See Saturn, Venus and Mars as moon shines near bright Antares

[Admin]

Enjoy the glittering worlds and star along with (early) breakfast.

See Saturn, Venus and Mars as moon shines near bright Antares : Read more

 

[rod]

Yes, this was a lovely sight early this morning at my location. Here is my observation report.

[Observed 0545-0645 EDT/0945-1045 EDT. Sunrise 0708 EDT/1108 UT. Last Quarter Moon 25-March-2022 0537 UT. Venus rise 0501 EDT/0901 EDT, Mars rise 0506 EDT/0906 UT, Saturn rise 0534 EDT/0934 UT. I enjoyed using 10x50 binocular viewing and the 90-mm refractor telescope. I used TeleVue 9-mm Nagler eyepiece for 111x views, true FOV ~ 44.28 arcminute. Venus 50.1% illuminated this morning and a bit more than 24 arcsecond angular size. Mars a bit more than 5 arcsecond angular size and the waning gibbous Moon, 32.41 arcminute angular size according to Virtual Moon Atlas. I could see many craters along the terminator line and viewed Hercules and Atlas crater regions this morning. These are in the NE quadrant. Walking some 300 yards or more to another large horse pasture nearby, I could view Venus, Mars, and Saturn in the early morning sky, unaided eyes, and each with the binoculars. The location was good because of distant tree line and lower elevation angle of Saturn. Saturn and Venus separated in their sky position a bit more than 7-degrees according to Stellarium 0.21.3, Venus and Mars, a bit more than 4-degrees angular separation. I compared views of Mars and Antares using the telescope at 111x. Both are close to same apparent magnitude (brightness in the sky); both appear somewhat orangish-red. Mars distinct planetary disk shape obvious while Antares just a point of light. Stellarium 0.21.3 reports Mars distant 1.870 au (astronomical units) and Antares the red supergiant star, close to 554 light-years away. Virtual Moon Atlas shows the lunar distance close to 369,000 km. An enjoyable early spring morning observation before sunrise. Temperature 5C, winds west 4 knots. Roosters in the area were doing their early morning calling and crowing. I hooted back like a great horn owl and stirred up all the critters this morning ]