01 Mar - bright Mars passes several degrees south of the Pleiades star cluster. Mars makes a very photogenic pass between the Pleiades and the Hyades clusters over the ~10 days. Perfect chance to sketch the motion for the Orbital Motion requirement of the Explore the Universe certificate.
01-15 Mar - Zodiacal light is visible in the west towards the end of evening twilight as a faint and hazy triangular pillar of light extending upwards from the western horizon towards the Pleiades.
04 Mar - asteroid 4 Vesta at opposition in the hind-quarters of Leo the lion. At magnitude 6.0 it might be barely visible to the naked eye for the more eagle-eyed of us. Vesta is the only minor planet which is ever visible to the naked eye for most people.
04 Mar - Algol at minimum about 20:10
05 Mar - Mercury (mag 0) is less than a degree north of Jupiter (mag -2) very low in the ESE sky starting about 45 minutes before sunrise. At the same time all 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter will be in a line on the west side of the planet - visible in carefully held binoculars and small telescopes. Saturn (mag 1) is 9 degrees to the upper right of Jupiter.
06 Mar - Last quarter Moon
06 Mar - Mercury at greatest elongation west low in the eastern sky in morning twilight
09-11 Mar - crescent Moon passes about 4d south of Saturn then Jupiter and then Mercury low in the eastern sky in morning twilight
13 Mar - New Moon
13 Mar - William Herschel discovered Uranus 240 yrs ago today - take your binoculars or telescope out to look at it after evening twilight and celebrate the anniversary!
14 Mar - 0200 Daylight saving time begins, clocks spring ahead
18 Mar - Mars and the Moon are near the Hyades and Pleiades star clusters.
20 Mar - 13:37EDT vernal equinox - the Sun is overhead at the equator and we get (roughly) equal hours of daytime and nighttime.
21 Mar - First quarter Moon
23 Mar - Mars is 7d north of Aldebaran - compare their colours and brightnesses!
27 Mar - 20:30-21:30 Earth Hour - turn off your lights and devices and get out to look at the sky!
Permalink Submitted by PeterH on Fri, 02/14/2020 - 12:08.
Hi; I forgot how to join the chat. Some questions about my pics tonight: "Were they tracked?”.. MalcolmYes, most were. The first night Polaris was in the clouds above the mountains so I could not do a polar alignment..there might have be a shot from that night. Most of the others were tracked using the SkyWatcher Star Adventurer.The weakest part of the image tree (other than the fish head) was my little travel tripod. The first time I tried it was withmy 55-300 zoom which was just too heavy- I could not keep the whole rig aligned, the slightest touch would jog it out.I scrounged a fairly solid end table and levelled it all up with my smaller lenses; the kit lens 18-55mm; 35mm; 55-200mm.Still experimenting with settings, most astro shots were ISO 1600 or 2000; F2 or F4; 60-120”.These are all AF-s DX lenses for my Nikon D5500 camera. Like I said I travel light with just my camera backpack and a carry-on for my flip flops, shorts & t-shirts etc. 30C+ and clear every day. Snorkelling daily. Ate too much...Stacking? I’m a Mac-head and not much available… I bought Starry Landscape Stacker (bundled with Starry Sky Stacker)and am just learning how, Magic! I shot 2800 frames over the week so there’s a lot of data to mine. About 1/3 were astro pics.SLS & SSS are easy to use and fast- I only choked my iMac once in processing many frames. Next I will try Pixinsight althoughfrom first glance it seems very deep. I do use Pixelmator as my main image processing program (NO subscription)-love it.THANK YOU for all the help from club members. I’m just a newbie stumbling to keep up but thoroughly enjoying the learning.Peter
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Jamaica Pics
Hi; I forgot how to join the chat. Some questions about my pics tonight: "Were they tracked?”.. MalcolmYes, most were. The first night Polaris was in the clouds above the mountains so I could not do a polar alignment..there might have be a shot from that night. Most of the others were tracked using the SkyWatcher Star Adventurer.The weakest part of the image tree (other than the fish head) was my little travel tripod. The first time I tried it was withmy 55-300 zoom which was just too heavy- I could not keep the whole rig aligned, the slightest touch would jog it out.I scrounged a fairly solid end table and levelled it all up with my smaller lenses; the kit lens 18-55mm; 35mm; 55-200mm.Still experimenting with settings, most astro shots were ISO 1600 or 2000; F2 or F4; 60-120”.These are all AF-s DX lenses for my Nikon D5500 camera. Like I said I travel light with just my camera backpack and a carry-on for my flip flops, shorts & t-shirts etc. 30C+ and clear every day. Snorkelling daily. Ate too much...Stacking? I’m a Mac-head and not much available… I bought Starry Landscape Stacker (bundled with Starry Sky Stacker)and am just learning how, Magic! I shot 2800 frames over the week so there’s a lot of data to mine. About 1/3 were astro pics.SLS & SSS are easy to use and fast- I only choked my iMac once in processing many frames. Next I will try Pixinsight althoughfrom first glance it seems very deep. I do use Pixelmator as my main image processing program (NO subscription)-love it.THANK YOU for all the help from club members. I’m just a newbie stumbling to keep up but thoroughly enjoying the learning.Peter