Solar System feast at tonight's member's night!

Visible tonight!

Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Ceres, Pluto, a Transit, an Eclipse, even a comet!

Starting 8:30pm:

Venus and mercury visible low in the sky just after sunset. Venus seen first, lowest and brightest, Mercury 3 or 4 finger widths directly above, dimmer, but still brighter than Antares.

Jupiter puts on a show early this evening.

• Io is transiting across the face of the planet, with the shadow visible from about 8:30pm.
• Io itself is ahead of the shadow and come out from the glare about 9:29pm.
• Europa is eclipsed by Jupiter (in Jupiters shadow) but 60 seconds after Io appears, Europa also appears out of shadow on the other side.
• Initially two moons will be visible on one side. Io will join them on the same side, and Europa will appear on the other side about 9:30pm.
• The red spot should be visible!

Saturn is there too. Titan is the brightest “star” above/below the planet.

Have you ever seen Neptune? It will be high this evening too. With luck you might even see it’s biggest moon Triton, almost a twin of Pluto. We’ll need the 16″ for this one.

Speaking of Pluto?  Yup, it’s a challenge but it’s there tonight.

The other Dwarf? Ceres is near Jupiter, magnitude 9.

And all the Uranus jokes? It will be low in the sky, but getting a bit higher later on. Best after midnight. It’s actually bright enough to see with the naked eye. Uranus’ biggest moons, Titania and Oberon, might be visible too. This will be a challenge, especially with the glare from Uranus, but I have an occulting eyepiece to block the planet while viewing the moons.

Comet C/2018 W2 Africano is also up there, about magnitude 9, but it should be clearly visible.

Messier objects?  I’ve got my charts. Andromeda and Triangulum Galaxies (M31 & M33) are visible after midnight. Sagittarius is vanishing in the west fast, so last chance to see!

And Astronz will be there too!

See you tonight

Rob