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The Dance of the Planets and a Morning Comet

Started by Dave Mitsky, 04/29/2002 08:32AM
Posted 04/29/2002 08:32AM Opening Post
My girl friend and I had a delicious home-cooked spaghetti dinner with friend and fellow ASH member Tony Donnangelo and his wife Judy on Friday evening. Afterwards Tony, Maura, and I drove to a nearby rise to view the Great Planetary Alignment of 2002. As the pellucid evening sky began to grow darker we raised our binoculars to the heavens and began sorting out celestial objects as they slowly emerged. In the east the rising full moon displayed the lunar illusion and the Man in the Moon was as prominent as I have ever seen it. Tycho, Aristarchus, lunar ejecta rays, and other features were readily seen through our optical instruments. Jupiter, Venus, and Sirius were easy naked-eye objects. Soon
we noticed Saturn and then Mercury. Mars and Aldebaran eventually made appearances as did Betelgeuse, Rigel, Castor, Pollux, and Procyon.

The arc of the ecliptic was apparent for all to see. Mars seemed to be slightly to the west of the arc and formed a striking triangle with Aldebaran to its left and Saturn. M45 was just to the west of Venus. Both were visible simultaneously through my wide-angle 8x42's.

Despite the brightening brought on by the rising moon M42 was seen as a nebulous patch. Borrowing Maura's excellent Celestron Ultima 10x50's I swept up the Beehive Cluster, M44, which was near the zenith. Alcor and Mizar were resolved with the naked-eye and were an easy split through binos.

I decided to play the How Fast Can You See Six Planets? game. In well under five seconds Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter met my gaze. Then I did the planets in reverse order.

We soon returned to Tony's house and then left to see a movie. Afterwards I showed Maura the Lady in the Moon, which was quite easy to see without visual aid and was unmistakable through my binoculars.

I was not done with observing that night, however. At 7:45 UT (3:45 a.m. EDT) on Saturday morning I headed outside to have my first morning look at Comet Ikeya-Zhang. I first used my 8x42's to sweep up the comet in Cepheus. As reports have indicated the tail that was so prominent a few weeks ago is now quite diminished. In fact, C/2002 C1 (Ikeya-Zhang) looked somewhat similar, although larger in size, to the way it appeared back in February, when it resembled an unresolved globular cluster. After sweeping up Herschel's Garnet Star (Mu Cephei) and a few other celestial odds and ends I set up my 80mm f/5 Orion ShortTube 80 achromat and located the comet. I employed magnifications of 15x (26mm Tele Vue Ploessl), 30x (26mm Ploessl and 2x Celestron Ultima Barlow lens), and 57x (7mm Tele Vue Nagler type 1). The best view of the celestial fuzzball was at 30x. I had a quick peak at Albireo at 15x and then headed for bed.

Dave Mitsky
Harrisburg, PA

Chance favors the prepared mind.

De gustibus non est disputandum.