Venus/Mercury conjunction 22nd pm

Just a reminder of the conjunction between Venus and Mercury on Friday evening.

Looking like there might be some breaks in the clouds too!

Hello, everyone.
Unfortunately I caught no glimpse of Mercury on Tuesday night 19th May.
But Venus more than made up for it!
She has slightly faded from -4.7 of last week.
Last night she was -4.4. Her distance was 48,000,000 kms from Earth. Her angular diameter was a whopping 51.9". But even better was illumination of 7.4%. She was a very fine crescent even at lowly magnifications 11X and 40X.
We shall all miss her when she finally leaves our evening skies.
Of course I will try and observe Mercury when I get better sky conditions.
There was too much haze in that area of the north western sky.
But you never know we might catch both planets in the same field of view over the next 2 or 3 nights.

After Venus, I yet again observed Arcturus is the opposite section of the sky.
Her golden colour looked very well at 40X.
I also split Izar at 112X and 140X.
Porrima looked very good at 112X.

Clear skies to everyone,

Aubrey.

Hi Aubrey,

Very many thanks for sharing your observations from last night. Venus seems to be a lovely object to view at the moment. I must take another look at her before it is too late. And with Mercury close by it sounds like a real 'must'. 

It seemed like we observed some of the same objects last night. Did you notice any haze around Arcturus? I thought it looked quite striking last night.

Clear skies,
Darren.

The weather forecast for Friday night is looking promising.  Two conjunctions can be observed, Venus and Mercury along with PanSTARRS M81/M82.
Paul

Using my 10x50 binoculars, the conjunction was easy to see, the crescent of Venus is wonderful and Mercury could be seen to the east of Venus, they appeared at an equal altitude at 20.45UT.
Paul