out with the new toy again

[singlespeedman]

after seeing the forecast offering me a small window of opportunity to get out I decided to venture out into the new forest to see what I could find.

What I did find was some amazing images of the moon. The 15mm lens filled my eyepiece and the 9mm gave fantastic detail of the craters not he moon. The 4mm was actually usable tonight and gave great detail but the effect of the wind on the scope meant that maintaining focus was pretty hard and the 9mm was clearly the winner overall experience.

I was also hoping to get a view of jupiter but all I could get was a clear ball of light with no real detail. If anything it looked a little white with a blue tint and was not the level of detail I was hoping for or the colouring. After looking at the charts for tonight I am wondering if it was in fact Uranus but would I even be able to see that with my scope?

An enjoyable session anyway and I am looking forwards to fitting in a couple if back garden sessions through the week to study the moon in more detail.

[bcfcciderhead]

You should see some banding on jupiter with your scope and also 4-5 moons

check Stellarium to see if it was jupitar.

Still sounds like you had a good night tho, the moon is always a good sight

[singlespeedman]

thanks for that. Based on the time I saw it and the colours I got, mixed with a lack of detail, I have a feeling that it was actually Uranus. It would certainly seem that way after checking where everything was meant to be last night. I guess I should have stuck around a little longer and hoped the cloud lifted a bit more to manage Jupiter (which I am yet to see properly)

[damnut]

Guys, in my sct uranus is a small (and I mean small :-( )disc. Suspect another object, if it was Uranus then good work in this gale, I would have needed a bunker here last night and the moon was on full beam :-).

Hope the Mak arrives today Dave!,.

Cheers

Damian

[singlespeedman]

it was small - a lot smaller than I expected. It was about half the size of my little finger nail at around 166 magnification. I did manage to find it again on the next night and am now pretty certain it was Uranus and the size and absence of detail would certainly explain my disappointment as I do not think my scope is up to viewing it and looking at images of jupiter that have been taken with my scope I would certainly have expected much more size.

[bcfcciderhead]

Size is very mis-leading with scopes most think it will make things much bigger, all you really get is more detail as you increase the mag, i thought the same when i started but a few questions on here put me right.

Oh the mac has landed, thanks very much Damnut its like new!

[John]

All the planets seem small in a scope when you are new to viewing them. Uranus is a tiny dot, even at 200x, but definitely not a star. Jupiter will show a slightly flattened planetary disk and it's 2 most prominent cloud bands readily but more detail that this can be hard to discern - you need to spend an hour or so of continuous observation and then your eye will get adjusted and you will start to intermittently see other bands and maybe even the pale oval that is the Great Red Spot, if it is on the visible side of the planet that is. If the seeing conditions are poor then the 2 principle bands may well be all you can see. In the sort of scopes we all use just the 4 Jovian moons are visible, again when then are not either behind the planet or directly in front of it. Over the last couple of nights I've found 160x-180x the most effective magnification for Jupiter in my 4" and 4.7" refractors.