by Randy Muller
I remembered that tonight was the night for a nice appulse of Mars and Jupiter.
Is an 'appulse' different from a 'conjunction'?
I observed this last night at 6:15pm from Sacramento with a 10" f/5.6 dob which was nowhere near thermal equilibrium.
I framed Jupiter and Mars nicely at 84x. It was a very pretty sight.
Jupiter was showing some atmospheric chromatic aberration because it was relatively low. The color contrast was lovely. I was surprised, because when I normally look at Mars, my eye and brain get used to the color, so it seems paler. Last night, I was able continually to refer back to Jupiter and its moons for a 'white check'
Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 21, 1998 14:36:29 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Feb 15, 2005 20:21:52 PT