Jupiter minus its moons!

I was entralled by some casual naked eye observations standing in the garden round 00:00 - 01:00.

I didn't bother with binos - I didn't expect to be viewing for as long as I did. I was taken in by the brightness of the moon and occassional multi-colured halos and Jupiter down to the right and the incredible contrast in cloud behaviour. From where I was (D15) there were two disinct cloud layers. One very high and sparsley populated and quite static and one very low - maybe 80% populated and moving like the clappers. Quite a number of fast arrivng - sporadic gaps of what appeared to be beautiful sky came and went.
If I had known about the unusual moon event I might have grabbed the binos at least. I had an experience none the less.

Mark

I was out there at 1am, I didn't check beforehand but I knew there was something interesting happening when I saw there was only 2 moons, one either side, so I watched for 20 minutes to see what would emerge from where but the clouds ruined it before I saw anything, heres a simulation of my view at that time in my 102 according to Stellarium:

Looks like Europa was behind Ganymede and Calisto was behind the planet when I was looking.

Barberskum wrote:

I did get to see Mars & Venus around 5am,
it was nice to see our old friends again.
Mars looks nice an bright these mornings but Venus - Wow!
I must have been -4, quite spectacular.

I also spotted Mars and Venus in morning hours just with 16x50 bino through window, and nicely Mars beneath M35, and Venus beneath M44. You also noticed it?

Yes. Both looked nice.