Moon between Planets
It’s getting to be easier to be out before sunrise. I was, this morning, but not, I confess, early enough to see this sight.
The Moon passed north of Venus, will tomorrow pass south of Mars.
Venus was “stationary” on September 5, meaning that it begins to move on eastward on the map of the sky, but it will continue to get slowly farther from the Sun until its highest displays in the mornings of October.
Yes, the Moon shown with its shape twice as large as it should be looks small compared with the planets plotted like the stars with circles to show their brightness; it’s a programming problem I’m working on.
I got up before dawn Thursday morning 10 September and walked up Bernal Hill with binoculars and a tripod. Beautiful clear weather to the east, although the fog was creeping in from the Pacific, promising relief from the recent heat wave, at least for those of us on the coast, if not for the firefighters on the huge wildfires in the hills and mountains.
Brilliant Venus, earthshined Moon, and faint Mars were a lovely sight. Passersby appreciated learning that the bright star, or planet, by the Moon was Venus, and were surprised to be able to see Mars’ iron oxide. One middle aged couple told me that on the night they first met seven years ago they happened upon a star party put on by my astronomy club. The first telescope they looked through was showing “the eye of the Swan” (Albireo). They took that double star as a good omen for their relationship.
I am able to see the eastern horizon from my 2nd story bedroom windows, so I had a nice view of Venus, Mars, Regulus, the Moon, and even Jupiter between the distant trees on the morning of 11th. I can’t wait for the upcoming Mars-Jupiter, Jupiter-Venus, and Mars-Venus conjunctions ~ should be some nice photo ops :)
Perversely, Mercury seems to be the only visible planet at sunset, I’m not seeing it …. but there’s an article in this month’s Sky & Telescope to view the rarer planets, Uranus and Neptune. In my best days of telescoping, I did see Neptune. Showing it to others through my scope, all I got was, “oh really”. Not impressed at all….Show’em Saturn or Jupiter and it’s moons instead. Or now, with Venus coming into the morning daylight sky, Get ready….
and here comes Jupiter to make it’s last of the ‘trippple conjunction’.