At last!.. nothing too special .. set the old Fuji S5500 to auto ... put on the timer to avoid bumping things....bingo ...Shame about the poor skies in other places, ours only cleared Saturday night.
I had to work tonight, and took the opportunity to point the conjunction out to many dozens of people.
Even my juniors were getting excited about it, telling the customers to look up when they go out into the car park.
Thanks to everyone who's posting photos, I didn't get a chance to record it.
There were a few pesky clouds about not that long ago, I had to drive down the highway just a few suburbs to home, and in those 10 or so minutes, the clouds cleared, and what a great view !
I turned up at the Solar System Model in St Kilda around 7:20 to see a slight scattering of cloud around the Moon with some very thick clouds on the western horizon. By about 8pm the clouds had pretty well cleared and stayed clear until around 11pm when I finally packed up and went home.
Several other members from the ASV were taking guided tours of the planetary model while we had three other scopes setup for passers by to look through. I guess we had about 100 people turn up, 40 were on the tour. I even had one local woman who was trying to take a photo from her house across the road when she noticed the crowd, so she came over in her jammies and slippers! We alternated between the Moon and Jupiter, with an ocassional view of Venus (boring). People were amazed at the detail on the Moon and the fact that they could see Jupiter while the Sun was up. The light pollution in the area is quite severe so we were pretty limited with any deep sky viewing...but managed to fit in Alpha Centauri, 47 Tuc and M42 for the people.
Hopefully we can get a few more things like this happening for IYA2009...which is exactly what it is all about!
I think many people will remember the event and the interest shown by the ASV members in showing them the skies. A job well done.
Unfortunately, taking a look outside with my family showed things to be completely cloud covered at our house.
We did not have much to smile about with respect to this conjunction.
On the plus side, we did get to see things on Sunday night, while not a full fledged "smiley" we were all able to get the idea of what it would have looked like.
Not much to smile about for me. Completely clouded out last night. Regarding what we should call it,I think Micky Mouse conjunction is more appropriate
We had a fantastic view from our place, with clear dark skies. It looked much more impressive and smile like than I expected. Perhaps the small gentle smile of the Buddha, or Mona Lisa.
Had a bit of time with my new 16" which was great. Also rolled out the 12" GSO for comparison. What a difference!
It felt very nice to pack up and walk back to the house with the cosmic smile setting.
