The forecast was not very hopeful, cloudy skies all evening, but we were treated to several large breaks in the clouds throughout the evening. As the sun faded, Venus began to blaze bright in the western sky between clouds. A few minutes later, fainter and smaller, Jupiter became visible, less than a finger's width above Venus. A beautiful naked eye site, but of course we couldn't resist the opportunity to set up the telescopes and get a closer look! I had a brand new TeleVue 55 mm Plössel tucked away in my eyepiece box. A new acquisition at NEAF, I had yet to give the new EP first light. This was the perfect opportunity to use it and exactly the kind of observation it was purchased for. If my estimation was correct, both planets should fit nicely in the field of view mounted on the C8. I was not disappointed! Venus was a perfect crescent near the bottom of the view and hovering above her, Jupiter showing faint stripes and three of the four Galilean moons as tiny pricks of light aligned perfectly with each other.
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| Photo by Lauren Tucker |
The seeing conditions held, so the next targets were the nearly full Gibbous Moon and Saturn. My son, Matthew, set up his NexStar 5SE and aimed for Saturn. Lauren got out the 90GT and aimed for the Moon. Now we had a mini star party set up! Next door were four teenage girls and the mother of one of the girls. Add a captive audience and our star party was complete! For most of the group, this was the first time they had looked through a telescope at the planets, so there was a lot of awe and amazement being expressed as they took a look through each scope and its target(s). Satisfied with their observations and experience of the historic conjunction, the kids went off to do other things. Matthew lingered a while longer and played hide and seek with Saturn as the clouds intermittently passed in front of the planet.
We all felt very fortunate that the clouds stayed away long enough to see the conjunction. Venus and Jupiter had set, the moon glowed behind its veil of clouds now and Saturn was completely hidden. Time to break down the telescopes and call it a night.
