Correct. I'd not noticed that. Looks like closest, 24.5', for here at SPOC is at 1830 MDT with Spica about 4 degrees from the pair. At that time the Sun will still be up but we might still be able to spot Mars by scanning just above the Moon. By the time civil twilight starts about 2130 the two will be about 1 degree apart. patrick On 27 Apr 2014, at 05:36, Kelly Ricks <kellyalenericks@gmail.com> wrote:
...and you probably noticed this as well, but Mars and the 1st quarter moon will also be in extremely close conjunction on July 5th. I don't know precisely how many degrees will separate them, but it looks to be about 1/2. Great night for a single field of view!
~Kelly
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Message: 2 Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 23:15:58 -0600 From: Wiggins Patrick <paw@getbeehive.net> To: Astronomy Utah <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Ceres and Vesta / Terminal velocity Message-ID: <88E4A27E-30D4-4088-A1F0-069B83C4EC18@getbeehive.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
The current issue of S&T notes that Ceres and Vesta will be within half a degree of each other between 29 June and 12 July and closest at only 10 arc minutes on 5 July.
By coincidence there will be a SPOC star party on the 5th and I'm looking forward to using the Bogdan and its just over half degree field to see two relatively bright minor planets in the same FOV.
If I've got my figures right on that evening the two will be 39 degrees up at the start of nautical dark and 32 degrees at the start of astronomical dark.
Now having said all that, I'll predict rain the night of the 5th... :)
Also, unrelated to the above but related to an earlier thread here on terminal velocity, here's a fun video a few friends shot a while back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnvcs6PNIxc
I'm thinking that with the right amount of streamers we could do the same with a bowling ball. :)
patrick