Starship Asterisk*

I couldn't belive it!!!

The weather forecast for where I live for all of November sounds like this: Overcast. Frequent showers, intermittent strong winds.

So the lovely late October and November conjunctions between Venus, Jupiter and Mars have been completely hidden from me. But today, when I cycled to school in the rain, there was suddenly a blazing light in the sky to the east. It was Venus!!! The sky had cleared to the east, and there was Venus, Jupiter, I guess Mars, most of Leo (the upper part of the sickle was hidden), Gemini and bits of Orion.

Venus was like a searchlight in the sky, creamy yellow in color, and so much of the glorious winter sky unfolded above it. I stood there and stared, as the rain kept falling on me.

Unbelievable!

Ann

One day before the full Moon, rising above Pikes Peak and the nightrise (Belt of Venus).

Got up early hoping to see the Moon-Venus conjunction along with Comet Catalina, but some thin clouds had rolled in, which made seeing the comet impossible. Still, the conjunction itself was pretty, with the clouds creating a halo around the Moon, and some color once dawn approached.
The occultation of Venus was barely visible through the clouds. Looked like it faded out over about 5 seconds. Too cloudy to pick up the reappearance, however.

Out riding this afternoon, and there was a lovely pair of sundogs around the sinking sun.

Just saw a meteor just miss Orion's belt on the north side. It was only visible for a length just a little longer than the belt. Good thing it missed, or the blue seven sisters might have had red faces.

Not bad conditions for today's Mercury transit. Some clouds scuttling about, but most of the 250 odd images I shot at one minute intervals were clear. Started at about 8:45 am local (UT 14:45) when the Sun was well clear of my observatory wall, and went to the end. This was one of the first shots from the telescope, still well before maximum transit:
And this is right before third contact:
And a sequence, approximately every 15 minutes. The spacing isn't quite uniform because sometimes there were clouds, and I had to skip a few minutes one way or the other. Also, it was windy, so there was a bit of buffeting of the scope, which is probably why the size of Mercury seems to vary just a little. Or maybe it's because I need to normalize the brightness better before stacking- because of the clouds, there was a bit of variation.

Saw a nice, bright sundog today trying hard to be seen through all the intervening contrails. Right side sundog apparently much dimmer. Couldn't see the whole arc since it got too faint overhead. Shot from the top story of a parking garage over Flushing, Queens, NY. The landscape is almost painfully urban to look at.

Mars is very bold tonight. And very red. Not that you didn't know it, but it is.

Ann

Just saw a faint display of noctilucent clouds. Not very structured, but light and blue. The Sun was about 10° below the horizon. I'm at Noordwijk in the Netherlands, 52° north.

I can see some noctilucent clouds outside my kitchen window right now.

It's not a particularly brilliant display, and Capella is sailing way overhead. When the noctilucent clouds really put on a show, they totally smother Capella.

Still, its' nice to see these light nocturnal clouds against the deep blue glow of the summer night.

Ann

After decades of complaining, I finally saw my first UFO in the night sky! I was stoked!

The next night, I realized it was just a firefly.

A very nice display of anti-crepuscular rays. This is a panorama covering almost 90°.

Well, I guess that qualifies for rugged.

Since day one every post in this thread has been like salt in an open wound, I swear I've got to get out of southern California / the suburbs of Los Angeles sometime soon.

THX1138 wrote:Since day one every post in this thread has been like salt in an open wound, I swear I've got to get out of southern California / the suburbs of Los Angeles sometime soon.

Left that same place more than 20 years ago for the dark skies of Colorado, and have never looked back.

167 Perseids from midnight to dawn.

A very new Moon, about 40 hours old and 2.8%. A few degrees to the south, Venus (not in this image). A degree to the north, Jupiter. A few degrees below, Mercury (visible with binoculars a half hour earlier, but set here). Took this just at sunset.

We were backpacking up on our ranch this weekend, and last night caught these interesting crepuscular rays. Usually the shadows are from mountains or clouds below the local horizon, but here we see the actual clouds casting the shadows. Just a few miles back to the east and all that would show would be the shadows. The new Moon is seen in the upper left, straight over Black Mountain. Visually, Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury were also visible (the latter just barely), but my phone camera wasn't up to the task of capturing them. A couple hours after sunset, you could practically read by the light of the Milky Way, Mars, and Saturn.

The nearly full Moon (17 hours before full) rising last night, centered nicely on Venus's belt, just as you'd expect.

All apologies but I am still very very green in terms of understanding astronomy and space related sightings. I live in Pennsylvania. Last night around 8:30 it appeared as if there was a quarter moon. It had an orange tint (possible harvest moon soon????) Any chance this was a lunar eclipse?

Be gentle, I am still quite new at this!

Did it look kinda like this? ...
The Moon is currently getting more visible, so to speak, since the new Moon was 5 days ago. At about 8:30 your time last night the Moon was not far above the horizon, so the orange tint would have been coming from the atmosphere, not from a partial eclipse.

Rob

Lunar eclipses, partial or otherwise, always happen at a full moon.

If you live in an area that is currently close to active fires, and the smoke is evident in your skies, the orange color could be from smoke. Wildfire smoke always makes both the Sun and Moon seem redder

Thank you everyone for the informed replies. I didn't think it was, but I wanted to be sure. My 10 year old son is going to be upset though. I told him it was "possible but not likely" I had to keep telling him that several times till finally he goes "Dad, don't ruin this for me!

Either way, Our local astronomy society is having a public viewing Sunday night so although he didn't get to see a lunar eclipse, he will no doubt get to see some fun stuff Sunday.

Best regards to all
CC

First was the Hunter's Moon rising behind Pikes Peak.
And about an hour later, the ISS rising from NW to high north. It was very dark out by then, but the full moon off to the right side of the image was lighting everything up, so a stack of 5 30-second exposures looks almost like day.