Two Rare Planetary Events, 2002/5/4 & 6 UT

Started by Dave Mitsky, 05/06/2002 08:00AM
Posted 05/06/2002 08:00AM Opening Post
On Friday evening (2002/5/3) I had the good fortune to observe a very unusual event, i.e., seeing a planet and a comet at the same time through a telescope. C/2002 F1 (Utsunomiya) and Mercury were visible in the same field of view using the 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain (144 and 202x) at the ASH Naylor Observatory (http://www.astrohbg.org). The comet was approximately 5' away from Mercury at the time and had a fairly bright coma that was similar to Mercury in apparent size. I could see no hint of a tail but the sky was still fairly bright at the time and both objects were not far from the horizon so that was no surprise. (Comet Utsunomiya was barely visible through the 5" f/5 finder scope.)

A number of fellow ASH members and I also saw what may have been a fuel dump from an Ariane 4 rocket that carried the Spot 5 satellite into a polar orbit shortly before 02:00 UT. A "cloud" appeared suddenly from nowhere near the head of Draco and began to expand. Another comet, C/2002 C1 (Ikeya-Zhang), was prominent at 162x in the general vicinity.

Although the transparency was not ideal, numerous deep-sky objects were viewed through the 17" and the 12.5" f.6.5 Cave Newtonian. I showed some new members Markarian's Chain in the heart of the Virgo Cluster along with some of the better late spring globular clusters such as M5 and M80, some binary stars (the other Double Double - Struve 2470 and 2474 - was popular), and the carbon stars T Lyrae and V Aquilae.

After some rain the skies eventually cleared on Saturday night but I was too tired from a trip to the National Air and Space Museum to do any observing. Seeing Sir William Herschel's 20 foot (focal length) telescope and the observing cage from the Hooker 100" reflector was quite enjoyable!

I took some photographs of the massing of planets on Sunday evening (2002/5/5) from a high vantage point very close to my residence. This time around I had the unique experience of seeing three planets (Venus, Mars, and Saturn) simultaneously through a telescope, namely my 80mm f/5 Orion ShortTube 80 at 13x (30mm Celestron Ultima)!

Dave Mitsky
Harrisburg, PA

Chance favors the prepared mind.

De gustibus non est disputandum.