This morning I woke up early enough to catch the waning crescent moon before sunrise. This photo was taken with the Nikon D50 through a Meade 70mm refractor (FL=600mm, f/8.57, ISO200, 1/100s). Click on the picture below to see the full sized (1280×1024) image. The photo is unprocessed except for cropping.

Waning Crescent Moon

Venus was nearby, so I also snapped this photo. FL=80mm, f/4.2, ISO400, 1/200s. You can really see the smudges on the CCD sensor in the early morning light. Click on the picture to see the full-size original (it’s really big, 3008×2000, you’ve been warned!)

Crescent Moon and Venus

Location: at home in Tomball, TX
Cloud cover: none
Transparency: excellent (5/5)
Seeing: average (3/5)
Darkness: bright quarter moon
Wind: none
Humidity: 25%-30%
Temperature: 50’s
Start Time: 7:45 pm CST
End Time: 9:15pm CST
OTA: 8″ SC

Venus half-illuminated, very bright even with ND filter. Lots of atmospheric turbulence.

Luna brilliant, just over half illuminated. Mons Piton and Mons Pico cast long black triangles toward the dark side. Occasional turbulence visible. Subtle “fractal” texture visible on the surface of Mare Imbrium. Pulled ep and diagonal then projected image onto white paper to see entire moon in FOV. Did not try to locate Pleiades nearby.

M42 nice with 12.5mm, less detail visible than two weeks ago due to moonlight. Noticed Trapezium E for the first time, a very faint mag 10.3 star between A and B, just outside the trapezoid. Observed a pair of mag 7 or 8 stars near the mouth, and another mag 8 or 9 that formed a nearly equilateral triangle with the two stars near theta2 orionis.

Beta Mon very cool, primary slightly brighter than two companions. Close triple, clean separation in the new 12.5mm ep. Open angle about 140°-150°.

M50 appeared to consist of an isoceles triangle, pinched at the narrow vertex, with stars dotting the edges. A smaller triangle inscribed the larger, fainter stars everywhere.

NGC2264 appeared like the outline of a large arrow pointing “this way up”.

Location: Uniontown, OH
Cloud cover: < 5%
Transparency: avg.
Seeing: avg (3/5)
Darkness: city sky glow, no moon
Wind: < 5mph
Humidity: 85%-90%
Temperature: 65°F-70°F
Start Time: 9:30 pm EDT
End Time: 10:30 pm EDT
Instrument: Meade 50mm telescope; eyepieces: 17.5mm, 12mm, 9mm
Bushnell 12×50 binoculars

Saw Venus and Saturn side by side in binoculars. With telescope Venus crescent and Saturn’s rings clearly visible, but not gap between rings and planet. Could not find Titan at ~8.5

Saw Jupiter and 4 Galilean moons. Jared drew diagram of moons relative to planet, then searched for reference and identified each of the four moons.

Location: Tomball, TX
Cloud cover: 5%-10% – Stratus – up to 80% later
Transparency: avg.
Seeing: avg (3/5)
Darkness: city sky glow, no moon
Limiting Magnitude: 4 (unaided), 9-10 (scope)
Wind: mild
Humidity: 65%-70%
Temperature: mid-70’s
Start Time: 9:30 pm CDT
End Time: 11:00 pm CDT

Instrument: Bushnell 3″ Newtonian

Venus: bright half disc resembling 1st quarter moon.

Saturn: crisp outline and ring separation; Titan trailing ~3 ring diameters behind planet.

Graffias (beta1 Sco): split double beta2 Sco with 7.9mm eyepiece. Both stars nice blue.

Jupiter: clear disc, no cloud bands visible. Moons Europa, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto trailing eastward, followed by HD 152516 (HIP 82734) at ~2X separation of Jupiter-Callisto.

Increasing cloud cover made further observing difficult.

Cloud cover: 5%-10% – Cirrus
Transparency: below avg.
Seeing: below avg (4/5)
Darkness: city sky glow, no moon
Limiting Magnitude: 4 (unaided), 8 (bino)
Wind: none
Humidity: 85%-90%
Temperature: mid-70’s

Instrument: Bushnell 12×50

Compared to last night, tonight was a a little “hazy-er”. Not sure if this is due to worse transparency or higher humidity. Last night’s transparency might have been better than I rated it.

Jupiter was a bright disc surrounded by atmospheric glow that encompassed its moons. Callisto, Ganymede, Io, and Europa were all visible.

Antares appeared much as last night, yellow-orange with a lot of atmospheric sparkling that included green.

Vesta formed ~120° angle with HIP 80793 and phi Oph.

Spica was bright and blue; Arcturus yellow-white.

I could just make out the bright oval of Saturn, but no ring separation and no moons.

Venus large and very bright orange-white. Could not discern phase, perhaps due to brightness and/or haze.

Last night I observed comet McNaught from about 6:00 pm to 6:15 pm through light cloud cover. It was not visible to the unaided eye due to the clouds. A light but steady wind vibrated the telescope, so the best view was actually through binoculars. The nucleus and tail were both clearly visible. It was a beautiful thing to see; the orange glow of the sunset and the gray streaks of clouds provided an otherworldly setting.

Amanda, Roy, and I met on the top of a parking garage — we had to be up high to see the horizon over the trees. A guy named Toby also came out after hearing about the comet from a friend. The weather was chilly but not uncomfortably cold. Amanda was the first to spot the comet in the binoculars, a fact that she won’t soon let me forget!

The telescope was my 75mm Bushnell. The Hepcat Observatory forecasted poor seeing conditions, and when I used Venus to focus it seemed to swim with multiple images. The image of the comet was hazy even in brief periods of no wind, as much from the clouds I suspect as from atmospheric turbulence.

The new Bushnell 12×50’s performed much better than my old cheap binoculars. Better optics, better collimation.

Local weather forecasts call for heavy cloud cover the next several nights, so no more McNaught for me. Glad I took the opportunity to see it last night!

Comet? Clouds! I didn’t see McNaught! Maybe tonight will be better for observing.

After some more digging I read that the time to look for the comet is 20 to 40 minutes after sunset. Check weather.com for the exact time of sunset in your location.

Comet McNaught should be visible just above the horizon WSW, low and to the right of Venus.

I did get a good look at Venus last night. It was in and out of the clouds. And my wife reminded me that even if we didn’t get to see the comet, we did get to watch a beautiful sunset.