Planets, Earthshine, and an Occultation, 2004/3/23 UT

I took my Celestron 20x80's to the top of a nearby hill to view the
two-day-old crescent Moon and the five naked-eye planets on a very
chilly Monday evening. The arc of the ecliptic was plain to see with
speedy Mercury (-0.85 magnitude) readily visible near the western
horizon and the Moon (-9.23 magnitude) to the left and above followed
by brilliant Venus (-4.31 magnitude), Mars (1.33 magnitude) just to
the east of M45, Saturn (0.02 magnitude) residing in the feet of
Gemini, and lordly Jupiter (-2.45 magnitude) rising with Leo.

As I admired the ghostly looking Earthshine I noticed that a star in
Pisces was soon going to be occulted. As it turned out 6.3 magnitude
ZC 247 was covered by the Moon about 25 minutes later at 00:40 UT.
Another star (or two) was also due to be occulted according to Starry
Night Pro but I left before that happened.

Before driving home I spent a few moments looking at M45, M42, NGC
1981, M44, M41, the Double Cluster, and the Alpha Persei Association
with my big binocular.

Dave Mitsky

That sounds like a beautiful night! Thank you for sharing.

In article , djm28
@psu.edu says...
I took my Celestron 20x80's to the top of a nearby hill to view the
two-day-old crescent Moon and the five naked-eye planets on a very
chilly Monday evening. The arc of the ecliptic was plain to see with
speedy Mercury (-0.85 magnitude) readily visible near the western
horizon and the Moon (-9.23 magnitude) to the left and above followed
by brilliant Venus (-4.31 magnitude), Mars (1.33 magnitude) just to
the east of M45, Saturn (0.02 magnitude) residing in the feet of
Gemini, and lordly Jupiter (-2.45 magnitude) rising with Leo.

As I admired the ghostly looking Earthshine I noticed that a star in
Pisces was soon going to be occulted. As it turned out 6.3 magnitude
ZC 247 was covered by the Moon about 25 minutes later at 00:40 UT.
Another star (or two) was also due to be occulted according to Starry
Night Pro but I left before that happened.

Before driving home I spent a few moments looking at M45, M42, NGC
1981, M44, M41, the Double Cluster, and the Alpha Persei Association
with my big binocular.

Dave Mitsky



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