h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Take a look at Jupiter At the moment its like a lamp in the south eastern sky and at its best after midnight. It’s quite low down and only about 15 deg above the horizon from the UK, but unmistakeable. The ‘seeing’ around my neck of the woods has been quite brilliant, it must be the air being washed out by all the rain we’ve had lately. Jupiter shows as a disc to the naked eye which has always been difficult for me to discern, but these last few nights it’s been quite obvious.

It’s always fascinating to watch the changing positions of Jupiter’s moons and for once I could discern some relative variance in their brightness.

My main cause of interest in Jupiter though is to use it as a pointer to Neptune. Presently Neptune is sitting just above Jupiter in the same field of view. It is a perceptible blue colour and doesn’t twinkle. At the moment I get to see it in the SE ‘window’ between trees and neighbour’s house. Both planets are just below the ecliptic.

What I can’t see at the moment, at least without staying up almost to dawn, is Uranus which is about 30 deg East of Jupiter along the Ecliptic. That should become more accessible in a month or so/ Something to look forward to.

I’m surprised that there hasn’t been any crackpot theories in the press yet that all the big planets are ‘ganging up’ on one side of the Sun and are going to cause an imbalance in the solar-system that will make the Earth fly off at a tangent. There are no prizes for the first to see that perennial claim.

Deke

Last week I got both Jupiter and the moon in my binos view it was a truly lovely sight

Tonight there's an alignment of Mars and the moon, and later the moon will occult the Pleiades, but it's so cloudy/overcast here I doubt I'll even stay up

I've been doing really well in the weather stakes lately. We've had some tremendous rainstorms here but it's mostly been during the day.
Most evenings have been very clear and I've been able to get out a bit more with the bino's and the scope.

The bino's have just been dropped and are now showing a double image. It looks lke they have had their day. Luckily they were only a cheapish pair. On the bright side I now get twice as many stars as I did before. Twice the value

Deke

I've just written my BATS column, and added a teeny reference to astrology (just for you)


sorry to hear about your binos. I have taken to using my Dad's set, which were better than mine

I missed the moon occultation of the Pleiades last night due to heavy cloud cover

I can't wait.

Did you put anything in BATS about the Harriot display at Syon Park?

One day only. There 'may' be one of his original drawings on display. I might try to get along to that.

http://www.telescope400.org.uk/

I mentioned it before but now I've added a reminder.

If you go I'll expect a full report and I'll add your comments to the next BATS (The Post is having a break for the summer now, I think, so I'm unsure of the next date)

I'll be in Hull next weekend at the meet, but if you can go to Syon Park

OK. Have a good time at the meet.

Don't go falling over anywhere

Deke

You mean there are stars and planets and things up behind all those clouds?

Yep.

It'll have to go.

Deke

I got up early this morning and was treated to a quite delightful sight pre-dawn. Wrote a journal about it
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Happy moon-landing anniversary to all lovers