The 5 planet shuffle

[bird]

Jetstream prediction for tonight looks good, and we've had a glorious day here in Canberra with amazing clarity and transparency, so...

On the menu tonight is:

Just after sunset: Venus
About 10pm: Mars
4am: Saturn
4.30am: Moon
5am: Jupiter

6am: Sleep :-)

Time to get the scope revved up...

Bird

[ving]

do we get 5 planet pics tomorrow bird? :)

good luck, i'd fall asleep at the helm after 10pm ;)

[acropolite]

I'm with you Ving, makes me sleepy just thinking about it...:zzz2:I think from now on Bird should be known as nightjar.....:P

[Striker]

I think Bird should do all our Planetary images for us...then when he is finished and fully processed he can just email the images to us while we are asleep ready for us to post on the forum the next morning....then we can take the credit and get a full night sleep.

[avandonk]

I've cooled the tinnies and put the equipment to bed. Its cloudy here!

Bert

Go Bird

Why do people mix us up? Your scope is much bigger than mine!

[bird]

The first one is done - Venus was Huuge! and a very slim crescent. It was almost the full width of the ccd (I still have it set for Ludicrous Magnification).

Seeing was horrible, of course, since it was just after sunset.

mars is next, in a couple of hours.

Pictures, umm, sometime...

Bird

[iceman]

Can't wait Anthony, hope you have a steady and productive night.

[bird]

...and a good night it was indeed.

Coffee, then processing...

Bird

[iceman]

Nice Anthony, can't wait to see it. I wanted to stay up late/get up early for some more imaging, but after 2 early mornings in a row I was just toooooooooooooo tired :zzz: I'm sure the seeing was 9/10 just to make me regret it :)

btw what happened to Mercury in your list?

[bird]

I can't see east for mercury in the mornings, I didn't look it up but that's were I guess it is at the moment.

I could just barely get to Jupiter before sunrise, it just made it over my roofline in time.

Bird

[iceman]

ah that's a shame. I think Mercury is at its greatest elongation at the moment, but you're really chasing it into sunrise. I think a red filter helps when imaging in almost daylight, or so i've read.

Jupiter is tempting me every morning.. unfortunately where i've got the concrete pad set up on my lawn, it gives me a good north/east view, but Jupiter is so far South at the moment that it's behind a tree from my setup spot. I'm going to setup back at my old spot to get Jupiter one morning soon!

I can't wait to see what you pulled out for Jupiter. It's going to be a crazy Jup season, going by the Mars images we've seen with the new camera technologies, Jupiter is just going to be mind blowing.

[bird]

It's going to be at least another month before the Jupiter data starts getting any good, at the moment it's too low and still caught in sunrise. Still, it was fun to see what it looked like again :-)

Bird