COOL CONJUNCTION

Location:  Side yard by the shed, Little Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time:  January 7, 2018 0630-0735 hrs

Weather:  Clear, breezy at first, increasingly windy from the NE, -20C showing on outside thermometer with reported windchill of -32C.  Some hazy clouds around the waning gibbous Moon at 0630 hrs.  No clouds shortly after that.  Its was so cold, the trees were cracking in the wind, loudly as the breeze picked up.

Equipment:  Canon Rebel Xsi with 18-55mm and 75-300mm lenses.  Tripod.  Images processed with ArcsoftmediaImpressions.

Attendance:  Myself.

Objective:  To view and image a close pairing of Jupiter and Mars which was suppose to be in the SE dawn sky, in Libra, near the magnitude 2.75 Alpha Libra star named Zubenelgenubi (Arabic for Southern Claw).

Report:

• The conjunction stood out in the SE sky, and formed up nicely with Zubenelgenubi to make a triangle.  Jupiter was very obliviously brightest of the three, but when zoomed in on, in the view screen, it's disk looked huge compared to Mars. 
• In one zoomed in image, Zubenelgenubi showed up as a double star.  Binoculars shows the second star, while observing.
• The waning gibbous Moon was very bright and leaving shadows on the ground, at 0630hrs.  It stood high in the SW sky.
• Below and to the East of the Moon, low in the SSW sky was the constellation Corvus the Crow.
• Mercury and Saturn were suppose to be low in the Eastern sky at dawn, but I couldn't see them.  Only looked with unaided eye.
• No satellites or shooting stars were seen.

Images:

In this image, you can see Zubenelgenubi is a double star.