Neptune and Triton, 04.09.2019
In the first days of September 2019 Neptune had a great conjunction with the 4.2mag bright star "phi Aqr" in the constellation Aquarius. This of course made it especially
easy to find the most distant planet in the telescope. "Phi Aqr" is by the way a red giant star with 35 times the diameter of our sun and the spectral type M1.5 as well as a
surface temperature of 3,700 Kelvin. It shines with a brightness of 210 suns. It is interesting that it is as heavy as the sun. Thus it is an example of what will happen to our
Sun in a few billion years.
In my 20" I had a very nice view of the conjunction, because the colors of "Phi Aqr" and Neptune are complementary to each other and therefore the color contrast is very
high. Of course the moon Triton was again quite easy to see.
Some days later Neptune and "Phi Aqr" were only a few arc minutes away from each other. Unfortunately I had no opportunity to observe this surely great spectacle...
