The Sky this morning - 17th November 2014

6 a.m. and going out with my 8 X 30 binoculars another glittering sky dominated by Orion to the South West with Jupiter very bright at magnitude -2.2. After a minute or so I realise that in fact there is a glow to the sky and spot the Moon at altitude 35 degrees towards the East. I automatically look at the Great Nebula in Orion through my binoculars first - a sort of ritual now - and particularly notice the pairs of stars sitting in a line at different angles to that line.

I didn't see this - I used a remote telescope to take this image

 or this - taken with my Sony camera and telephoto lens at 400mm

but that's getting closer to the visual impression - without the colour of course.

It certainly wasn't like this - taken with the Sony Alpha at 500mm.

 

I used the same camera and lens to quickly snap the Moon this morning

The Moon this morningThe Moon data for 6 a.m. this morning corresponding to my image above from the SkyX follows - it tells that the Moon is in Leo at 35 degrees with a phase of about 27 percent and is waning.

Object Name: Moon

Altitude: +35° 25' 51"

Constellation: Leo

RA (Topocentric): 11h 31m 37s
Dec (Topocentric): +00° 14' 19"
RA (2000.0): 11h 30m 51s
Dec (2000.0): +00° 19' 13"
Azimuth: 122° 08' 23"
Phase (%):  26.69% (waning)
Rise Time: 02:44
Transit Time: 08:57
Set Time: 15:06
Air Mass: 1.72
RA Rate (arcsecs/sec): 0.337273
Dec Rate (arcsecs/sec): -0.162214
Date: 17/11/2014
Time: 06:00:00 STD
Constellation (Abbrev.): Leo
Moon Ecliptic Longitude: 172° 42' 46"
Moon Ecliptic Latitude: -02° 17' 44"
Moon Parallax: 0.9103
Moon Angular Diameter:   0° 29' 46"
Moon Distance (km): 401,477.53
Moon True RA: 11.4934
Moon True Dec: 0.7828
Moon Topocentric Ang. Diameter: 0.5007
Moon Alt w/Refraction: 35.8905
Moon Total Libration l: -2.2287
Moon Total Libration b: 2.9845
Moon Optical Libration l: -2.2363
Moon Optical Libration b: 2.9367
Moon Physical Libration l: 0.0076
Moon Physical Libration b: 0.0477
Moon Position Angle: 24.6372
Phase Angle: 117.7887
Moon Pos. Angle of Bright Limb: 112.0213
Moon's Age (Days Past New): 24.22
Sidereal Time: 08:37
Julian Date: 2456978.70833579
Click Distance: 0.0000
Frame Size (arcmins): 30.0423
Celestial Type: 35
Index: 10
Constellation Number: 45