Last night was beautifully clear. Was I out enjoying the evening, perhaps imaging a couple of astronomical delights? Hell, no! With the temperature bumping at the −6°C mark most of the night, I wimped out. Time was I would go out when it was ten degrees colder than that, but not any more.

I can claim some disincentive was operating, since for the past couple of months I’ve been dealing with a cut on my foot which refuses to heal, and yesterday I opened it up again climbing stairs at a local mall. The broken toenail which precipitated the thing is over, but the malady lingers on. Even a minor foot wound can discourage you from walking around, but hey! I still feel guilty about not going out to observe. Maybe it’s time to give more thought to an automated observatory – at least for winter….

Yesterday I was considering that I had reached my present age (don’t ask) without ever having seen Mercury (well, except in silhouette against the sun). It was past time that I did something about that, so I set my alarm for 6 am and hoped for clear skies. I was inspired by the image in my web cam from yesterday at 6.30 am, which apparently showed Mercury (though I am no longer so certain). Anyway, since the Observer’s Handbook 2006 says this is the best morning apparition of the year for northern observers, it’s a good time to look. Greatest elongation west is on the 25th, so there’s a limited time for this.

At 6 am when the alarm sounded I got up immediately and hobbled (feet still in as bad shape as yesterday) to the back room where the webcam is set up. No sign of Mercury – not a good sign since the webcam supposedly saw Mercury yesterday at 6.30 and I thought the sky was about as clear today as then. I went downstairs, grabbed a pair of binoculars, and stepped outside (cold, 4 below zero Celsius). I had considerable trouble seeing any stars at all, let alone Mercury – by this point the twilight was more ‘light’ than ‘twi’ – but eventually I spotted Arcturus. The fact I had trouble even finding Arcturus is an indication of how bright the sky had become. From Arcturus I dropped down to the horizon and started scanning to the south – and there, barely visible, was Mercury, tough to make out even in the binoculars, and not an easy naked eye object at all – city skies are just too polluted for easy observing near the horizon.

I don’t see Mercury in today’s webcam image, though it should be in almost the same spot, and I suspect that yesterday’s capture was not of Mercury but of one of the planes which pollute the morning sky. The object I found (and tracked for a while to be certain it was astronomical) was further south than the webcam object would have been, even accounting for the difference between my ground-level observing spot and the upper-level placement of the webcam.

While my inspiration may not have been quite what I thought, I have finally added Mercury to my life list of objects observed.

I took a look outside a few minutes ago and saw stars. As mentioned in a previous post, the weather has been cloudy ’round here for quite some time. I’m having a bit of difficulty taking advantage of the situation though due to illness – a very unglamourous ingrown toenail is limiting my ability to move around. I take small steps and very careful ones at that.

My time outside was limited to checking the sky quality – 17.65 mag./sq.arc-sec, which is rather horrendous for a moonless night. I take consolation in the notion that though the sky is nominally clear it’s relatively hazy and so it’s actually a poor night. But that’s pure rationalization — I wish I was out there.

We’ve been in Camarillo for four days now. Most of our time has been spent shopping for household goods since we are completing my daughter’s setup, adding a dining room table to her furniture as well as a low bookcase to serve as a stand for her television (a very nice Westinghouse 42-inch 1080p model which is unfortunately not well served by the local cable service). I brought some tools with me, but had to pick up a rubber mallet to tap the front bar of a futon into place. ‘Tap’ being a relative term, with ‘wham’ being perhaps more appropriate. A local liquidation store, Big Lots, was the source of inexpensive tools to leave behind – screwdrivers, pliers and so on – for Katherine to use for later work.

We found a dining table at Pier 1, but getting it back to the apartment was a bit of a problem – it wouldn’t fit in the rental car, and definitely wouldn’t fit in my daughter’s runabout. We turned to Home Depot for their truck rental by the hour, and found my Canadian driver’s license (more particularly the postal code) wasn’t recognised by their computer, and so we had to fall back on my daughter’s license. In addition, the truck itself was pre-booked the first time we tried for it, and we had to come back the next day. Even with this inconvenience we we able to get everything back to her apartment within a day, so there was no major delay.

Mention of the Pier 1 and Home Depot brings home the fact that our economy is integrated across the continent – I could have purchased the same items in Toronto at the same stores. There is a sizable outlet mall here in Camarillo, but the stores are the same as in Toronto, and I could go to equivalent malls there. As we homogenise the retail base across the continent the shopping rationale sometimes offered for travel fades away, and we are left with the notion of travelling to see new sights and meet new people. What an odd concept!

The temperatures and weather in general in Camarillo have been little short of ideal for the last few days. Yesterday was perhaps a little too warm, but the evening soon cooled back down to a comfortable level, and the hazy skies cleared up to reveal the moon and stars. While I am close to the center of Camarillo (insofar as it has a center) visibility is good compared to suburban Woodbridge – magnitude 3 compared to magnitude 1 skies. Outside of Camarillo the sky is Bortle 5 at the most. On the other hand getting out of town is a little difficult – the area is only semi-rural, with many small towns within a few miles of each other.

As if to offset the great weather we’ve been having, the prediction is for increasing cloud cover, and the day of the Mercury transit itself is supposed to be partly cloudy. I will be setting up for visual observing only – I don’t expect to be ready to catch first contact (though I will be watching for it about 11.12 am) and while the sun will still be above the horizon at fourth contact, it will not be up by much. Sunset is at 4.58 pm local time, and fourth contact will be about 4.10 pm). My hope remains that I will be able to view the transit through gaps in the clouds.