Mars, Moon & Jupiter

 Location:  Lower Westside, Saint John, NB, Canada

Date Time:  April 2, 2025 2100-2130hrs

Weather:  Cool, -0.5C, 39%, no wind, hazy, but mostly clear except for paper plant smoke blowing south-westward across western horizon.

Attendance:  Benson and Myself.

Equipment:  Canon Rebel with 18-55 & 75-300mm lens.

Objective: Benson and I to observe Jupiter and the Moon.

Report:

• As I was setting up tripod, Benson noticed a deer nearby.
• The Moon and Jupiter were high in the western sky, less than 5 degrees apart.

Moon & Jupiter.

Facing West, Sirius, Orion and Jupiter.

Waxing crescent 28% illuminated.

• Mars was next to Pollux and Castor in Gemini.

Procyon lower left
Beehive Cluster upper left
Mars next to Pollux, upper center left.

Jamaica Trip 2025

 Location:  Resort Montego Bay, Jamaica

Date Time:  February 23-27, 2025

Weather:  Evening weather was 27C and very humid, mostly clear.  Early morning, before dawn weather was 25C, very humid and mostly cloudy.  South western sky, where Southern Cross was in the mornings, stayed cloudy for all mornings I was there.

Equipment:  Cellphone camera & binoculars.

Report:

• On the first evening  I could see the second brightest star in the sky, Alpha Carinae or Canopus.  According to Richard Hinckley Allen in "Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning" Alpha Carine, -0.4, white.  Paraphrasing, Canopus is Arabic for The Rudder.  "The slackened rudder has been placed beneath The hind-feet of the Dog."
• Canopus appeared very bright, very low, directly south, far below and to the left of Sirius, which is the brightest star in the sky.  Orion was very high in the western sky, almost over-head
•  While attempting to view Omega Centauri and The Southern Cross, both in the south western, predawn sky.  This area of sky was covered by cloud every early morning I was there.  It actually rained most nights.  On two occasions I did observe Alpha Centauri, the third brightest star in the sky, and Beta Centauri, very, low in the southern sky, just to the left of the wall of clouds.
• Again, according to RHA in his "Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning" Alpha Centauri, Binary, 0.2 and 1.5, white and yellowish.  "Baily's edition of Ulug Beg's catalogue gives this as Rigil Kentaurus, from Al Rigil al Kentaurus, the Centaur's Foot ..."
• The Big Dipper goes below the northern horizon from here, but also comes 

Partial Solar Eclipse (Observing Only No pictures)

Location:  Saints Rest Beach and Hwy 1 near mile marker 168, west of Bloomfield exit, NB, Canada

Date Time:  March 29, 2025 0715-0730 Saints Rest Beach, Saint John, NB

                                      0755-0813 near Bloomfield Marsh, Hwy 1, NB

Weather:  Mostly cloudy, very windy and cold in Saint John and at the beach.  Temps were -6C with reported windchill of -10C and 100% humidity with forecasted possibility of snow.  

Attendance:  Edward O, and Myself.

Equipment:  Eclipse Glasses.

Report: 

• Saints Rest Beach - We couldn't see the eclipsed sun from first parking lot, but could see that second parking lot was lit by sun so we went to it.  By the time we got there the clouds took over.  We we couldn't see the sun with the eclipse glasses.  We waited for the fast moving clouds, which were blowing from North to South across the eastern horizon, to part enough to see the eclipse, which was underway at that time.  Ed noticed that there was clearing to the NE so we decide to try for Hampton on the chance of catching a glimpse.
• The area of sky where the sun was was covered still at Hampton, so we decided to continue as there was still time, if we could find clear skies.  We continued along the highway and finally caught a glimpse of the sun as we approached Bloomfield Marshes.  We pulled over on the Hwy just before mile marker 168.  As we were slowing down to stop Ed exclaimed, "Sun Dog"!  Sure enough, there it was, to the left of where the Sun was, an amazing sight, that I've only seen once before.  It's an atmospheric optic, and we could only see the left part of the halo, as clouds covered the right part of the sky was cloudy.
• We pulled over safely and put our eclipse glasses on and could clearly see the eclipsed sun from inside the vehicle.  The left part of the sun was eclipsed, like a cookie with a 20% bite out of it.  The NE section of the sun was eclipsed.  We stayed and observed the eclipsed sun with eclipse glasses until the moon moved off the sun at 0813 hrs.  We were very lucky to observe this, due to challenging weather conditions.
• Here is a quick ABC News video with images. 

LUNAR ECLIPSE 2025

Location: Saint John, NB, Canada 

Date Time: March 14, 2025 0226-0514hrs 

Weather: Outside conditions went from mostly clear, breezy from the south west, -3.2c, 60% humidity at 0226hrs to mostly cloudy, breezy from the south west, -0.8c, 73% humidity at 0514hrs. The big, fast moving, dark clouds covered most of the sky just before totality, which was reported to be 0326hrs.  The last image I was able to take was at 0318hrs.  After that I could only see totality briefly through small, unpredictable spaces between clouds.

Equipment:  Canon Rebel with 75-300mm lens.  Images processed with PhotoShop.

Report:

• Moon was being eclipsed when I went outside at 0230hrs.  The breezy conditions didn't affect imaging, but the winds were the beginnings of a weather system that would end observing in less than an hour.  
• The last image I could take, between the fast moving clouds that covered most of the sky was at 0318hrs, just before totality.  I stayed out and tried to image through sucker holes, but it just didn't work out.  I could see totality though, briefly between clouds.  Very beautiful!  The reddish color of the full moon was brighter towards the upper right, for some reason.  Brightness was not evenly spread across moons disk.  Another observation is that while being eclipsed, the eclipsed part of moon was invisible.  Once totality begun, the disk became visible, albeit it was dark and reddish.

Focal length 300mm, 1/50second, ISO 100.

Comet C/2024 G3 Atlas Search (No Confirmed Sighting)

Location:  Saint John, NB

Date Time:  

• Jan 10, 12 & 13, 2025 approx. 0740-0800 hrs, just before sun-up, as Comet makes Sun approach.
• Jan 17, 2025 1735-1800hrs Comet in evening sky leaving Sun and leaving northern hemisphere for southern hemisphere.  

Weather:  

• Average for all first three days, which were mostly the same save a few clouds along the horizon.  Bitter cold, windy, mostly sunny, somewhat clear in the eastern sky, -7C.
• Jan 17- No wind, still but cold air, -4C, mostly clear, no clouds along horizon.  Haziness.

Equipment:  Binoculars 15x70, Canon Rebel T3.

Report: Overall, four days of observing, no sign of comet could be found either in images or by scanning horizon, where comet was reported to be.  

Comet perihelion was on Monday Jan 13th.  Three days before that on Friday morning I tried before sunup with binoculars.  No luck.  On Sunday morning it was clear and again no luck finding it with binoculars.  By Sunday evening the comet entered the Soho Lasco C3 field of view.  The comet stayed in this NASA camera field of view for three days as it passed close to the Sun.  At time of writing this it appears that comet has survived perihelion intact.

The weather cleared enough for one last attempt on Friday Jan 17th.  By this time, the comet was reported to be in the evening sky.  I went out again with binoculars and camera and searched with and imaged the sky, where I thought comet would be.  Comet did not show up in images or in binos field of view.  Curt and Ed(local amateur astronomers) both did not see the comet either.

Soho Lasco C3 image from perihelion.  Image from NASA Soho website.

My image facing west Friday Jan 17th, 2025 1751hrs from Saint John, NB.  Venus and Saturn in upper left.  Comet would have been very close to horizon, if it were visible. 

Moon/Venus Conjunction & Quadrantids

Location:  Lower westside for Conjunction & Dominion Park for Quadrantids, Saint John, NB, Canada

Date Time:  January 3, 2025 1835-1845hrs & 2232-2305hrs

Weather:  Windy, 25kph gusting winds, mostly cloudy, -2.8C, 81% humidity, wind-chill -9C according to local weather station. 

Equipment:  Canon Rebel with 75-300mm lens.  Images processed on PhotoShop 

Objective:  To view and image a close conjunction between a thin waxing crescent Moon and Venus with a reported separation of 1.4 degrees.  Ed reported seeing the conjunction through the clouds shortly after 1800hrs from his place.

Also, to Dominion Park to look for Quadrantids Meteor Shower that were supposed to peak on Jan 3rd in early morning hours.  On this am we were clouded out in SJ, so an evening observing was the only thing possible.

Report: 

Conjunction

• Fairly high at 1840hrs in the western sky, thankfully through a break in the mostly cloudy skies.  No Quadrantids observed.

Quadrantids Meteor Shower

• Ed and I went to Dominion Park and began observing the sky at 1032pm.  Ed reported seeing one Quadrantid at at around 10:35 PM, but I did not see it. I did not observe any meteors at the park or around Saint John either. In total, for myself about 45 minutes of observing without any sightings. Ed saw one. There were strong northerly winds all evening and it was very cold!

Moon in Scorpius

Location:  Lower westside Saint John, NB, Canada

Date Time:  December 28, 2024 0620-0700hrs

Weather:  No wind, partly cloudy, very hazy, very cold -6.2C, 96% humidity, wind-chill.

Equipment:  Canon Rebel with 75-300mm lens.  Images processed on PhotoShop.

Objective:  To view and image a thin, waning crescent Moon which was due to rise this AM.

Report:   

• When I first went out to look for the rising moon, I found it very low on the south eastern horizon, between buildings, near two stars.  It was amazingly red, very thin, 7% illuminated according to heavens-above.com.  There were also low clouds passing over it from time to time.  The stars are Antares and another lesser Scorpius star (Al Niyat, I think)  I also think that the Moon is located almost exactly where M4 is in the sky.