My Mars-Jupiter Conjunction (Morning, Sunday 18 October)

After a horrible night where I basically woke up every hour on the hour, disturbing my Beloved Life Partner who had to get up early for work (on a Sunday), I was actually awake for the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter.

Initially I had to go a bit of a hike to see the pair clear of the local roof tops.  They looked great in a clear morning sky, with the line of Procyon, Regulus, Venus and the tight pairing of Mars and Jupiter glittering in the slowly paling sky.

I then got my scope out when Mars and Jupiter cleared the roof of the Cabana. They were easily seen together in my 114mm Newtonian with my 20 mm Plossl lens, Jupiter’s moons were clear as a bell (even Europa, hard up against Jupiter).

The pair also fitted in the 10 mm Plossl, but right at the edge of the field, and the atmospheric distortion made seeing detail on Jupiter hard. Went back to the 20 mm lens to do some infinity to infinity imaging with the Canon IXUS, from the back ot the camera it didn’t look like I caught the moons, but it turned out I did.

All in all a satisfactory morning. Next up Jupiter and Venus on the 25th.