Conjunction: Saturn - Mars - Antares / Venus - Jupiter with "green flash"
Location: 2016 Nova East Star Party, farmer's field near Smileys Provincial Park
Date: 2016-08-27
Time: 8:10 - 8:45 PM ADT
Equipment: Binoculars 10x30 IS + Visual
Magnification: x10
Seeing: very good
Transparency: very good
Dr. Roy Bishop had organized with a local farmer to use the farmer's driveway and adjacent field for viewing. A group attending Nova East drove 5 minutes outside Smiley's Provincial Park to the farm with a direct view facing West.
A partly cloudy sky with wide expanses of clear sky. Warm evening with the sky at the horizon in beautiful orange/peach shades. South of the sunset were Saturn with Mars (@ 7 o'clock to Saturn) and Antares (directly below Saturn and @ 5 o'clock to Mars). The two planets and star were extremely bright and other deep-sky objects also shone brightly (I didn't observe the DSOs).
Venus and Jupiter were visible then briefly covered by clouds before coming back into glorious view. Venus was exceptionally bright and positioned almost directly above a smaller and less bright Jupiter. We watched as the two planets lowered into the horizon - first Jupiter, then Venus. Gem of the night was seeing the ever so brief green flash of Venus at the horizon.
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