1st November 2012

Location: Walking to and from the pub
Conditions: clear, crisp – expect good seeing.
Equipment: eyes
Highlights: Jupiter, Moon, Aldebaran

There was a splendid alignment of Jupiter, the Moon and Aldebaran tonight.  Of course there was a crisp, cold and clear night.  I was off to the pub for the band’s Halloween Jam wasn’t I.

The Moon was a couple of days past full and to the E.  To the left Jupiter shone brightly and Aldebaran was not far off to the right.
Walking home, Orion was up too.   The people  I was walking back with commented on the Moon so I pointed out Jupiter and Aldebaran which led to a discussion.  During the course of this I explained how you can find your latitude from angle of Polaris.

Had a quick look at Jupiter with the bins through the window when I got home but no detail to discern quickly.

Sur, Oman Observations – Monday 1 October 2012

Location: Sur, Oman
Conditions: Misty
Highlights: Jupiter, Hyades

22:30 Our room at the oh so 70s Sur Beach Hotel faced North overlooking the beach. Sur is a much smaller city (pop less than 50,000) and as a consequence much much less light pollution. Disappointingly and surprisingly the sky was very misty. Water vapour coming in off the sea, no doubt. The sea is very warm, like bath water so I suspect there’s a lot of evaporation going on and that has to go somewhere. The Moon was also a couple of days past full and at the zenith washing out the sky. I could see it if I hung out the balcony a bit. Worked out after with the bins i was getting down to about mag 7.
I had the Celestron Skymaster 15×50 binoculars on the tripod. It was rubbish from horizon to about 25° though. Too misty.

22:45 Jupiter was up in the East NE sky. I did a sketch of the 4 Galilean moons to compare with Saturday.

23:00 Not far from Jupiter, in Taurus, the mag 2.1 star Aldebaran was visible to the east, shining orange. This was pretty much the only naked eye star visible. From there I hopped into the Hyades open cluster, which I sketched.

From this I was able to work out that despite the mist I was getting mag 7 skies.
A rather enjoyable session.