Sunday, March 20, 2016

AM Friday, January 1 and AM Saturday January 2, 2016 - Predawn Visual / Binocular Observing / Sporadic Meteor Observation


  On the morning of New Year's Day (Friday January 1) skies were mostly cloudy at midnight and cleared slowly during the hours before dawn. I was able to catch the Waning Gibbous Moon shining several degrees east and a little south of gleaming Jupiter, which was itself in far southeastern Leo, when I was outside around 2:30 AM EST. I made a very rough sketch of how they looked in a spiral notebook. It was a cold and breezy night with the temperature in the mid-20's degree F range and a Wind Chill in the mid teens degree F range. Here's the sketch I made that morning (as I wrote ... it was VERY ROUGH!


  The following morning, Saturday January 2, skies cleared out again, and I was outside around 4:00 AM. Jupiter was again shining brightly near where I'd seen it the previous morning (of course) and the Moon was now Waning, just hours past Last Quarter (Last Quarter had actually taken place at 12:30 AM EST on January 2). The Moon was further east between the "tail" of Leo and the star Spica, and a little Earthshine was visible on it, especially when viewed through 7X50 binoculars. Mars was also shining just east of Spica. I made another rough sketch of this in the spiral notebook:



  At 4:04 AM (9:04 UT Jan. 2) I also spotted my first meteor of the year! It was Sporadic, 2.0 magnitude, Speed = 4, No Wake, No Train, No Color. It passed quickly from near the "handle" of the Big Dipper to an area north of Bootes. It was too swift and totally going in the wrong direction for me to think it was a Quadrantid, and I don't know of any active minor meteor showers that it could have belonged to. Again, here's a very rough sketch that I made that night:


  I went outside again around 4:30 AM EST with those same binoculars to get some looks at the Moon, Mars, and Corona Borealis (In case T CrB was having a flare up, or R CrB had brightened enough to be visible. I saw neither star). I also did a quick binocular search of an area just north of Arcturus to see if I could spot Comet Catalina C/2013 US10, but I couldn't pick out anything that looked comet-like. Everything I saw looked like faint stars. Moonlight may have also been interfering with picking it out of the background, if I saw it at all. This comet, the last I read online, was at about 6.5 magnitude, so it would have been difficult through these anyway. I vowed to try again in a week or so when moonlight wasn't an issue, as this object made it's way toward the "handle" of the Big Dipper. 

  It was a clear, moonlight, freezing cold night. No snow was anywhere. By the time I was done the temperature was in the upper 20's degree F range with a wind chill in the upper teens degree F range. 


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