Ever alert Blaire Pellatt noticed in Sky& Telescope that there would be a close conjunction of the Moon and Mars on this date and alerted the rest of the Victoria Centre. The moment of closest approach was around 1400hrs PST and the Moon would have been above the horizon but alas the weather didn't cooperate. At 1640hrs, while I had to be out to get my son, the Moon was in a clear patch in the sky. I pulled over to the side of the road and took out my 10 X 50 binoculars that I always keep there for just such occasions. Mars was easily visible about a degree to the west of the Moon.

I then held one finger up and placed one edge of it against the right hand side of the Moon. Leaning against the truck for stability and staring past the right side of that finger I tried to relax my stare and focus on infinity. Suddenly a small faint dot began to appear to the right of my finger. As I lowered my hand the dot held steady and brightened a bit. I believed that I was seeing Mars naked eye before Sunset in a bright blue sky. The time was 1642 PST. Checking later I saw that this was 11 minutes before Sunset. Woo Hoo!

1/2 hour later after getting back home I took this photo using my son's Canon Digital Rebel XTi, at prime focus, through an 80 mm William Optics Zenithstar EDII refractor on a manual alt/az mount. The time was 1730 hrs and the duo were 1 degree 50 minutes apart at that time. A little editing of curves and sharpening was done in Photoshop. And I do mean little, because I don't really know what I'm doing with the whole imaging thing. Give me a pencil and erasure any day.