Venus/Jupiter conjunction - in daylight!

[Ross Wilkinson]

Short of the enthusiasm to get up before dawn and go out into the Park with my binoculars, I decided to wait until mid-morning and try with a telescope from my garden.

I used the old "Tasco" (= Celestron) GoTo mount with my TS70ED (f=420mm) refractor.

First I fitted my Baader solar filter and aligned on the Sun (which is looking a bit spotty now!).

Then I slewed to Venus, which was clear enough in my 32mm eyepeice and after re-centring it fitted the 20mm eyepeice.

With my star-diagonal fitted, Jupiter is above and to the right of Venus, and the 20mm EP gives about the best field:

Jupiter is a lot fainter, but using "averted vision", and nudging the 'scope tube to look for a moving target, I soon found it.