See Mars rendezvous with the moon this Labor Day weekend

I hope folks enjoyed some outdoor evening time last night. It was gorgeous here where I am at! I was out in my east pasture from 2000-2300 EDT. The big ticket items were viewing Jupiter and Saturn in Sagittarius. I used the 90-mm refractor and 10-inch, comparing views of these planets from 40x to 120x. The 10-inch showed 5 moons near Saturn, including Enceladus, excellent views of Cassini division, some cloud bands (I used #12 yellow filter), and some of the planet's shadow cast on the rings. The 90-mm refractor showed two Saturn moons. Jupiter's Great Red Spot became visible near 2040 EDT and crossed the central meridian of Jupiter near 2218 EDT as reported by Sky & Telescope. The 10-inch using #58 Green filter made viewing very easy, and tracking the Great Red Spot position changes on Jupiter as Jupiter rotated. About 2050 EDT, the Milky Way was very obvious running from Cygnus through Sagittarius with Jupiter and Saturn there. No dark sky view but still a pretty good show. Another great viewing treat was observing the waning gibbous Moon and Mars rise in Pisces. At 2213 EDT, on a road near a very large horse pasture, I enjoyed unobstructed unaided eye views of the pair, clear of a group of trees near my east pasture. Mars about 1-degree angular separation from the Moon. Observing the Moon and Mars through a number of hours during the night, you could see the position angle and separation of Moon and Mars take place. The Moon orbits Earth faster than the Earth rotates, a simple way of testing the Earth rotation and lunar orbital velocity. Both Mars and Moon will set after rising but the Moon is orbiting faster than Earth spins, moving faster so the angular separation and position angle of Mars changed relatively quickly while viewing periodically during the night. Out on the road, I could see the Moon, Mars, all along the ecliptic to Saturn and Jupiter position, and Sagittarius. Some excellent planet viewing last night----Rod
 

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