Day 3 of the Conjunction - yaay warmth!

 The coach was 51 when I went to bed and 51 when I woke up, so that was better than it being colder!

I did wake up around 3 or 4 and put my hoodie on to use the toilet as I just had warm PJ pants and a tshirt on.   I ending up keeping the hoodie on and over my head and went back to sleep that way.   

At 8AM I was jostled awake to what sounded like someone knocking on the door.  I called out wait a minute I'm up, and extricated myself from under the blankets. I sleepily stumbled toward the door and opened it up.  No one was there except a full grown turkey who got spooked by the door and ran around in a circle and left around the side of the coach.

I was understandably befuddled as I was sure there was a knock on the door, but the kids were still asleep in the tent.  Later I was talking to a guy 2 sites over and told him the turkey knocked on my door and he told me he was watching that morning peck at it's reflection in the chrome center caps on my coach.   Ah, now it made sense as I was on the gaucho bed right over the two rear wheels.

Right away I knew it would be a lot warmer today as it was already warmer outside than in the coach.   I opened a few windows to let it breath and pulled the windshield curtains back as there was moisture on the inside  from the cold and my breathing all night.

Lazy morning after putting a serious dent in the rum supplies.  As you can see our astronomy neighbor packed out early (probably around 9ish) happy that he got better photos last night.  The fire pit was filling up with paper and cardboard from 2 days of not lighing a fire, so it'd be and easy start later.

All of a sudden there were a bunch of horse trailers pulling in.  More than I have ever seen at one time in the park (probably 10-12 trailers).   Turns out there was a 'Toy Trot' to collect Christmas gifts.   The local Sheriff came by and got in on the fun, posing for photos.

If you look just to the left of the silver pickup's windshield, you can see the corner of the Taco truck.  We were VERY excited about it, as we never get a Taco Truck while camping.   We walked over and sure enough they were happy to take our cash.  I had a beef burrito and a Pineapple (what else?!) Jarritos. It was very good.  I also got an order of Churros as I wanted some deep fried sugar.

By about 11 AM it was in the mid 60s already!   It topped out around 70 for the day.  The warming trend was caused by the wind swinging around from the NE.  With it came the marine moisture and clouds.  As it was getting near sundown, I started to worry that the planets may be obscured from viewing. 

The clouds thankfully kept pushing west and it was more and more promising.  With Lucy and Naya showing up and our friends and Lucy's cousin and his kids all arriving, I knew tonight would be a lot different experience.

You can see the pile of wood just waiting.  The power cord tells me I have the telescope already set up (it's soooo much easier in the daytime lol).

It was touch and go at first with the planets as the clouds kept blocking them, making it hard to get dialed in.   I then switched up to the moon for a few minutes to get the scope dialed in.   Unfortunately, I don't have a camera setup on the scope yet, however, talking to guy on the next site I learned alot about astrophotography.

I shamelessly stole this pic and the one below off of the web to illustrate what we could see.  Colorwise to the naked eye, these are the closest ones.  

To be able to see two planets and some moons with this detail at the same time in a telescope was beyond my wildest dreams honestly.  Between this and seeing a comet naked eye back in July, has made 2020 the best year in my star gazing career.

This is another web grab.  it is a layered photo.  In other words, the scope didn't move, but there are at least 4 different photos layered here.  One of Jupiter, one of Saturn, one of the moons, and one of the background stars.  You can see all this with your eye, but hard to get the exposures right with a camera, hence the layers (one of the things I learned).

Unfortunately the planets started low in the sky and only got lower in a hurry. As they drop toward the horizon you are looking through more and more atmosphere.  So they start getting fuzzier with the interference.

By 8PM everyone (including some neighbors) had a good look  at the conjunction, Mars, and the Moon and people were antsy to light the fire.  I didn't want soot on the scope so we packed it up and gave the all clear.

We kept our distance and had a great dinner and some drinks and burned all the wood I had brought outside.

Epilogue:

French Toast for Breakfast and a slow start, I was off the site by 12 and on the road.  On the way home the exhaust note changed dramatically as chuck of the muffler left.  My ears were ringing by the time I got home as it was basically open headers.

I tried to catch the binary readout on the odometer at 10101.0, but I didn't quite get it.  Got home around 3:00 and offloaded everything an put her away as we had to swing into Christmas mode.   

Mid January is our next outing!