"...Mercury popped up from behind the school, I knew the moment was here."
THE morning of December 10th has come and gone and to get another tight grouping of 3 planets, it would take almost another half a century.
For 2 weeks I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of 3 planets, that rose just minutes apart in the eastern half of the sky. It finally came! And when the
dawn of reckoning arrived at 6am, telescope, binoculars and camera were ready for action and most importantly, the skies had played a big part too. It was almost perfect conditions in the east south-east this morning, where alpha Centauri rose brightly at only 3 degrees above the horizon, and you could just gaze at awe at the brightness of alpha Bootes.
Then came the wait.
I knew there was going to be a small window of opportunity to capture the 3, (Mercury, Mars and Jupiter) and a 2.6 magnitude star called, beta Scorpii, before the sky got brighter and the sun sank all the stars.
Waiting patiently, (and seriously waiting patiently) until it happened at approximately 6:24am, Mercury popped up from behind a school building, and then I knew the moment was here.
First the inner-most planet, with it distinct sharpness that produced spikes to my gaze, held a steady magnitude -0.6. And if ever you thought observing Mercury brought about a pinkish hue, there was sure no sign of it this morning. However, that pinkish hue fell on the next planet, Mars. The 4th rock from the sun shone at an unimpressive +1.5, it seemed liked a dwindling Mercury but still very visible. Finally, before the arrival of Jupiter, you could just pick out beta Scorpii, obviously a star amongst the 2 planets so far. And moments later, the king, Jupiter - outshinning the rest at -1.7. All 4 heavenly objects now fit within 2 degrees of my 3" telescope. And with the naked eye, and almost perfect equilateral triangle.
What a sight!!
From gaze to inspiration, I felt tiny once again.
For a moment, with sunrise in just half-an-hour, you could take all the hustle of your busy life away, forget that upcoming work week tomorrow and silence everything in you path, and you could sense being transported to a faraway land (or a planet), where alien worlds exists just outside your home. Almost like as how some magazines would put it, "an artistes impression". This time you were the artist and the impression would last a lifetime.
With a light blue tinge in the sky, and with the planets Mercury, Mars and Jupiter, shinning against it, it just meant how wonderful and rare astronomical events just like this come few-and-far between. And observing a grand conjunction with just 15 days to christmas, gave me a sense satisfaction and more importantly, a christmas story I can tell my children and grandchildren.
- BabyKevin 8-)
morning of 10th December, 2007/
Not so much for astronomy, but more for free-and-easy sight-seeing and photography ;) Will be around Myanmar for 8 days!)