The alarm went off at 5:30 AM. I did not want to get out of my warm bed! Peaked out the north window of the Cygnus bedroom (without my glasses) and could see stars. Fetched my eyeglasses from the living room, returned to the bedroom, and looked out the east windows. Clear skies. OK, let's do this.
Put on some layers and headed outside. And was greeted by Orion and Canis Major, very high, in the south. Old friends. Procyon was burning bright. Lupus was really high up! I wondered if it was a combination of the date and time and location. Whenever I've tried to view The Rabbit, invariably at my Mom's in the winter, it is low.
I'm looking forward to re-examining Meissa.
Turning to the east, I could see Leo leaping; but no sign of planets. It wasn't until 5:56 AM that I saw the Morning Star clear the trees of the hill. My Stellarium custom landscape for the CAO was off a little bit. It should be raised or heightened (I later changed it by 4 units).
Bloody cold! 0.3°C and a little damp. I didn't think to bring my winter coat. I found a heavy coat in the closet. I put it on over my t-shirt/long-sleeve-shirt/RASC hoodie/SAAB windbreaker combination. Later I moved the coat under the windbreaker. Later still I fetched the sweatshirt I had left on-site. Finally, with t-shirt/long-sleeve-shirt/sweat shirt/RASC hoodie/heavy coat/SAAB windbreaker, I was able to keep my torso warm. But my legs were cold. Didn't think to bring my long underwear!
There were clouds lingering, hovering, stalled over Collingwood, precisely in the direction I wanted to look. Would I be able to see anything, I wondered?
I wanted to give the FujiFilm J20 camera a good shake. The tripod I had eyeballed in the living room yesterday was gone! From the GBO I retrieved the aluminum 'pod and setup on the deck. Hiding just under the lattice work, I could see a bit better, the Last Quarter Moon blocked. I set the camera to Fireworks mode so that I could control the exposure time, up to 8 seconds. I deliberately bracketed hoping to get some good exposures. I remembered to use the timer so to shoot hands-free.
Finally Saturn cleared the clouds.
5.98 seconds, f3.1, 6:42 AM
I was surprised (at the time) by how dim Saturn was.
I was surprised (afterwards) to see stars in the image. I can see Denebola, Zosma, and Chertan—aka β (beta), δ (delta), and θ (theta) Leonis above and to the left of Venus.
I began shooting photos very frequently. Viewed together they play like a movie. It was not obvious to me at the time, the clouds seemed parked beyond the mountain. But when viewing the frames, the clouds were drifting slowly to the east...
At 6:36 AM, I could see Mercury between upper and lower cloud bands. I finally got a good shot when Mercury rose above the persistent clouds.
2 seconds, f3.1, 6:50 AM
Phil emerged from the T@B. He too was thrown by the brightness of Mercury and Saturn. He verified positions in Stellarium on my computer. He sat beside me on the picnic table and we enjoyed the unusual conjunction together. For Phil, it was his third career naked-eye observation of Mercury.
At 6:58 AM, it was getting very difficult to see Saturn. As Phil noted, it was only knowing where it was in relation to Venus made it easy. The wind was getting to him despite standing in the lee of the house. He headed inside. I wasn't long after him. The birds were waking up.
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All of the photos were shot at ISO 100.
Phil suggested I try 400.
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I used the new, small red cell for the netbook. It fit the screen nicely.
On the fly, I made a small red cell for the back of the digital camera, so to keep my night vision, such that it was. It worked really well!
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I learned later that the camera clock was way off. After a test later, I found it to be 27 minutes early. I wondered why there was such a discrepancy between the date/time stamp on (or in) the photo meta data and my immediate notes on the computer.
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Large rez (3648 x 2736) images available upon request.
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