Grand Planetary Conjunction on the Pier
I set up at scope at 3 am at the Shipyards pier, after a night of restless sleep. I was hoping for better seeing than yesterday and wanted to catch a glimpse of Venus.
I parked my car on Esplanade and loaded up my wagon; there wasn’t another soul in sight. I could see a few dozen stars above, as well as Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. Once I reached the end of the pier, I put together my Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 mount and installed the wifi adapter so that I could control the mount using SkySafari on my iPad. It was my first time using this combo for an observation event. Spoiler alert: this combo is sublime.
I aligned the mount to Arcturus and Jupiter, then selected Saturn on my iPad, hit Goto, and within moments I could make out Saturn’s trademark shape near the bottom corner of my 7mm Pentax XW eyepiece, impressive considering the 114x magnification. I noticed that the seeing was significantly better than yesterday, although still not perfect. Saturn was still relatively low in the sky, below 20 degrees, and I hoped that seeing would gradually improve as it rose through early dawn.
After swapping the 7mm to the 3.5mm Pentax XW eyepiece, Saturn magnified to 228x, and I could see subtle hints of banding along with the Cassini division in the rings in moments of steady seeing, as well as Saturn’s largest moon Titan.
I then selected Jupiter in SkySafari, and off my scope went, slewing quietly to the bright planet. The four Galileon moons were visible, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto on one side, and Io on the other; I noticed that the Great Red Spot I’d spotted last night was gone. I saw more detail on Jupiter today, the clouds having more texture and colour variations. The tracking mount helps immensely in being able to tease out the hidden details since I don’t have to worry about keeping it centered (and dealing with the subsequent shaking). I can’t wait to see what my Tak will reveal on a truly steady night.
I also took quick looks at the very low crescent moon and Mars, which looked a little better than the prior night - I could possibly have seen some colour variation on the red planet, but the atmospheric distortions (which particularly impact the red wavelength) make it hard to see detail with any level of confidence.
After slewing back and forth between the planets for a while and enjoying the view in contemplative silence, a man walked by me, phone in hand, and I asked him if he wanted to come to view Jupiter. He looked surprised, and told me that he was actually here to see the planetary conjunction! It is indeed a lucky day when one wakes up early to see the planets, armed with nothing more than a phone, and a Takahashi refractor mounted on a tracking mount just happens to be there waiting.
I told him to sit on the little chair and look into the eyepiece. He did so and looked for a while. Then I slewed the scope to point to Saturn and he viewed the marvelous ringed planet, in what I imagine was a stunned silence. I didn’t know at this point if he had seen the planets through a telescope before - I found out later when I was packing up that it was indeed his first time, and he left looking equal parts ecstatic and stunned.
Soon, another younger man joined and asked if he could view the planets using my scope. I toured him through Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and he soaked in the views.
My friend Daniela also joined; years ago, while we were still students at UBC, we attended the Merritt Star Party together, where she had seen the planets. “It’s been too long!” she said, upon seeing the planets for the first time in years. We’re going camping up at Manning Park for the Canada Day long weekend; fingers crossed for some clear skies!
Finally, my colleague Craig from UBC joined as it was starting to get light out, led by his dog Rupert, who reliably wakes him up at 4:30 am. He snuck in views of Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus (which looked like a white atmospheric mess). We also took a quick view of the moon and finished off by viewing the West Lion through a gap in the Lonsdale Quay.