Observing

One of the best functions of the club are the Observing Nights. This time it was done on short-notice because the weather this year has been - well, fickle - and given the alignment of three planets in the dusk sky, even though it was a “school/work night” it was too hard to resist.

The Venus/Jupiter Conjunction

Of course the main attraction was seeing Venus and Jupiter - the two brightest objects in the sky aside from the Moon and Sun - nestled close together in Gemini. This is a day before minimum separation (but - as usual - the weather forecast wasn’t looking cooperative), but they were still close enough together to be fascinating.

But of course that “closeness” is a bit of an illusion: Jupiter is more five times further away (6.05 AU) from us than Venus is (1.20 AU).

Using the Dobsonian on-hand (thanks Kevin!) we were able to look at Venus a little more “up close” and see that it’s still at a gibbous phase. Over the next several weeks, it will start to “catch up” with the Earth in its orbit, getting close, growing larger, and showing phase changes, first to a “half Venus” on August 12th, then showing a thinner and thinner crescent (and edging close to the Sun on the sky).

Mercury Too!

Mercury reaches greatest elongation on June 15th, but it was above the horizon for this event, also in Gemini. It took a little digging but we found it, hugging the horizon just over the tree line: binoculars helped, but once we knew where to look you could make it out in the twilight glare.

Bob tried to get Mercury in one of the smart scopes but there weren’t enough background stars for it to align on for image stacking. So, he “cheated” and just did a screen grab of the app (Seestar). That counts, right? 🥸

This is probably your best chance to catch this elusive planet this year: the next evening opportunity is in September going into October, but it’ll barely get over the horizon. If you’re an early riser, the days around August 6th, and November 20th will have it at maximum altitude just before sunrise.

A Nice Dark Sky

While the humidity made it impossible to get very deep views of the Milky Way, you could see it from just a hand-held smartphone image.

Milky Way Rising

Milky Way in Aquila

Detecting the Cygnus Rift

Upcoming Events

The NBAS tries to have a Members Observing night monthly, usually around New Moon. We also have (or attend) public observing events:

• August 8 (Sat): At Notchview (sponsored by the Arunah Hill group)
• September 12 (Sat): At the Williamstown Historical Museum
• October ??: (still TBD)

Check our calendar for updates. Other events might appear as they get arranged.

And always review the Event Rules for events.