20060226 - Last Sunday's try for C/2006 A1

Session name: 20060226.0530

Last week I got up early to observe with Charlie at Carl Schurz Park. Our object was C/2006 A1, Comet Pojmanski. I was to meet Charlie at 0500 ut arrived about 30 minutes late. Didn't see the comet and really didn't expect to since twilight was evident. Some of the brighter stars were still obvious like Arcturus, Vega, and Antares. Venus was brilliant! Jupiter was bright with a nu Lib as close as Ganymede was to the planet. I saw 3 moons all to the east of Jupiter; Charlie picked up the 4th one, Europa, to the west.

I didn't realize it at the time, but Charlie mentioned that this is the oldest Moon we have seen. We had made some preactice runs last year when chasing the opposing crescents, but apparently this was the oldest. I can't rememebr without checking out the log book. (This is where a digitized log, a database, would work out well.)

Charlie caught the slender crescent in his bins. I think he relied on the drift method. After he noted its location above a low deck of clouds, it was apparent naked eye for a good period of time. Later I would lose it naked eye. Threw the solar filter on one of the bin's objectives to observe Sol. Nada. Just a big 1/2 degree, resolved star ;^D.

Ever since that day, I wake up to some nice looking morning skies. If I lived a little closer to Carl Schurz Park, it could be easy to do morning sessions. It seems that I haven't been to anxious to do evening sessions this season.

peter