birds

[Tad Eareckson]

Area got drowned for the first half of the day and started clearing on schedule. Mid afternoon I became aware of the total solar across Chile and Argentina too late to catch any of it live on camera. A bit bummed out by that but was happy to see the full sun from the back deck obstructed only by branches using the binocular with the filters.

Jupiter was scheduled to light up at 15:04 and I got on station a bit ahead of that. Bad news - heavy solid clouding in the area of interest. Good news - the wind was cranking from the west and the patterns gave me full confidence I'd be in business in short order. Got Jupiter in crystal clear at 15:13. Lost it for a couple more short intervals before things opened up permanently.

Pretty cold but I was well layered and the wind soon subsided.

Got a fair flow of customers for the circumstances - including a mom with a car load of too little girls. Mom was blown away and we tried with the three of the kids bit I think without success. Had the eldest up on the step stool with her eye right where it was supposed to be and neither of us could believe she was coming up empty.

I think she couldn't figure out how to center. Suggested we try again tomorrow evening with my binocular on another tripod. The exit pupil on the 95 scope is 2.83 millimeters. On the Canon they're 4.2. Maybe if a little kid can get some success with the lower power...

Also got the dad of last night's flock of kids. He thought he had a Saturn moon but I didn't think that was possible and suggested a star. But I now find otherwise. Titan is has more diameter than Mercury and is the second largest satellite in the solar system after Ganymede. It was discovered in 1655 by Christiaan Huygens using a 57 millimeter refracting of his own design. Maybe I can plead light pollution.

Only had half of Jupiter's four this time. (If they're behind or in front of their planet we don't get them.) James Cook used them to determine Greenwich Mean Time to determine longitude while he was exploring the globe. (But the observations had to be land based (obviously).)

Broke down a little before treetops, forecast looking excellent for tomorrow. Make it five in a row. Will be looking a lot harder around Saturn next opportunity.
---
2020/12/15 13:30:00 UTC

I'd assumed Saturn's moons would be aligned with its orbit, spin, rings - à la Jupiter. Nope.

http://astronomy.com/news/2020/12/jupiter-and-saturn-will-form-rare-christmas-star-on-winter-solstice
Jupiter and Saturn will form rare "Christmas Star" on winter solstice | Astronomy.com

[Tad Eareckson]

High thin stuff blanketing the region of interest last evening - wasn't expecting or hoping for great things. Jupiter expected appearance - 17:04 again. Got stationed and operational - the usual plus the binocular on tripods - with a bit of time to spare and started searching with the glasses (back off the tripod) where Skywalk 2 was pointing me but was coming up empty. 17:10 I got my bright gleam unaided.

Light fading with Sun sinking lower below the horizon - good. Targets sinking lower through cloud region - bad. I'd lose them from time to time in unaided mode but they were continuously doable with glass.

Very cold, only one customer - with her little dog Ted. I held the leash, she went up the step stool. I'd warned her that this would be the crappiest of my series but we still had moons and rings and she was way over the happy mark and wanted to come back with others. Other customers have expressed similar sentiments but so far that hasn't happened - but she sounded really real.

Later in the mission I got a little cloud fade window and things brightened up a bit but it was pretty easy to end and walk away from this one shortly afterwards.

Thoughts on the binocular mounted on a tripod... If you're looking at or above horizontal you really need it set at a precise proper height. That's easily enough doable with a center column adjustment but looking up at even a shallow angle is pretty unpleasant. When you're doing handheld it's not a big deal to tilt your head back but when you're doing tripod that action also moves your eyes back away from where you need them. Really impractical and uncomfortable if your target's moving and you're having to do more than one set (which is the case with celestial stuff (that's not Polaris)). With an angled eyepiece it's so easy to tilt your head and bend at the waist down and accommodate a fair range of individuals.

Another lesson learned... Put your optics away focused at infinity. Last evening everything ground based in view was too close and I didn't have any distinct clouds, jets, stars in the sky. So when I was trying to search the target area with the scope I was in blur mode until after I'd gotten it first unaided and then with the binocular. Maybe a little whiteout dot on the focus collar at twelve o'clock... Also you have an advantage in that when you're shooting closer than infinitity you know which way to start spinning the collar.

Safe to bet the farm that 12/16 evening will be a no-show and my streak will be interrupted.

[Tad Eareckson]

Yep, no sky Wednesday evening - as promised. Would've been the first shot at the Moon since it had gone New on Monday. But clear with Venus blazing yesterday morning.

Around showtime the sky wasn't far from crystal. Moon was crescent trailing the Sun not far to the left of where my planets would soon show. Scheduled Jupiter appearance was 17:05, got my gleam with the binocular three minutes ahead of that. Saturn now very close behind. Picked up three of Jupiter's moons - Ganymede was far to the left, Io was blocked, Callisto and Europa were close right. Kept working on Saturn for a moon, finally got a marginal speck far to the lower right in line with the rings.

Only one customer - doing a walk around the block. But what he lacked in quantity he made up for in quality. He was blown away, we hit it off and could've talked for hours - save for the hypothermia issue. I had him try to get a moon off of Saturn and he came up with a speck in the same position I thought I was seeing one. Back home Sky Walk showed Titan in orbit at our position. He also scored the two distinct reddish bands on Jupiter I'd been able to.

P.S. Fuck all you assholes who live within a hundred yards of my observatory I've invited and can't be bothered to take a five minute stroll to get a glance at this stunning phenomenon. You're into the territory of Rude as far as I'm concerned - even if your words and demeanors are superficially polite. And I won't be going very far out of my way in this neighborhood from now on to issue invitations. You've probably at least seen me by now and if you haven't already been tipped off you don't have enough curiosity to stop and ask and it's a good bet that the view would be wasted. During the 2017/08/21 total solar there was no great shortage of wastes of space of the persuasion: "Oh, it's gonna be dark for two minutes. Wow. I see that every night for ten hours. Get back to me when something interesting is going on somewhere."

Not seeing any hopeless situations through Wednesday evening.

Was referencing my Swarovski scope article/topic Wednesday, discovered a dead linked image, went back over to Swarovski - for the first time in eons - to see what was going on and get things fixed. (I got things fixed but through a workaround rather than a revised link.)

They seem to have very recently introduced - but not yet made available - a 115 millimeter ATX objective module to their fleet.

http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50727627116_ec8591ff64_o.png


Up till now it was 65, 85, 95 (and I have the latter two). Listing it for 6K, B&H for half that. Awesome specs but I'm feeling zilch temptation to expand my arsenal. I think they're hoping to appeal to digiscopers and I'm seeing digiscoping as a scam - that if you really wanna do real world high power photography right you really need a purpose built stabilized (mega-expensive) telephoto lens.

Really getting an appreciation for how much movement one gets even zoomed out all the way on these objectives (25 and 30 power) and on a quality carbon tripod if one does much more than breathe on the assembly.

[Tad Eareckson]

Yesterday the forecast sucked and the sky matched and Yours Truly was pretty OK with that. I was a fair bit under the weather and looking forward to not having to do another mission. About 17:00 I checked the sky to the SW and it sucked as much as everywhere else one cared to look. Checked again at 17:30 and... OH SHIT!!!

The Moon was blazing in a substantial expanse of crystal clear sky. Did a panic mobilization and blasted down to my local station. My planets were gleaming, quickly and briefly hit them with the Canon, set up the scope assembly.

Gone. Totally. Swallowed up by the next cloud mass. SHIT! Started hating myself for having screwed this one up.

But they soon reemerged and I was able to make decent work of Saturn and rings, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, Jupiter and bands, Io - in that order from trailing to leading. (Wasn't able to do Titan this time.) Sky was cycling between fine and fade, trees were starting to become problematic, decided to bail to:

39°02'53.22" N 076°39'05.09" W

Real good move and the sky had settled down in cooperation mode and the unobstructed horizon was down close to where it was supposed to be. One customer on his way in to home on the farm property, nothing to write home about.

Temperature was at the freeze point and I was feeling it. Did a little more tracking and Moon, bailed at about 18:30.

Early this morning I was getting all my gear properly stowed and reorganized and found my left leather glove in my right pocket and no leather glove anywhere else. Not a good sign. Quickly exhausted checking all the other possibilities, scraped an adequate clear patch through the frost on the left half of the windshield, rolled back to my last station, sighted it right where one would've expected. Temperature was 24, it had a good coating of frost but hadn't been run over.

Back home at 08:13 a few feet from my face out the kitchen window an accipiter with gray pulled a hard turn less than a foot behind what was probably a White-Throated Sparrow then shot high up to park empty on a Tulip branch. The tail looked really square but I couldn't get to any glass before it took off to the north - looking too big to be the Sharpie I was hoping for.

Crappy forecast for this evening, tomorrow's looking doable, looks like we'll score for the Conjunction, the day after looking good.

[Tad Eareckson]

Was mostly right about Saturday night. The Moon managed to make it through but through frequent prime time checks of the area of interest I never got so much as a ghost of a gleam.

Forecast for the Lower Kent Count was a bit dreary - showers predicted through the morning. Car had gotten a light sprinkling before I started mobilizing yesterday morning, the wipers came into play for a few swipes a few times en route, couple very minor instances for a bit after arrival on territory at 08:45 - but a nonissue for all practical purposes.

On the other hand however... For most of the day a heavy overcast and strong cold penetrating wind that limited enthusiasm for getting out of the car.

First two birds - parked and nicely observable adult male Cooper's and immature Red-Shoulder down close on the ground in a small field.

We always do a first significant stop at:
39°11'54.95" N 076°04'54.14" W
which overlooks Montrose Farm (water treatment) Pond which we always find packed with (Canada) Geese and other waterfowl flavors. At first glance it looked like it was entirely iced over - rather to my surprise - but a bit closer examination revealed plenty enough open patches.

On this occasion Ruddy, Shoveler, Ring-Neck, Mallard, Bufflehead - which is pretty typical. You're up at about sixty feet MSL and blocked from the near shoreline (steep bank) but have a commanding view of the surrounding terrain and sky.

Eagles tend not to park in the area but more often than not you'll see them airborne in the vicinity and an immature (only of the day) bee-lined over from west to east at a couple hundred feet over and made the pond occupants a bit nervous.

Spent what time I could scoping the pond but would have to bail to the car to keep my core temperature up to something survivable. And whenever I did my Canon glasses would fog over and become useless. Had my Leitz 7x42s in the trunk and realized that it would've been good idea to have dedicated in- and out-door glasses in such a situation but didn't have the energy to reconfigure.

Moved on, very happily scored a Kestrel on the wires at around:
39°10'56.00" N 076°04'48.41" W
Same place and gender - male - as last year and would again be our only.

Moved on to the school at the SE end of that road (Wilkins Lane) and the pier into the Chester River beyond it. Depressing/Frightening to see how close to the deck the level of the river (bay/ocean) was. All this stuff is going underwater fast and everyone and his dog - at least in these low coastal and island areas - know it. (And we're driving around with a diesel engine counting birds and contributing to the problem.)

All shots at open water starting with that one were virtually useless - save for one Heron (Great Blue), a few Ring-Billed Gulls, the omnipresent soaring Turkey Vultures. Stumbled upon a single female Greater Scaup bobbing in the waves very close in just off of:
39°06'24.84" N 076°08'31.73" W
Didn't seem to be any sheltered water anywhere on my territory.

Pretty starved for Black Vultures - only five clustered at one location. Same number of adult Eagles. Tons of Flickers - for the first time I recall in decades. Had a "conjunction" of two species of Nuthatch together in my glasses - the usual White- plus the little Red-Breasted that I haven't scored in years. We'd been notified that we'd just had an invasion.

Late in the day did another sweep of the pond. Most of the Geese had split and most of the ones left were doing so. Made it a lot easier to inventory the four duck species. And this was a great place to monitor what was going on with the sky as the Sun was slanting down to the SW horizon for a rather spectacular red and gold 16:44 set.

Sky was opening up in the west / north of sunset but needed it to the south. Opted to do some owling to kill time. That's when you drive to a likely location, kill the engine, roll down the windows, hold your breath and listen - for a Great Horned, Barred, Screech. Used to be able to score pretty well in past years but lately it's been really depressing. And no surprises after several locations this time.

Near first quarter moon was showing bright high up in the still substantially clouded sky. Rolled on back to the pond. A few seconds after turning right onto the WNW end of John Hanson Road I was totally blown away by the sky on my right / in the target area. Wide open, crystal clear, zilch light pollution, conjunction BLAZING. (Thank you, God.)

Parked, threw the scope together, locked on, zoomed in.

Jupiter had sprouted a new moon. From up to down stream - Europa and Io in close, Jupiter, far out Ganymede, far far out Mystery Moon, far far far out Callisto. Saturn was real close above and I thought maybe Titan had blundered into the alignment. Lit up the iPhone and had to toss that hypothesis, concluded it had to be a background star.

HM got a good look, I beat it to death for a while. One new takeaway... I'd read that Saturn was yellow but everything I'd previously seen was telling me white. But with white and red banded Jupiter so close for comparison... Yeah, that sucker's YELLOW.

I'd have stayed until the horizon would've killed things but I wasn't alone, the view would've been degrading a bit, it was COLD, we were shot. Was able to get back in contact with the Moon through a lot of the return trip but never saw the conjunction again.

I hadn't done the Moon - six day old 39 percent waxing crescent - at the pond 'cause it can be a bit tough to acquire targets minus a proper finderscope or sighting feature and I didn't wanna risk golden conjunction time. but back home I went down the street until clear of branches, locked on, got a spectacular view for the better part of a minute before the clouds destroyed it.

Brother called from home in Reston to compare notes. They'd also been confused by Mystery Moon.

Forecast for today sucked. But as it wore on the meteorologists started giving us hope. Started seeing lotsa a blue. I was (and still am) in shit shape from the stress of all the Count activity but managed to get myself reorganized, prepped, and on site with plenty of breathing room. Jupiter scheduled to appear at 17:06. Soon had to strip off about four layers cause it was pretty warm - in stark contrast to what was happening for the Count.

Good news - people started showing up. Bad news - a big dark cloud mass moved in and wiped us out just as the sun was fading to doable. Good news - it was moving fast (despite the fact that it was calm and comfortable down on the street) and the sky to its west looked promising.

Sky blew wide open, one of my customers caught the gleam first - at maybe 17:15 with lotsa light left. Got locked on in pretty short order and stepped back to watch people take turns getting blown away.

Moons were Europa a bit upstream, downstream Ganymede extremely close, Io and Callisto spaced well out. Everybody was getting Jupiter and the moons; Saturn and the rings separation and color difference.

I was zoomed all the way into 90 and boy do targets move fast at that power - so had to keep reacquiring almost constantly. Must be nice to have a proper astronomy setup with programmed tracking.

Felt a bit bad 'cause the last in line was a girl who didn't get in until just as we started getting crudded. She was still happy but everyone else scored major quality. Things broke up but I let everyone, 'specially her, know that the next night quality won't be too far south of this max - still majorly spectacular (as per what we'd had on the Count). And that as long as there was a possibility of doable I'd be on station at least until Saturn got fried.

Shortly after everyone bailed things opened back up for another short window, I relocated to the cul-de-sac at 39°02'43.87" N 076°38'39.56" W which gets me higher and out of the trees for a bit longer, then got terminally clouded. Broke down loaded the car, rolled to my pasture spot to make sure the night was really over. Moon continued to do fine but the southwest was total toast.

Forecast for showtime tomorrow is totally clear. Maybe that should bother me though 'cause I've been doing so well with the crap forecasts.

[miguel]

Got pix?

[Tad Eareckson]

Not from Yours Truly. I read a piece prior to the 2017/08/21 total solar that articulated real well the sentiment at which I'd arrived on my own regarding shooting the event. He said that unless you'd armed yourself with fifty thousand bucks worth of gear and had spent months practicing with it DO NOT SHOOT IT. His first had a duration of over eight minutes and he spent all of his time save for one glance fucking with the equipment and had pretty much totally missed the experience. A major regret of his life.

This isn't quite the same 'cause it's nothing that's happening fast - weather permitting you're gonna have a good hour or more - but I don't have the equipment to do this right and somebody who does is gonna be able to post quality shots of what we're all seeing.

I'm using a birding scope assembly which is top quality for its intended purpose but anything I could get would suck compared to what one would get with a proper astronomy scope - preferably at high elevation on a cold night out in a desert far from light pollution sources (which is what I did for the solar). On my 95 I'm zooming between 30 and 70 and those planets (or anything else shiny up there you wanna name) are moving FAST through your field of view - and I'm CONSTANTLY having to retarget. An astronomy scope is gonna track and stop them. (And if you wanna see it REALLY done right talk to Hubble.)

I did an image search and didn't immediately find a great example of what I've been seeing but...

http://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/skills/great-conjunction-jupiter-saturn/
Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, 21 December 2020 - skyatnightmagazine
http://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/25/2020/11/Jupiter-Saturn-degrees-separation-31a6360-e1606138755258.jpg

http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50751331447_1700c1e589_o.jpg

Saturn and Jupiter appear to close in on each other as the Great Conjunction 2020 approaches on 21 December (apparent distance given in degrees and arcminutes). Credit: Pete Lawrence

Took me a minute to understand what that was representing but when I ... OH! (From our perspective on Earth) Saturn chasing, closing on, overtaking Jupiter with things constantly getting lower and headed for fiery deaths in the sunset (which is now getting slightly later).

Yesterday the forecast for the evening was fantastic but for most of the earlier day's duration we were pretty heavily clouded with smallish fast moving stuff. I was doing some work with my two objectives (85 and 95) and needed a target at infinity. Hard to beat the Sun (with solar filters) for that and by early afternoon it was blasting through frequent gaps.

And I got MY FIRST SUNSPOT since shortly after the eclipse three plus years ago. Tiny little black spot that clocked from about 08:24 to 09:36 from my perspective. Hope there's more to come - the Sun can get pretty boring without them.

Got super geared up, prepped, on station with plenty of time to spare. Set up three tripods - Swarovski 95 and 85 and my Canon 10x42 glasses - and had my Leitz 7x42s on hand. Wanted to play with my toys and make my station really hard to miss. And with the max Conjunction the evening before all over the news NOBODY would NOT KNOW what I was doing and why.

Relevant sky area virtually totally clear, zilch wind, very comfortable temperature (as long as you're not thinking about global warming). Saturn was scheduled for 17:07, I got the Conjunction scanning with the (handheld and stabilized) Canon glasses probably shortly after the hour but it was still invisible unaided. And being able to find it with the binocular didn't do you much good for finding it with a scope - minus a fair bit of luck.

But it came into naked eye mode shortly thereafter and all four of my toys got their notches. Jupiter Moons were Ganymede and Io up- and Callisto and Europa down-wind.

And my station very shortly evolved into a minor mob scene. People showing up on foot and in vehicles, everybody getting great shots - Jupiter and Moons; Saturn rings, separation, color.

I was getting a bit nervous though 'cause the Conjunction was getting dangerously low and after a bit I had to reposition thirty yards to the east to stay out of the trees. Then things broke up and I was left with my buddy from 2020/12/17.

Bailed for the cul-de-sac, backed in uphill, bought some clearance over the roof of the house on the south side of the main drag. Kept moving back and up until we were shut down.

Asked my buddy if he wanted to bail with me to the pastures:
39°02'53.22" N 076°39'05.09" W
for the better horizon and he was game. Started doing a quick sloppy breakdown and stowage of my station and a vehicle of three or four from the neighborhood showed with a serious astronomy setup.

I explained the situation and Plan B, they were in, buddy bailed. Hauled ass over, parked, grabbed my 95 gear, crossed to the drive head, couldn't find anything, checked Sky Walk 2. I think we were right at 19:00, Jupiter set was 19:04, and minus a perfect horizon... Game over.

Lesson learned... If you're watching it drop below roof level don't bother trying to get it back at the pastures. If you wanna get another five minutes of Conjunction time then set up at Plan B. But then the neighborhood fans will be mostly shit outta luck.

So we just hung out, played with our toys as best as we could, talked about them and cool sky stuff - like they were all on Sky Walk 2 too.

The Moon was about a day past First Quarter - the obvious target - but damn near straight fuckin' up. I tried but really didn't have a prayer of acquisition. And they had a computer problem with their scope and were also dead in the water for quite some time before getting it sorted out. I took a quick peek and it was like looking into the Sun. Think I got some retinal damage.

If they show up at my station the next few nights with that scope the line behind mine will get a lot shorter. (I myself won't spend much time standing in it.) But I'll keep showing and setting up as long as it's doable at least through the next five nights - after which Saturn crashes and burns. Jupiter will be toast no later than 2020/12/31.

Tonight looking doable.

[Tad Eareckson]

Sky pretty good most of the day, temperature comfortable, surface winds negligible. Did my sunspot again in early afternoon.

Dealt with a grocery run, got on site at 17:00, had my gleam in the binocular immediately, Jupiter scheduled to appear at 17:08. Got the 95 up, across-the-street (from home) neighbor showed, and had a wait of a couple minutes before I had the unaided gleam I could use to target.

Days are getting longer, moons took a little while to light up. This evening's order was Ganymede and Callisto upwind, downwind Europa extremely close and Io.

Neighbor - who, a bit surprisingly, would be my only customer for the evening - scored on all the standard stuff.

Did one minor adjustment for trees. Big hopeless cloud mass moved in from the right. Planets shown through bravely for a bit, got swallowed briefly, found some air for a last gasp, got totally and permanently drowned. I went to the high ground up the cul-de-sac to confirm there was no hope, packed up, back in the driveway a bit after 18:00. Sometimes it's nice to be able to bail early guilt free - and with enough energy reserve to pack up properly and stay organized. And everyone interested got a totally satisfying dose.

Tomorrow here's gonna be a wash fer sure but things are looking pretty decent for the remaining shots.

Prior to and at the beginning of this project I'd always .assumed that the moons observed close to Jupiter were the ones in the innermost orbits and... Wasn't "thinking" in much depth on that issue.

Really astonishing how quickly/dramatically they orbit / change positions. Must have something to do with gravity.

[Tad Eareckson]

Thursday was, as predicted, a monsoon - very warm, heavy rain, strong winds all day and into the night.

Friday, Christmas was forecasted to be and looked good - right up until I needed it to be. Had a blazing sunset, set up, heavy clouding. My luck had turned but couldn't complain. Luck had been going really well for me when it really mattered. Lotsa folk out walking, had people thanking me for running the show.

Similar deal Saturday. Looked like I had a shot, could see sky far to the SW where it would've been doable, but the trending was such that one knew it wasn't gonna happen on my turf. Had one neighbor keep me company anyway.

Last evening was forecasted high probability. Three little sunspots in a horizontal line across the disk early afternoon.

Sunset 16:51 - four minutes later than six evenings earlier at Solstice and max Conjunction. Was set up by about that point, Jupiter undetectable until about 17:00 with the binocular, was able to pick it up in the scope using nearby tree branches as a reference but no Saturn until maybe ten minutes later. Could still get them both in the scope at full power with plenty of field to spare.

They settled into high thin white stuff with plenty of daylight left and the Moon a day shy of full high behind me. I could still get patterns on Jupiter and rings separation on Saturn but only managed one blink of Ganymede well downwind.

My planets started blinking out, I had no customers, decided to bag it and relocate to the pastures just to see if the situation would've been better anywhere nearby. Conclusion... Probably not. And I could only see where they were supposed to be with the iPhone.

Went uphill to - 39°03'02.83" N 076°39'08.30" W - the church, my first station - 2020/12/11. Still looked like it sucked for a low horizon but I found one individual from the neighborhood between that point and mine for good company for a while.

Saturn's supposed to go extinct after this evening but I suspect I'll be able to get it using glass for one beyond.

Fun fact stuff...

Earth is 93.0 million miles out from the Sun. (Takes about 8 minutes and 20 seconds for the Sun's light to get here.) Saturn - 886.7. So when we have our backs to the Sun and Saturn's orbital position is in line straight out (at opposition) the distance is down to 793.7. And with the speed of light being 670.608 million miles per hour we're seeing what was happening there 1 hour plus 11 minutes ago.

At the other extreme - which we're approaching now and will hit 2021/01/23 - with Saturn out at its max range from us we're adding the distances out figures to get 979.7 (a little shy of a billion miles). That's solar conjunction and we can't see Saturn 'cause the Sun's both in the way and bright as hell but we still will be able to see it tomorrow evening (and not again afterwards for a while). Pretty close, let's ignore the difference, 1 hour 28 minutes. (17 extra minutes.)

But the light we're seeing... Generated at the Sun, out to Saturn, back again to this side of the Sun and out to Earth. 1.8664 billion miles, 2 hours 47 minutes. That's a lot of time and it's pretty astonishing that with our naked eyes we can see that light after it's gone out that distance and back plus a fair bit.

[Tad Eareckson]

As excellent a forecast as could've been hoped for and no unpleasant surprises, comfortable temperature light wind.

Did some target practice on the Sun early to midafternoon. Three horizontal sunspots along the middle - tiny left, less tiny middle, more less tiny right.

Set up at Home Base early, Jupiter in the binocular at 17:00 low above the trees - but being low above the trees makes it easy to hit with the scope. Saturn took awhile but when it lit I was still able to get both planets in the scope at full zoom simultaneously. That should still count as a conjunction.

Still lotsa light, moons took forever to show - Callisto and Europa pretty far out, Jupiter, Ganymede and Io following close. Picked up two new customers - one an Air Force pilot - who stayed for a fair bit as the sky improved and were appropriately blown away. Moon a couple days shy of full climbing up high straight behind us.

Had a good shortish window of clear, dark, spectacular with my customers. But not long after they split things started swimming a fair bit - low targets, lotsa atmosphere to punch through, turbulence. Eventually moved up into the cul-de-sac, held position until the roof ate Saturn. Decided this one was worth chasing and bailed for the pastures. Ten seconds after turning north - YEAH, low and blazing. And it just so happened that my 39°02'53.22" N 076°39'05.09" W spot was about 33 yards SSE of PERFECT.

Here's the Street View:

http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50771437858_c6f97aa51c_o.png


from about 39°02'54.53" N 076°39'04.86" W. The planets were slanting in to crash into the low point on the treeline lined up with the drive like the drive was a gunsight.

I watched Saturn hit, followed it a bit as it got lost in the branches, switched to Jupiter. Blurred and turned orange now by the atmosphere but still packing lotsa power. And I was gonna stay with it until it was total history.

We've all seen sunsets with enough clouding to keep us from getting blinded but not enough to blur the disk and been stunned by the speed of the descent - what with the horizon providing a great fixed reference line. And I've been plagued by the same speed all through this Conjunction effort keeping the targets in the scope. But this evening I had a really cool experience unlike anything before.

I'm watching this little pea-sized fireball just fly through branches and twigs, disappear behind trunks and re-emerge a few seconds later. I stayed with it down to ridiculous level and got one final distinct orange glow for the finale - at 18:43 I believe it was. I was looking through the trees and a little uphill and lost four minutes off of what I was supposed to have had at this location with a perfect horizon.

According to "Objects in your sky" that was supposed to have been Saturn's swan song for this location. I no way in hell can believe that. Forecast for prime time tomorrow is excellent so I should be able to find out for myself one way or the other.

Before packing up and bailing spun the scope around 180 and aimed high up at the totally unobstructed Moon - close enough to full to call it that. And that helped me get my head properly wrapped around a concept that shouldn't be all that difficult but still had me a bit off balance. And let's ignore Saturn for the purpose of the discussion to simplify things.

A globe is full when we're looking at it from the same side and angle the sun - although if things are too precise tonight's (almost) full Moon becomes a total lunar eclipse. Jupiter was full as observed tonight - despite being in the direction opposite from the moon - 'cause the first sentence rule holds. But also if things are too precise we don't see it 'cause the Sun's blocking it and will turn our retinas to ash if we try to push the issue too vigorously. And that max precision happens for Jupiter a month from today.

We get to see Full Jupiter again - much closer and brighter than now when it's behind us - about where the Moon was (is) tonight - on 2021/08/19 at max opposition.

Mercury and Venus have orbits inside of ours so we never get to see them very close to full and when they're directly between us and the Sun we have transits.

The Moon cycles from inside to outside of our orbit so on max inside it's either invisible or a solar eclipse and max outside it's full or (see above) a lunar eclipse.