Then I did my best to capture the Moon with the less than optimal tools that I possessed. As usual, the results turned out "okay."
Then to Mars. I had a questionable experience seeing Mars back in August. Unlike Jupiter and Saturn, how does one truly know that Mars, and not a star, looms in the field of view? This time, though, I knew Mars sat beneath the Moon, so I assured myself that, finally, without question, that I saw it. I gazed for a while at the moon (which looks really great in the 25x70s) and its temporary planetary friend. Mars looked identical to what I had seen previously as "Mars," but I soon found out the true deceptive depths of visual memory.
Next, remembering where Stellarium depicted Uranus's relative position to the Moon and Mars, I remembered that the Pleiades sat between them. Surely I could find that famous star cluster without incident? Uranus sat just a few degrees up from it. But I didn't see it. Not with the naked eye nor with a scan in the binoculars. The Pleiades seemed to have vanished. Confused, I spotted a very bright object a decent distance to the right (south) of the Moon and Mars. It looked like a planet to me. It had that "I'm a planet" glow that I thought I knew by now. At the time, it didn't occur to me that Uranus would never shine that brightly in the sky. I looked at it in the binoculars. It still looked like a planet to me. Something in my tired brain assured me that I had found Uranus. In the binoculars, a triangle of stars appeared below the bright object. I just needed to remember that pattern and look back at Stellarium to confirm. I saw exactly the pattern below.
- PeskyAldebaran.jpg (3.2 KiB) Viewed 379 times
Having looked at the sky for almost 40 minutes, cold began to grip me a bit, but Jupiter shone so brightly and deliciously overhead that I had to take a look. All of the Galilean moons appeared, two on each side. I greatly underestimated its high angle and had to crane my neck almost to whiplash and kneel in penance before my tripod to see it. It was worth it. Saturn didn't glow as temptingly, so I headed indoors for warmth.
Once inside, brimming with anticipation, I brought up Stellarium and zoomed to Uranus. Of course the pattern I saw appeared nowhere near the planet. Confused, I zoomed out and noticed a very bright star (magnitude 0.85) pretty much where I had seen the bright object outside. Sure enough, I zoomed into it, Aldebaran, and saw the exact pattern above. Instantly, I knew that I still had no idea how to distinguish planets from bright stars. How the not so mighty fall.
On the upside, the situation presented me with my first star-hopping failure, and I learned a lot from it. Having looked at mostly easy to find objects, I need to have a few fails with more challenging objects to get better at this. So I hope I have one of them out of the way. The next time I look for Uranus (hopefully soon), I will make a map of the star patterns around it so I can have some assurance that I'm looking at a planet and not at some random star that I stumbled upon. In the end, though I didn't find Uranus, I still saw plenty of other great things and had a great time looking upward. And I've learned to value and embrace learning experiences, even embarrassing ones, through the years. In retrospect, they are the most effective way that I've really and truly learned things in the past.
