by Randy Muller
Upon leaving work yesterday (February 20, 2002) at 5:55pm, I decided to see if I could see how close Saturn was to the moon using nothing more than my unaided eye through some scattered cirrus clouds.
The first quarter moon was easy to spot, of course. I began searching the western side of the moon for any hint of Saturn. I had a couple of false alarms, but nothing solid.
Another employee came out of the building, and saw me staring up into the sky, and asked me if this was a joke, and we would soon have a group of people staring up into the sky trying to get others to do the same.
I laughed, and said no, and explained that I was looking for Saturn near the moon but I hadn't seen it yet.
So Stephanie started looking with me.
I suddenly found it about 45 arcminutes due west of the moon. It was pretty hard to see, but it was definitely there.
I exclaimed that I finally saw it and described the location. Stephanie couldn't see it, and complained that she didn't have very good vision.
Then Rekha came out of the building, so I explained everything all over again, and the three of us were staring at the moon, though I was the only one who could see Saturn.
Then another employee came out of the building. Stephanie laughed and told him that I was trying to get everyone to look up at nothing. He never even looked up.
So he not only missed Saturn, but he also missed the nice 1st quarter moon.