Sugarloaf Observing this evening

Hello All,

A group of us will be heading up to the Sugarloaf car-park this evening to observe the conjunction of Venus, Mercury and Jupiter.
We will be there from Sunset (9.30) or so.

Regards,

Michael.

Michael Murphy, Bob O'Brien and myself travelled down to the Sugarloaf Car Park and saw the beautiful triple planetary conjunction through various instruments. I was using my William Optics 70mm f/7 apochromatic refractor at a mere 11X and saw Venus, Mercury and Jupiter all in 6 degree field of view. The planets were going in and out of various type of clouds. But I managed to see all 3 in the same field of view a few times.
There was also a glorious Full Moon in the southeast. So we couldn't resist a look at it. And then we followed that up with some doubles. First was Castor, 112X, then Regulus, 40X, Algieba, 112X, and finally Izar 140X and 167X. We all went home very happy.
Now it is after midnight and it is my birthday!

Aubrey.

Sounds like it was a good night down there sorry I missed it.

Many happy returns for the day Aubrey.

Hi Aubrey,
How easy was it to see the 3 planets with the naked eye, I had a try here last night but there was slight high altitude strato clouds and no way could I see anything. it actually almost looked like NOC clouds, but they weren't though....

Hi Dave. Great to hear from you once again. We could only see Venus with the unaided eye and only for 2 minutes max. The distance between Venus and Jupiter was just over 4 degrees. What was really confusing was we were looking at Venus and Mercury for a substantial period of time in our wide field telescopes. We thought we would clearly see Jupiter all the time. But it was immersed in those stratospheric clouds you mention. No, Jupiter was right over to the edge of the field of view constantly covered by that terrible haze. At no time could we see Mercury or Jupiter with our own eyes. None of Jupiter's moons were visible in any of our telescopes on Friday night.
We are talking about going up again to the Sugarloaf again during the coming week. This triple planetary conjunction was the first I had seen since June 1991!! I am greatly relieved I saw it.
Michael had to leave at about 10.30pm, but Bob and myself kept on observing until close to midnight. My thanks to both men.

Aubrey.

Hi Aubrey,
Thanks for that, now I know what to expect on our next clear evening.
I also remember the 1991 conjunction, we had great weather for it and it was unmissable and bright at the time.