💾 Archived View for koyu.space › mrael2_obsv › sessions › 2018 › 2018-03-21.gmi captured on 2023-07-22 at 17:09:02. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2022-06-03)
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Date: 2018-03-21
Time: 7:30 PM - 8:05 PM
Seeing: III
Transparency: 6
It was nice to have another twilight in which Mercury was visible. However, poor seeing caused the apparent phase to be much less crescent-shaped and more gibbous in appearance at 7:40 PM, which is when I first could see the planet after 10 minutes of searching in a still-bright sky. By 8:00 PM, the planet was a roiling, circular blob.
The telescope had a good 90 minutes of cool-down time, and I observed exclusively at 138x.
The crescent Moon at 138x was quite astonishing and sharp despite the roiling atmosphere (even at its higher elevation).
Venus was seemingly full, turbulent, and non-descript.
At the end of this short session, I viewed the 4 stars in the Trapezium of M42 in still-light skies.
Here's hoping for a few more days in which I can observe the waning phases of Mercury.