Back2024 was always going to be The Year of the Texas Eclipse i.e. a total eclipse of the Sun on 8th April, for which I had signed up on a short trip literally 2 years before. But would I actually see it, given my rather poor record? The answer is .... Yes! But it was a close-run thing, as the weather in Texas decided to take a turn for the worse. We were quite lucky though as although the day started cloudy the skies did slowly clear to give us an excellent view before closing in again later in the day. Read all about it via "Solar Eclipses" back on the Space Picture Gallery page. Just before the trip I was happy to make the acquaintance of the planet Mercury once more, low in the western sky with Jupiter in attendance above. I also managed to capture comet 12P/Pons-Brooks on a couple of occasions at the end of March, brightening as it headed for perihelion. Amazingly, these three were also on duty during the eclipse! The comet had moved nearer to Jupiter by this time so both were positioned "up & to the left" of the Sun during the eclipse, and in fact Venus was "down & to the right" as well. Both Mercury and the comet were not bright enough to be seen, but I did manage to capture Pons-Brooks the evening before.
The next "sky event" was a fantastic view of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) on 10th May, the night of the most intense geomagnetic storm for 20 years. This started as a green glow on the northern horizon but rapidly expanded upwards & outwards and became more colourful as it eventually covered the entire northern sky from horizon to zenith. While the naked eye view was amazing, the camera captured much more of the colours and, due to the need for long exposures and the influence of the slight misty cloud which began to draw in, produced images reminiscent of paintings by J.M.W.Turner! Apart from a slight green glow seen out of the window of a plane crossing the northern part of Canada when returning from the 2017 American eclipse it's the first time I have observed auroras. And remarkably it wasn't my last as there was another show on 10th October! Not as dramatic, and needing a camera to capture properly, but great to see.
Noctilucent clouds made a welcome return on the evening of Midsummer Day, having failed to put in an appearance in 2023. Not a particularly notable display, and no sign of them thereafter, but always worth looking out for. I then scored what might be called a near-miss with the lunar occultation of Saturn on 21st August. As with so many astronomical events, conditions were looking perfect right up until the key moment, when thin cloud decided to intervene and spoil the view. There's another chance in January 2025 so I shall hope for better luck then.
And finally (so far!) it was the turn of the so-called "Comet of the Century" - C/2023 A3 ATLAS, also known as Tsuchinshan. Hopes had been high that this would turn out to be a naked-eye comet but, although it did become bright enough for this to be a possibility, while it was at its best it was seen low against a twilight sky which made actually seeing it by eye almost impossible. Persistent cloud was also a problem but I did manage to capture it on a number of occasions.
2023 started with high hopes of a near-naked eye comet - C/2022 E3, otherwise known as ZTF as it was discovered by the Earth-based Zwicky Transient Facility. Observations around dawn when it first became visible were encouraging and as it moved into the evening skies it continued to brighten as it made its closest approach to Earth on 1st February. It never reached naked-eye visibility but was not a difficult object in binoculars so I was able to capture images of it on 27th January and then from 6th to 10th February. I was hoping to do likewise for the close Venus-Jupiter conjunction on 1st March but although the preceding week or so had clear skies, enabling me to watch the two planets getting ever closer, the days around the 1st were clouded out, so that one was rather an anti-climax. There was then little to observe until the autumn, when we had an unusual near-conjunction between a Blue Moon and Saturn at the end of August, and also between a nearly-Full Moon and Jupiter in early October. I then had somewhat better luck than many in the UK with the daytime lunar occultation of Venus on 9th November I'm glad to say, when the clouds cleared just in time for me to capture some images of ingress but returned to blot out Venus' re-appearance. A very interesting, and rare, event to witness though.
2022 was a year of few actual observations. This was not due to a lack of astronomical phenomena but rather that all the "planetary interest" occurred around sunrise - not my favourite time! I thus missed seeing an exceedingly close Venus-Jupiter conjunction, a planetary line-up in the dawn sky (Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Saturn), and a Total Lunar Eclipse. Mind you, the latter would have been very low down in a rapidly brightening sky and would have set before mid-eclipse so not a good total in the UK. Mercury did have a very good eastern elongation (i.e. at sunset) at the end of April but, naturally, I had cloud for several days around that date so couldn't observe it! The bad news ended briefly in October when there was a partial eclipse of the Sun from 10:07 to 11:55 GMT on the 25th. I was fortunate to have only patchy cloud and so was able to take a series of images from first contact all the way through to the end of the eclipse. A much rarer event then took place on 8th December - an occultation of Mars by the Full Moon, from 4:49am to 5:58am. Yes, it was before dawn but I felt it should be worth getting up for due to its rarity - there won't be another one visible in the UK this side of 2040! Just for once, conditions were almost perfect with just a little cloud when Mars vanished behind the Moon and perfectly clear skies as it re-emerged. It was really rather cold though! The only other observations have been of Noctilucent Clouds, in mid-June around the Summer Solstice. This is the usual time for them to appear so I was not surprised but it was good to see them back again.
The lack of observations was balanced to some extent by a couple of theoretical studies. The first, on manual Meridian Flips, was co-written with a school-friend of mine who is also into astronomy but could not find anywhere instructions on how to perform a meridian flip without the use of a computerised mount. An explanation of what a flip actually is, and how we determined how to do one manually, is all explained in our paper on the subject which can be downloaded by clicking here. The second study was a refutation of a paper posted to the arXiv open-access archive which purported to explain the discrepancy between the various calculated values for the Hubble constant by recourse to the recession of the Moon - see https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16551. Total nonsense of course (well, it was posted on 1st April!) but just in case the authors actually believed what they had written I felt a response was necessary - click here to read it. Note that all these links will open in a new window/tab.
2021 was always going to be a difficult year, not specifically astronomically but because the Covid-19 pandemic was still with us. More unexpectedly though, the weather decided to take a turn for the weird. Spring was delayed for many weeks, with a very dry April being followed by a wet May and temperatures staying much lower than usual for months. This did not encourage me to venture out to glance skywards, my first real observations being delayed until mid-May when I obtained some good images of the naked-eye Nova Cassiopeia 2021. I was not able to see the close conjunction between Mercury & Venus on 28th May as cloud got in the way, and the only other close conjunction of the year (Mercury-Mars) on 18th August was very low down at sunset and thus also turned out to be effectively unobservable due to low cloud. The main event to look forward to was of course the partial solar eclipse on 10th June. This was a sort of "score draw", as conditions were better than I had feared but worse than I had hoped for. I did have more luck than much of the country though, as I was able to observe through broken cloud from first contact (10:11am BST) through maximum eclipse (11:17 BST) to about 11:30 when thick cloud finally rolled in. The summer solstice can often welcome displays of noctilucent clouds, and did so again this year - a rather different display than those seen in earlier years, and more displays a few days later. Remarkably, another nova appeared in August, this time a much-anticipated outburst of the recurrent nova RS Ophiuchi which I was able to follow as it came to prominence and then faded. Jupiter and Saturn both came to opposition in August but, as they have been for several years, were low in the sky and thus difficult to observe effectively. There was then little else to whet the appetite before the turn of the year but, had skies been clearer in December, I might just have caught a glimpse of Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) in the evening twilight - but they weren't, so I didn't! Pity, as it put on a spectacular show as it later passed into the southern hemisphere and thus became unobservable from the UK.
The new decade was welcomed with a lunar eclipse in early January 2020. Not a dramatic total eclipse, nor yet a partial, but just a penumbral. These hardly darken the Moon, but as this one would cover almost all the disc I thought I would give it a look - with some success! The last 10 days of March were of interest to anyone getting up early as Mars, Jupiter & Saturn were close to each other in the dawn sky - not my favourite time though! The highlight of the Summer Solstice period turned out to be a double display of Noctilucent Clouds, giving me the chance for some excellent photographs, and just a month later we were treated to the appearance of a naked-eye comet (C/2020 F3 NEOWise) as it crossed below the Great Bear. Jupiter & Saturn were then even closer when they both come to opposition (their nearest to the Earth for the year) in mid-July, and then Mercury & Mars came within 1/5deg in mid-August, but rather low down in the sky at sunset. Mars was then at opposition in mid-October, nice and high in the sky to give some good observing opportunities. And as the year came to an end, Jupiter finally caught up with Saturn for their Great Conjunction - something which happens only about every 20 years. The separation was a miniscule 1/10deg on 21st December, as close as they will get for another 400 years so definitely not to be missed!
The most spectacular event in 2019 was the Transit of Mercury on 11th November, which I managed to observe to some extent despite rather bad weather. The previous transit was just 3.5yrs ago (see my Transits of Mercury page) but the next will not be until 2032 so this was one not to be missed! Earlier in the year we had a Total Lunar Eclipse in the hours before dawn on 21st January. I managed to get few pictures before clouds rolled in but at least I managed to avoid hypothermia (it was a very cold night!). I was taken completely by surprise by an excellent display of Noctilucent Clouds on 21st June, but in fact many locations in the UK and on the Continent also experienced them that night. I then had even worse luck with the Partial Lunar Eclipse on 16th July than on the previous Total, as the skies were totally cloudy all night - I'm sure the clouds were not as bright as would be expected for a Full Moon during the eclipse though! Late in the year there were a couple of planetary conjunctions at sunset (Mercury-Mars, Venus-Jupiter) as well as one between Saturn and the Moon, but they were low in the sky and also obscured by clouds bringing the seemingly continous rain we had in late autumn. Finally, for anyone wanting to celebrate Christmas in a warmer climate, there was an Annular Solar Eclipse on 26th December which no doubt provided some good photo opportunities as it was visible at dawn from Oman. I had seriously thought about going to see it (as I haven't yet seen an annular) but in the end decided not to as the trip would have interfered with Christmas arrangements too much. Probably a good decision in the end as I had a dreadful cold during that period.
2018 began with a number of notable events - a genuine Supermoon; a double Blue Moon; a totally eclipsed Blue Moon, and a very long lunar month. The Supermoon of 1st/2nd January was the largest Full Moon for another 61/2 years and the brightest for another 161/2 years. It was very nicely visible in the UK, as at midnight (when any Full Moon is at it largest apparent size) the Supermoon was almost exactly between the instants of nearest approach and Full. However, as detailed in my article in the Astro-Theory section, the differences in size and brightness were unlikely to be noticeable to a casual observer. This Full Moon was the first of two in January, so the one on 31st was a so-called Blue Moon. This is not particularly unusual (it happens about once every 2 years 8 months) but there was also a Blue Moon in March - a "double" which only happens about once every 27 years and results in February having no Full Moon at all. The January Blue Moon was also totally eclipsed (not visible from the UK, unfortunately), which will not happen again for another 10 years. The next one is 9 years after that but then you'll have to wait until 2137 to see another! The very long lunar month from 18th December 2017 to 17th January 2018 (the longest of the 21st Century, in fact) resulted from the New Moons on those dates being not only at lunar apogee (i.e. the instant the Moon is at its farthest from the Earth) but at the largest apogees in 2017 and 2018 respectively, and the fact that the Earth was at perihelion (the instant it is at its nearest to the Sun) between those dates (on 3rd January). The Moon moves slowest at apogee and the Earth moves fastest at perihelion, so when these coincide the Moon takes a lot longer than usual to "catch up with" the Earth and get to the New Moon position - 7 hours 3 minutes longer than average in this case. There was then another size/eclipse coincidence on 27th July when, at 0:21am BST, the Full Moon was the smallest of the year (for comparison with the Supermoon) and then later that evening it rose totally eclipsed (at 8:48pm) and stayed that way until 10:13pm, during the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st Century. Needless to say, my sky was totally overcast during an extensive thunderstorm sequence! Welcome rain, to break a 7 week drought, but did it have to happen on just the wrong day?? Conditions were very much better on 7th December though when, during a period of cloudy nights, the skies cleared nicely to give me a good view of a very close conjunction between Mars and Neptune. Unfortunately this was not the case in mid-December when comet Wirtanen (46P), at its closest to the Earth on the 16th, passed between the Hyades and the Pleiades and so was well-placed for a northern hemisphere observer. Days of continual cloud and rain spoiled the view, and then the Full Moon joined in, so the best I got was a view through binoculars on Christmas Eve. Ah well - that's British weather for you!
The year 2017 began with a lovely photo-opportunity when Venus, the Moon and Mars came together in the sky. Neptune also got into the act, as it came into conjunction with both these major planets. I was able to get some good shots of the Venus encounter, which was an almost exact repeat of the similar event just over 8 years previously. A coincidence? No! Have a look at my "Uranus & Neptune" pages to get the full story. The highlight of 2017 was bound to be the Total Eclipse of the Sun on August 21st. I was based just to the north-east of Idaho Falls, in the North-West of the USA, looking forward to improving my rather poor record of eclipse viewing - 8 attended, only 3 seen! I thus travelled with hope rather than expectation. Did I get lucky? Check out my eclipse pages to see! There were also a few very close planetary conjunctions in the latter part of the year but as these are all at sunrise my dedication to the cause was severely tested! In fact, I only made it into the dawn for one of them and (guess what?) it was cloudy!
2016 kicked off with an exceptionally close conjunction between Venus & Saturn on 9th January. The absolute minimum separation was a mere 5 seconds of arc but by the time they had risen at my location and appeared through low cloud just before sunrise it was just over 10 arc-sec: still not bad though! I didn't think I would see anything due to the cloud but I had luckily taken my camera to bed with me so was able to take a couple of grab-shots out of the window - one of which just about showed Saturn as well as Venus! Unusually, there was only one more conjunction in the entire year, between Venus & Jupiter on the evening of 27th August, which (by coincidence) was also extremely close: an incredible 4 arc-sec at minimum. It was only 6deg above the horizon at sunset though, which required clear skies low down - and guess what? Yep - cloud! Comet Catalina (otherwise known as C/2013 US10) finally appeared in the evening skies towards the middle of January, but cloudy conditions meant I was only able to get in one observing session, and I then got a rare opportunity to see nacreous clouds early in February. There was then an occultation of Venus by the Moon from 8:32 to 9:08am BST on the morning of 6th April, but as the Moon was only 16deg from the Sun at the time I suspect the event would have been unobservable even if skies had not been cloudy that morning (naturally!). The real stand-out event in 2016 was the Transit of Mercury on the afternoon of 9th May. I was able to see the transit of 7th May 2003 but in a make-shift sort of way using an image projected through a small reflecting telescope, so I hoped to do better this year. The timing was not so convenient though - the transit began at about 12:12pm BST but ended at 7:39pm when the Sun was only 7deg above the horizon. Clear skies and an advantageous viewing position would thus be vital. I'm glad to say that despite cloud late on and everything not going at all according to plan (!) I did get some good images, which are shown on the Transits of Mercury page in the Space Picture Gallery. That was about it for the year though really!
Despite unfavourable weather conditions, 2015 opened with a "naked-eye" comet (C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy) visible in northern skies, moving up from just below Orion on 1st January and heading for Cassiopeia by the end of the month. It was an easy binocular object (but never truly "naked-eye" from here) and well worth pointing the camera at - see my "Comet pictures" page. Next up was a very close approach by the Near-Earth asteroid 357439, when it passed at only three times the distance of the Moon at the end of January at a surprisingly bright magnitude 9. Skies were not crystal clear here so although I was confident I had the camera pointing in the right direction at the right time I couldn't be certain I caught it. Processing of the images showed that I might well have been lucky - even if on only one frame! In mid-July I got a totally unexpected sighting of only my second patch of Noctilucent Cloud, but the highlight of the year, at least in these parts, was a relatively [geographically] close total solar eclipse in March - the nearest to these shores since the "Cornish Eclipse" of August 1999 in fact. The eclipse was total only in a narrow corridor running between Scotland and Iceland, with the shadow making landfall just in Svalbaard, but a very large partial eclipse was visible over the entire UK: only just less than total in the far north and about 85% in the south. We were in the Faeroe Islands hoping the usual cloud cover would part at the right moment - see the Eclipse Pages to find out whether it did! Continuing the eclipse theme, there was a Total Lunar Eclipse in the early hours of 28th September, for which the weather prospects were very good. Things for me didn't turn out quite as well as had been forecast (naturally!) but the extended duration of the event (3hrs 20mins including the partial phase) did enable me to get some good shots - look under My Astrophotographs and then Moon. There were a number of planetary conjunctions to look out for, the best being between Venus & Mars on the evenings of 21st & 22nd February (which clear skies allowed me to see!) and between Venus & Jupiter on the evening of 1st July (which I had mixed fortunes with!). October and November then hosted another three (between Venus, Mars & Jupiter again in fact) but they were at sunrise, which is not my best time, I'm afraid! I did crawl out of bed at 4am to view the triple conjunction between the three of them on 29th October though, as these are a little more unusual. Finally, July was notable for hosting a Blue Moon (the second Full Moon in a month) on 31st - the first such occasion since August 2012. Something for everyone there!
2014 promised to be a good year for asteroids, with a particularly favourable opposition of Pallas on 23rd February (when it was at magnitude 7.0); a "non-occultation" of a 7.8mag star by Metis on 7th March, and a very rare and extremely close conjunction of Ceres and Vesta on 5th July. Pallas is generally difficult to observe, as its eccentric and inclined orbit means it is rarely close to Earth, so I was keen to take this opportunity. Very bad weather during February gave me serious concerns, but three clear nights in a row enabled me to capture my fourth asteroid. To observe a "non-occultation" might seem rather odd, but in this case I was right on the line between an occultation and not, and so I was interested to see what would happen. Conjunctions between two (large) asteroids are among the rarest of planetary phenomena and so I was very keen to catch this one. Several days of bad weather around the date of closest approach unfortunately meant I was unable to observe as I would have wished, but I did manage to get some views before and after so all was not lost. There was also an occultation to look forward to, of Saturn by the Moon on 25th October. This was almost impossible to see though, as the sky was not dark and the Moon was low down & near the Sun. I did take a few shots, but the Moon had gone behind trees on the horizon before Saturn re-emerged just after 6 o'clock. I can thus say I've got a picture of Saturn while being occulted, but it would be hard to prove!
2013 should have been a year of comets and conjunctions, but as usual the weather decided to complicate matters. There was an unusual triple "coming together" of Mercury, Venus & Jupiter at sunset on 26th May which made an excellent photographic subject as, just for once, skies were clear. Mercury and Venus approached again on 19th June (cloudy!) and Mars and Jupiter made a rather easier target on 22nd July - at sunrise though, not my time of day! Finally, Mercury and Saturn got to within half a degree on 26th November but this too was at sunrise. The Moon approached to within 1 degree of asteroid Vesta on 18th February and Venus passed a mere 1/5deg away at sunset on 22nd June 2013 but these were not naked-eye conjunctions as Vesta was at magnitude 7 on the first occasion and was down to magnitude 8 for the second. Not that this mattered though, as it was cloudy here on both occasions! The total solar eclipse of 3rd November was not very conveniently situated, crossing central Africa but passing through countries which are not particularly "tourist friendly". The comets in question were PanSTARRS (C2011/L4) in March and ISON (C2012/S1) in November/December. I was lucky enough to have an excellent view of PanSTARRS during the one clear evening in a fortnight - check out the "Comets" page. Unfortunately, ISON (much touted as "The Comet of the Century") did not survive a very close encounter with the Sun at perihelion and thus broke up before it was able to put on a show. Finally, I managed to get a good view of the fourth European ATV, 'Albert Einstein', on its way to dock with the ISS and also of a very rare sight - a naked-eye nova, the first I'd seen!
2012 promised to be an Olympic Year for observing as well as for sport, with two very rare phenomena happening within a few weeks of each other. Firstly, on 6th June, there was a Transit of Venus. These come in pairs, with each pair separated by over 100yrs. This is the second of the current pair, the first being in 2004 (see my Transit of Venus pages). Only the last part of the transit would be visible at sunrise in the UK, so an early rise was necessary! The second rarity was an occultation of Jupiter by the Moon at 3am in the early hours of 15th July. The line dividing a "full" occultation from "just missed" in fact passed through southern England and so observers in the north-west would see a near miss, those in central England would experience a grazing occultation and those in the south-east would see a full occultation. With the Moon a thin crescent at the time, it would have been a spectacular sight for anyone who had good weather but unfortunately 2012 was one of the wettest years on record. So, even though I was positioned at the top of the church tower for both these events, all I saw on both occasions was thick cloud and light drizzle! I was thus very glad I had had such a good view of the transit of Venus in 2004. The year's total solar eclipse was only visible from the coast of north-eastern Australia at dawn, so I decided not to travel. This might have been a good decision, as the main tourist viewing sites were rather cloudy, but good views were obtained by a party including Francisco Diego (who was with us in Easter Island) further inland.
2011 was unusual in having 6 eclipses - 4 partial solar and 2 total lunar. The solar eclipses were all close to the poles, however, so only 1 of them was visible in the UK. Following the lunar eclipse on the winter solstice in 2010 the only visible partial solar eclipse was on 4th January 2011, which of course is the same day as perihelion. Unfortunately, the result was much the same as in December - too much cloud! Just to complete the hat-trick, the conditions for the total lunar at Moon-rise on 15th June were even worse than the other two - thick cloud this time!! I did have better luck with the total lunar at Moon-rise on 10th December, although this time the cold weather caught me out. I had more success with the planets though, capturing a good sighting of Mercury and a "storm" on Saturn as its rings opened up.
The highlight of 2010 was an incredible trip to Easter Island to view a total solar eclipse. Prospects were not particularly good but fingers were crossed for an improvement to my dismal record in previous years. Was I lucky? Check out the Eclipse pages to see! The major planetary event was a simultaneous opposition of Jupiter and Uranus while they were also in close conjunction. Jupiter was at perihelion (its closest to the Sun), so its distance from the Earth was the least since 1963 - it won't be nearer until 2022. I was able to use this opportunity to record several images of the shadows of its major moons as they crossed in front of its disc. What other conjunctions there were happened very close to the horizon in the evening twilight but that of Mars and Saturn with Venus close-by was nicely photogenic. Comet McNaught skimmed the northern horizon in June, but didn't get particularly bright, and the last thing to look out for was a total lunar eclipse on the morning of 21st December. It set while fully eclipsed so should have been a great photo-opportunity but (of course!) there was so much cloud around it was impossible to see much.
2009 was the year of the Long Eclipse - the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st Century was on 22nd July. I viewed the event from just south-west of Shanghai but didn't have much luck - see my Eclipse pages for the full story. There were nine conjunctions to see, but all bar one of them was near dawn - not my best time! On the planetary front, the rings of Saturn were almost exactly "edge-on" to the Earth at the start of the year, thus giving a very unusual view of the planet, and Jupiter encountered Neptune. Minor planet Ceres was spotted between the clouds, as was the asteroid Juno (at a very favourable opposition), and as a bonus a comet streaked past at high speed. Finally, the Full Moon on 31st December was red, white and blue simultaneously! Red because it experienced a (very small!) partial eclipse, White because it was full, and Blue because it was the second full Moon in the month. A partially eclipsed blue Moon is a pretty rare event so I was delighted to get some good images during a break in the rain clouds at just the right moment.
The themes for 2008 were "coming together" and "cloud". The total lunar eclipse in February was somewhat spoilt by said cloud, the large partial in August was completely blotted out and the occultation of Venus was entirely invisible throughout its entire duration for the same reason!! The "Jupiter Without Satellites" event just before dawn on 22nd May, when for about 20mins none of the Galilean moons was visible due to being either occulted (behind the planet), in transit (in front of the planet) or eclipsed (in the planet's shadow), was also obscured by cloud [naturally!]. Such events are rather rare - just 45 in the two centuries from 1900 to 2100, with the next not until 2033 - so I'm not particularly confident about seeing another! It goes without saying that the total solar eclipse on 1st August was rather a disaster - yep, cloud again. However there were seven major planetary conjunctions to try to observe [cloud permitting!], plus a bonus one with the Moon, and the year ended with Venus and Neptune also comnig close.
2007 was the year of the Moon! In the early months it featured in conjunctions with Venus and then Saturn before occulting Saturn and being totally eclipsed on successive days. Saturn itself came to opposition in February and Mercury and Venus were nicely visible at sunset around the same time. Later in the year there was a close conjuction of Venus and Saturn plus one between the Moon and Uranus, and Jupiter and the asteroid Vesta also came together in late August for a most unusual (and very close) conjunction. I was able to capture both Uranus and Neptune in September and then a comet unexpectedly burst into prominence in November. The Moon returned to action yet again with a near occultation of Mars on Christmas Eve (behind cloud!).
The highlight of 2006 was a total solar eclipse but Saturn was again well placed early in the year and then a close conjunction between it and Mars in June and between Mercury, Venus & Saturn during August, together with a rare triple conjunction in December, gave opportunities to add to my collection. Mercury also obliged with a brief visit during a spell of fine weather in June.
The winter of 2004/05 was a little quieter but still provided good opportunities to observe Saturn and Jupiter, and in the case of Saturn to spot another moon and see how the view of the rings had changed since the previous year. There was a very close conjunction of Mercury and Venus in June to look forward to, then a further annular eclipse in October.
The period from May 2003 to June 2004 was a particularly good one for astronomical observations. It began with an annular eclipse of the Sun and the transit of Mercury, continued with a very close approach of Mars, and ended with Venus being nicely seen in the early summer skies before it also passed across the Sun in transit. There were also the oppositions of Saturn then Jupiter to consider and also a chance to see an outer planet.