2:

Just starting to get a tad annoying now. :lol:

Cheers

[ballaratdragons]

Hi Ian,

The Moon isn't even up yet!

But I can see Mars :thumbsup:

[gaa_ian]

Hmm ... must be a latitude thing I have just been out with the trusty Canon trying for Photos
Will post shortly !

[erick]

Clouded out in that direction at present - but I have to be up for another hour or two yet - I'll try later.

Thanks Ian

Eric

[ballaratdragons]

:thumbsup:
Coz Mars is up, the Moon won't be far behind. I can see a bit of glow on the horizon, but only faint at the moment.

[ballaratdragons]

According to Cartes du Ciel, the Moon should just be rising right now. But because we are in a Valley surrounded by higher terrain (handy for blocking out Ballarats skyglow) we won't see it for another 10 mins or so :thumbsup:

Here is CDC from right now at my co-ords:

[ballaratdragons]

Moon is up now, but mostly covered by a layer of cloud hovering above Ballarat!
Leon must be over-joyed :sadeyes:

I'll check again soon :thumbsup:

[gaa_ian]

Best I could do at the same exposure :shrug:

[Rob_K]

Clouds here - not a lot, but enough :(. Can see the glow of the moon though.

Cheers -

[ballaratdragons]

Ian, that's a good shot to show the closeness of the two. They will be even closer if you are still up just before sunrise :whistle:

[gaa_ian]

Hmmmm ... don't know about the early morning :P
You can just see mars in the lower left corner of the photo !
Very hard to photograph two objects so dissimilar in exposure requirements, in the one frame

[ballaratdragons]

Yep, I saw Mars in your image easily :thumbsup:

Yeah, bit hard to get both Magnitudes balanced right, but you did it! :)

[erick]

OK, report from Knoxfield (actually I was coming back from Rowville). Moderate cloud but my 12x60s pulled Mars out from the cloud and the Moon was fairly hazy. I made them to be around 7 deg apart? A bit too cloudy to be a striking sight :sadeyes:

Closer together later, Ken? I figure the Moon is past Mars and moving further apart? Too late to fire up some software to check -sorry if I have it all wrong. Bed time! Bye bye :hi:

[ballaratdragons]

:eyepop: Good Grief, you are correct, Eric!!!!! Woops!

Yes, that's what I said, they will be further apart just before sunrise :whistle:

:lol: I'll go hide now

[iceman]

It was a nice sight!

[gaa_ian]

Had a look again this morning at 5am after you planted the suggestion in my head Ken !
Picked up some detail on the surface of Mars easily with a 13mm Nagler, 8mm Radian was a bit much power to see clearly this morning though.
Venus was a nice bright sight high in the morning sky too, at a bit greater than 1/2 phase.

[Rob_K]

Well Ian, I got a brief look before clouds finally killed the spectacle! This was my best shot - overexposed to bring the clouds into play. No time to experiment with settings!

Cheers -