Jupiter in the sky tonight

Dirk Diggler

Dirk Diggler

Dirk Diggler

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Can be seen as it's the brightest object and visible all night. As it's so close to earth at the moment, I can see two of it's moons using my binoculars.

Cool story :)
 
Rroff said:
Between various volcanic eruptions, wildfires and other stuff like storms the atmospheric conditions this year have given some brief moments of being able to view the Sun and more rarely Mercury with the naked eye like you can never normally see them. One evening the sun was low on the horizon looking about 4x larger than normal and for a few minutes through the haze you could clearly see its spherical shape and even surface features like you never normally can. Several times in the morning it has similarly been possible to see the sun directly and some of the planets low on the horizon with details apparent you normally can't see.
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I was working on an oil rig off the east coast of Shetland around 15 years ago, and I was tidying up at the end of a Nightshift. It was right in the middle of summer so sunrise was early and due to a light haze I could see the sun very clearly without squinting. There was a small black dot on the face of the sun and my understanding is that this was Mercury.

Due to being at sea and the weather conditions etc., I ended up getting an awesome sense of perspective. :)
 
Penfold101 said:
There was a transit in May 2003 and November 2006, but judging by the picture on the Wikipedia page there is absolutely no way you could pick out Mercury with the naked eye. If there was anything there it could have been a large sun spot group. Orbital alignments mean transits are infrequent and known well in advance - the next one isn't till 2032 and will be well publicized. Venus is even rarer, occurring in pairs 8 years apart every century or so - the next is in 2117...

en.wikipedia.org

Transit of Mercury - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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The size looks really similar and the date works out, the sun was right on the horizon as it was just rising in the morning.
 
Rroff said:
I can believe it - it is something I found almost jaw dropping how light can do weird things under certain atmospheric conditions - I went out into the yard at work and turned around to see the sun there low in the sky looking massive and plainly able to see surface features and the sun as a ball in 3D space - unfortunately mobile phone cameras just aren't up to capturing it - was really incredible.

Though less impressive there were a couple of mornings more recently as the sun came up over low cloud where similar kind of stuff happened, you could distinctly see the sun as a ball, and you could see the adjacent planets low on the horizon (not 100% on which ones but IIRC Venus, Mars and either Saturn or Jupiter) suddenly change from just splodges of light to being able to make out they were a planet albeit not much more than that with the naked eye.
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Yes, this is what happens when sea fog is really thin. When the sun is rising under those conditions it is huge at the horizon compared to the little circle we're used to seeing - a total optical illusion but I believe the same phenomenon creates the super moon we see from the to time?

Being at sea is significant too, because there is literally no obstruction between the eye and the horizon. The sense of scale can be really powerful. Funny enough, an oil rig isn't the best place for star gazing as the amount of light created by the flare stack alone will ruin it, but early mornings are obviously different.
 
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