Saturday February 21, 2015 - Winter Weather Notes and an Evening Grouping of Venus, Mars, and the Waxing Crescent Moon

  This has not only been a tough time of year to get out to do some observing, it's been difficult to even work up the motivation to observe. Cold air, bitter wind chills, and snow all over my back porch always sap my enthusiasm to carry the telescope outside, get it assembled, and shiver while standing and staring through the eyepiece. It's especially tough on my hands; I've never figured out how to change eyepieces, work the telescope's control paddle, and take notes while wearing gloves. Usually my fingers get numb and painful within fifteen minutes of exposure, and I'm usually retreating back inside to warm up after just half an hour. Winter skies have some of the best targets and the season often features the darkest and most transparent conditions, but it also gives me the worst environment for doing amateur astronomy.

  Last winter (2013-2014) was a horrible one. It had the worst cold snaps in twenty years and the heaviest snow accumulation in thirty years! I did very little observing then. For obvious reasons!

  This winter things have been a lot different. We've definitely had some long, harsh cold snaps (with some big thaws here and there) but what was amazing, at least up to February, was the lack of snow. The most accumulation we had on the ground was 2.5" in mid-November. That was gone in days. We had some very minor "dustings" of snow cover in late November all the way through December. On January 5th and 6th we had a 2" snowfall that stayed on the ground, then more minor snowfalls through the rest of that month. There was slightly worse weather in February, with several 1" to 1.5" snowfalls scattered through the month. And, as I mentioned, we've had several surges of very cold Arctic air in those months.

  This past week has been the harshest of all for the winter. On Monday the 16th we ended up on the edge of a southern winter storm system which ended up giving us about 1.5" of snow all over the ground. This was followed by a strong, windy blast of cold air that was preceded by another inch of snowfall Tuesday evening the 17th through Wednesday morning the 18th. Wind chills in Indianapolis went below zero°F from the daylight hours of Wednesday and stayed there through Friday afternoon the 20th. We had issues with blowing and drifting snow, especially on Wednesday. It was brutal!

  (I should write here that New Moon occurred at 6:47 PM EST on Wednesday February 18th.)

  By Friday the 20th things looked like they were improving. The latest "polar vortex" had moved on and south winds had temperatures climbing back into the teens°F by afternoon. But we were under a Winter Storm Warning by afternoon, with another southern system expected to clobber us Saturday. Anywhere from 4" - 7" of accumulation was expected in Indianapolis. 2" or so of snow cover still remained on the ground.

  There were some light flurries on Friday evening the 19th. At midnight, as Saturday began, the snow started falling steadily, from big wet flakes to smaller pellets. There was an extra inch on the ground by 1:30 AM and at least 2" of new snow everywhere by 3:00 AM. Winds were light and the temperature was rising all night. At midnight we'd been at 16°F with a wind chill of 6°F but by sunrise (at 7:29 AM) we were at 21°F without much of a wind chill. Snow kept falling in bands throughout this morning and finally tapered off by about 2:00 PM. From what I can see, the south side of Indianapolis received about 5" of new snow from this system, and we ended up with 7" on the ground total including the accumulation we'd had from the systems earlier this week. This was how the front yard and driveway looked by 2:00 PM today. This wasn't a big storm by last winter's standards, but it was by far the storm with the heaviest snowfall we'd had this winter.

  Sunshine started to break out on Saturday afternoon, and winds stayed light. By afternoon we crept above the freezing point for the first time in nine days (since the evening of Wednesday February 11) and peaked at 35°F by 4:00 PM. It was actually a pleasant feeling afternoon after being in the deep freeze for over a week! Clouds started moving in again by dusk and temperatures started falling. By midnight, under overcast skies, we were down to 20°F with calm winds. I'd spent the day shoveling and sweeping the front sidewalk and driveway, and clearing the snow from the Civic. Here's how things looked by about 5:00 PM.

  Overcast skies on Friday night the 20th had spoiled my view of a close grouping of the Waxing Crescent Moon, Venus, and Mars. However, on Saturday evening the 21st the sky at dusk was clear enough to see all three of these objects in a slightly different arrangement.At 6:45 PM (about 18 minutes after sunset) I stepped out the back door with the 7x50 binoculars to have a look. The Moon was a thin bright fingernail shape just three days past New Moon, with Earthshine clearly visible on the unlit part. It was about 13 degrees above Venus, which was easy to see with the naked eye even as sunset had been happening. Using the binoculars first, then with the naked eye, I could see much dimmer Mars extremely close to the upper right of Venus (just 26' away, or less than half a degree!) I made a rough sketch of how they all looked this evening and included it below.