Short Note on Jupiter and Venus

 For today's entry, this will be just a short entry about the close approach on Jupiter and Venus in the western sky. Tonight should be the closest, with the separation being only around 0.5 degrees. I don't know if it will be visible due to clouds in the area of Richmond, Va, where we are currently staying. The GOES satellite image shows what I mean.

 

Last night February 28th, through clouds, I was able to get an image, which wasn't too bad.

 

[Update]

And.... I was only partially right. There was still a lot of high cloudiness, but I was able to at least get the duo.

I Guess This One Should Start “Where Have I Been?"

It's been almost a year since the last entry, and, like the last entry, a lot has happened. Details are boring, but I have thought about making blog entries. Google Analytics shows the blog has been viewed about 1400 times, which is very much more than I thought it had been seen. When I log in, it looks like there have been almost no viewings for the last year. I figured, if no one is looking, why write. Apparently, somebody may have happened upon it a few times. However, in my defense, we haven't been home for months, being in Virginia helping our daughter and family. So, not much astronomy has been done. However, today, while still in Virginia, I imaged the sun and captured one of the longest filaments I have seen. 

By my crude calculations, the long filament (the dark line roughly in the middle of the image), if drawn out, would stretch from the earth to the moon....and back to the earth....and then about ¼ the way back to the moon. To refresh your memory, a filament is a prominence, but viewed from directly above. (Prominences are seen on the edge of the sun and can look like a wave of plasma coming off the sun. There is a small prominence in this image about the 8 o'clock area.) Solar Cycle 25 is really coming alive.!