Tonight I went out with binos, since the wind is still howling over my way, and took in the 45 degree-wide almost straight line of Jupiter near the horizon, Mercury about three degrees above and to the left, and Venus and the Moon showing nearly identical crescents about fifteen degrees apart. Running Starry Night, I can see that Venus is actually about half lit, but that's not how she looked in the binos. A near-perfect visual definition of the plane of the ecliptic. The Galilean moons were also in line with Venus and the moon, but a bit off from Mercury, probably something to do with the hundreds of millions of miles between the two nearly-conjuncted planets!
Well, it's still blowing hard enough to knock a scope over out there, but at least it is a crystal clear dark sky, and the stars are glittering - which is a nice sight as long as you aren't actually trying to observe them!
Well, it's only the first day of the year, but so far, so good. Here's to some real observing, real soon.
Time to tuck this seasonal thread to bed, and open the Winter 2009 forum. May it have more than two entries by the time Spring arrives!!!!!!!!!!!!
