Telescope Reviews: Crescent Moon, Jupiter and Stars Conjunction

This morning there was a beautiful conjunction featuring the waning Crescent Moon and Jupiter, less than 2° away.

Looking through the eyepiece at Jupiter, she appeared to have an extra moon in an odd position - in fact it was a field star, HIP105256. The Galilean Moons were close by - Io was right next to Jupiter, with Europa and Callisto a little further away. Ganymede was in transit but was not observed.

I was able to fit the pairing in the field of view of my Canon 350D when attached at prime focus to my Saxon ED80, so I snapped off a few images before heading to work. Unfortunately I didn’t nail the focus and didn’t notice until I’d finished.

While viewing the images on the train, I noticed that the star 29Cap was egressing from being occulted by the Moon. So I combined 8 frames into an animation showing the motion of the Moon through the stars.

Please click the link to see the animation, the full-size image and to read more.

Crescent Moon, Jupiter and Stars Conjunction

Thanks for looking.

Edited by iceman (03/22/09 07:32 PM)