Observing report - Venus & Jupiter at Midday (corrected)

Corrected to put the Moon in the right part of the sky :-) --

Observing Report - Venus and Jupiter at Midday

Today (6-Nov-04) was a gorgeous day in Central Florida - bright and
sunny, with the temperature in the upper 70s and transparent blue
skies. With Venus and Jupiter close to one another, positioned midway
between the Sun and the last quarter Moon, and the fact that I was
home with a little time on my hands, I decided to do something I have
never done and try to find planets in the middle of the day.

At 1PM EST I scouted out a position on the north side of the house so
the Sun, high in the southern sky, was blocked by the roofline and yet
I could still see the Moon, which was still well above the horizon in
the WNW. With the ecliptic so well defined, I went inside and checked
YourSky (http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/) to ascertain within a few
degrees where Venus and Jupiter should be. Starting with my ancient
but sharp and trusty 7x35 Bushnell (Japanese made) binocular, I soon
found Venus, tiny but unmistakably bright in the clear blue sky.
Though I tried for a few minutes, Jupiter was nowhere to be seen in
the 7x35s. I was also not able to see Venus unaided although it was
relatively easy with the binocular.

Starting to have some doubt about finding Jupiter, I quickly brought
out the big gun - my 15x70 Barska binocular, mounted on a heavy duty
photo tripod which carries it nice and high for easy standup
observing. Venus was very easy to find in the 15x70s, tiny but
showing a clearly gibbous shape. "Jupiter should be easy", were my
immediate thoughts. HA-HA-HA. After about 30 minutes of searching, I
was discouraged and near giving up in frustration. I knew it was
"down" and "to the right" of Venus, but I wasn't exactly sure how
much, and in any event it WASN'T jumping out at me, even with 70mm of
aperture (times 2). "It can't be that much harder" I thought, since
Jupiter is still at magnitude -1.7 (about 1/8th as bright as Venus's
-4.0).

I stopped a minute to think, and remembered that Jupiter and Venus
should still be within 2 degrees of each other today, which should put
them in the same field of view of the 15x binocular. I positioned
Venus at the "upper left" of the field and started hunting around the
center. FINALLY about 1:45PM I caught a glimpse of Jupiter,
unmistakably round, but looking positively ghostly in comparison to
Venus, near the center and half the FOV away to the "lower right" of
Venus. To find Jupiter, it was extremely important to precisely focus
the binocular (both eyepieces) on Venus first before swinging over to
look for Jupiter. The King of Planets did not show any detail and
actually reminded me of a tiny and fuzzy but bright planetary nebula.
None of its moons were visible (that would have been asking for
miracles).

I hope you enjoyed this report and that it might encourage you to
conduct a similar search. I DO know that I would never have found
Jupiter in daytime without a relatively easy point of reference like
Venus and the aperture afforded by the giant binocular.

Regards,
Mark Pippin