by Mark Wagner
On Mon, 22 Feb 1999 Richard Navarrete wrote:
> Yeah, the clouds are closing in! :-(
>
Not here! Sweet view! 10" f/5.6 with a 35mm Orion Ultrascopic. Venus at 11 and Jupiter at 4 o'clock in the same eypeiece view. I used The Sky to find the Jup/Ven were about 27 degree from the Sun, then went outside and estimated the distance. I stood so the sun was shielded from my view, and there, in the blue, was a small white dot.
Using my Telrad (cupping my hand over it to darken the background) I got the pair in with no problem. Venus, in the low power, was brilliant, and about 1/2 the angular size of Jupiter (rough estimate), while Jupiter was a ghostly pale gray opposite in the field of view. I bumped up the power, but Jupiter refused to give any detail, it just became a larger gray disk. Venus though showed a very nice pahse, just past half full (is that just past 1Q or 3rQ Venus?).
I have to admit, it is fun to find planets in the daytime!