The Moon was a little less than two hours past full when i set out on my bike at 6am on Saturday morning. It looked great hanging there in the West, as I pedaled NW to Bopec, here on Bonaire. The sky brightens very quickly here in the tropics.
I lost sight of the moon when i headed East to Rincon, but there were lots of birds chowing down on Shimarukus to keep me company.
Mars is on the move. During the next week or so, it will drift between the Pleiades star cluster and the "horns of the bull." (what we call the Hyades cluster in Taurus) Mars is bright orange in color, as is Aldebaran, which forms one of the pointy ends of the horns of the bull. Now that they moon is waning, you should be able to spot the Pleiades overhead in the evening sky. The horns of the bull need a slightly darker location.
Interestingly enough, i noticed that Mars will be in pretty much the same spot in the sky, relative to the Hyades and the Pleiades, as it was back on Feb. 25, 2006 when I snapped a picture of them.
The Moon was full at 3:16 on Thursday afternoon, here on Bonaire. So Thursday evening was perfect for a Sunset/Moonrise excursion. The Sun set at 6:33 and the Moon rose at 6:39. There were some low clouds in the East so we didn't see the Moon rise up off of the horizon, but it was fun to watch none the less. Here are a few pictures. Click on them to see the whole images.
The sky is quite clear here on Bonaire tonight (Wed.) and the mud frogs are singing again after last night's rain.
When one is facing to the West, Mars is easy to spot to the upper right of the moon. Uranus is easy to spot (in binoculars) to the left of Mars. I'd say that Uranus is about a third as far away from Mars as the Moon is, more or less. There is a star to the lower right of Mars, that's not Uranus. Uranus has a distinctive pale robin egg blue coloration.
I'm not going to try taking a picture because the moon glare will drown out the planets, especially Uranus. (probably more because I'm feeling lazy)
The Moon will be quite near Mars Wednesday night. Makes it easy to find Mars in the sky. Mars will be to the Northeast of the Moon. As a special treat, Uranus will be to the Southeast of Mars. I'd say that the distance between Mars and Uranus will be about 1/5 the distance between Mars and the Moon.
We've seen Uranus with the naked eye in the past, but you'll need binoculars to spot it with the Moon nearby. On Thursday night, the Moon will have moved away, and Uranus will be more or less due South of Mars, at least as seen here on Bonaire.
I drove out to the TWR transmitter site today to do some work on the computers. When i got there i noticed that it was raining in town, which made the towers and TX hall pop nicely. So i grabbed my trusty i-Phone 6s and snapped away. Gotta love always having a camera in one's pocket.
We have rain off and on every day, with sun in between. I guess you could call it rainbow season. We had a nice double rainbow on the morning of the 19th. Just got around to pulling it off of the camera this evening.
Here's what Jupiter and Saturn looked like Tuesday evening, more or less. They were a lot closer together on Monday. You'll probably need to look at this full size to split the planets, located in the conveniently placed notch in the tree.
I kept my telescope set up all week with a barbecue grill cover on it for rain protection. That way i could be good to go as soon as the Sun set each night. Last night had patches of clear sky with periodic rain clouds passing by. As soon as the sun got low enough, i took the covers off of the scope so that it could cool off. But i also ate my supper (veggie burgers) outside so that i could zoom over and cover it if a rain cloud came by. Sure enough, a cloud came along and dumped rain for maybe 10 minutes. In this picture you can see the covered scope in the foreground, and a nice rainbow as the rain approached our back yard. Check out the "grass" too. I'm mowing it every about other week.
There were some rain clouds passing through, but we were able to observe Jupiter and Saturn with our naked eye. Saturn is more or less exactly to the right of Jupiter. Tomorrow, it will be to the lower right of Jupiter.
Jupiter and Saturn are very close together Sunday evening. I think it will be hard to separate them with the naked eye on Monday. This photo is the same scale as the ones from Friday and Saturday.
It is pretty clear tonight. Jupiter and Saturn a bit closer. This picture is the same scale as the one from last night. If you look at it full size, you can just tell that Saturn is Saturn. I might have to shoot video and stack the frames to get a clearer view. Which i might or might not do... If you look at it full size you can (barely) see some of Jupiter's moons too.
Saturn and Jupiter were closer together Friday evening, duh. I increased the magnification some, probably to the level i'll keep it at for the next three days. This way it will be easy to see how much closer the planets get each night. These two photos are at the same scale. You can see that less of the Moon fits in the frame. The planets are low in the sky so there is atmospheric refraction visible when i look at them full size. There is a red fringe on one side of the planet and a green/blue fringe on the other side of the planet.
Jupiter and Saturn are closing in on each other. They'll be closest Monday evening. They are already close enough to fit in the frame of a picture shot through my telescope. These two pictures are the same scale. It looks like Jupiter and Saturn about the same distance apart as the diameter of the Moon. If it stays clear I'm going to try collimating the scope to see if i can get rid of some coma that was very visible when I looked at the moons of Jupiter at 100% size. Or it may just be the result of the optics being on Bonaire for many years.
I haven't processed the time-lapse pictures i took at the TX site with a 24mm lens on Thursday night yet. I went back out on Friday and shot a sequence with a 40mm lens. There were more clouds on Friday, but one can still see Orion rise up between the towers. The belt and the sword are pretty easy to spot in the middle of the frame. You'll probably be able to see the stars better if you view it full size.
It was quite clear Wednesday and Thursday evening, so on Thursday, I zoomed out to the TWR transmitter site to try to do a time lapse of Orion rising behind the antenna towers. I've got some 586 images to combine using LRTimelapse, which I'll try to get to over the weekend. Here is a shot from when i was setting up. I hadn't dialed in the focus yet and I was triggering the camera with the shutter button, instead of the intervalometer. But i like the colors in the sky during the "blue hour." The sky looked dark to the naked eye but a 10 sec. exposure lightened things up a lot. The Pleiades star cluster is at the upper left of the frame. Moving down and to the right, a little more than half way to the top of the nearest tower, you can see Taurus, which we call the "horns of the bull." Orion is still mostly below the horizon in the middle of the frame.
These shots are from in front of our house in Hato.
Note that some people have their boats strategically placed by the road in case it REALLY floods.
