Baker Street Irregulars Astronomers - May 20133 Meeting

Photo by @jimanning. 

By Eric Emms.

For this month's meeting I wanted to view the triple planetary near-grouping of Jupiter, Venus and, the planet I've yet to observe, Mercury. 

The trio were to be seen low in the north-west soon after sunset due at 19:56 UT. (8.56 pm BST). I arrived at the Hub, Regent's Park earlier than sunset so spent time observing and showing to others sunspot activity using my solar film filter.

The Moon, waxing gibbous, 9/10th illuminated, soon revealed itself from behind light cloud in the East and as the Sun became obscured by the trees of the park I showed the Moon to a few first-time visitors to our group. Against a bright sky little definition of the lunar surface could be made out at that early part of the evening.

Soon I spied Jupiter through my 10x50 binoculars, bright but very low in the north-east. Through my WO GT-81 at 48x the planet showed as a small bright disc although no Galilean moons were detected. Both Venus and Mercury escaped my scrutiny and Jupiter, now eye-visible, soon sank below the tree-line. A few first-timers at the Hub observed Jove for the first time: not its best display, of course, but Saturn awaited.

Turning to the east, my binoculars again helped as I located Saturn in a still blue sky, a few degrees left of the brightening Moon. Seeing conditions suffered during the evening: poorly defined cloud belts on the disc could be glimpsed but satellites weren't seen. The rings, as always, delighted those present who observed at 48x and 224x.

All other photos by @PhilipStobbart

I returned to showing to others the bright Moon

But it was now so dazzling observing at the eyepiece had become painful on the eye. I didn’t bother to crack open by variable polarizing filter so I decided to try something new. I projected the Moon's image from the eyepiece on to paper to the delight of all around.

As the stars finally made their appearance I turned my scope toward the zenith 

to show the multiple stars of the binary Mizar and Alcor.

Finally I awaited the appearance of a bright Iridium flare in Leo before heading home.