Still trying to observe all eight solar system planets in the one night. You know the drill - busy night when I cannot get out - clear sky; free night - cloudy Grrrrr!
And Mercury is scurrying away from the evening sky towards the Sun Saturn is not too far behind.
Mind you, I can always tick one off the list - just look down at the ground
I'm going to have to try from Melbourne skies sometime in the next week and probably without Argo Navis for Uranus and Neptune. It's been a few years since I star-hopped to them - but that was in dark skies!
And that full Moon may not make the distant ice giants particularly easy.
Pretty sure we caught them all last month with the 4 planets in the west, then a bit later Uranus and Neptune.
Ah, no, no Pluto, is unobservable anyway ... to a normal person.
Not all of them but those I got did line up nicely for me in 1988; Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn framed between the Sun and the Moon. I called it Syzygy and got a highly commended in the bicentennial competition on display in Coonabarabran in 1988/89.
All taken with film (mostly Kodak TP-2415) with 6" f5.5 using eyepiece projection. Darkroom work was countless hours of aligning, dodging and burning racing to beat the submission deadline. Each print is unique and it took me five attempts to get it right. The attached image is in fact my second best as I sent in my first and unfortunately never did get it back.
We got all 8 and pluto as well on Friday at Astrofest through Jonathans 20inch SDM.
Mercury had a really nice cresent. Pluto was in the eyepiece but was hard to tell which dot it was in the busy star field it was in on the Friday night.
OK, I'm more than half way there - I have five so far tonight!
Tried last night but clouds in the wrong place at the wrong time. Late this afternoon we moved from rain to clear breaks and I was able to observe Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn in a 4" f5 refractor. Add the Earth and I have five!
Nice crescent in Mercury - first time I have seen it through a telescope.
In a few hours, I go out with the bigger scope and with the Argo Navis warmed up and I should be able to knock off Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus - clouds permitting. I also have a very bright Moon to contend with not too far from Neptune.
Righto! Ready to see Uranus tonight! Got the dob out early this evening trying to chase Mercury. Too much cloud over that way so had a look at Saturn & moons (but poor seeing as it was very low), Venus, Mars and a bit of a scan around. Venus was EXCELLENT tonight. Went back inside for tea, came back out later on, clear skies but jupiter had not risen yet, skies mostly clear but a big annoying moon polluting the sky! Had a bit of a look around scorpius for a few familiar fuzzies then went back inside for 30 minutes.
Came back out, saw jupitor staring at me so i honed the scope on it and then it started to fade. I looked up and realised that i hadn't noticed that the entire sky was clouded over and jupitor was dissapearing! How dissapointment! So with not a start insight i packed up and went back inside.
At least the new cheap hand trolley i bought for my dob this week makes it a million times easier to wheel in and out!
oh well, i'll try again on another night! I am aiming to get Uranus and Neptune soon hopefully.
Well, despite my best efforts, I couldn't quite get the clouds to co-operate. Mercury was the hold out, but got the rest (made up for the lack of one solar system body with some interesting solar observing).
Saturn is not too far behind.
A lot harder in those times to take and process the images!!
Items visible in amateur telecope.
