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Quick Observations 18 May 2015


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No sketches tonight as it was partly cloudy. I wasn't able to get but a few minutes of viewing time between cloud bands. So, due to observing limitations, I decided to take my lovely wife, Carolyn, on a little celestial tour. The seeing was actually almost perfect! Very dark. Very crisp stars. No twinkle that I could notice. However the transparency was not so great. Cloud-ish and hazy with a few puffballs that would float past occasionally. I used all 3 Plossl eyepieces tonight just to kind of play around with some limitations since I wouldn't be able to make long observations. We started the night off with M13 in Hercules. Though it was hazy you could still get some decent detail at 165x with the 10mm Plossl. As advised yesterday by Mr. Spock, I went ahead and took a look at M92 in Hercules as well! Much smaller core it appeared than M13 and not as many stars it seemed, but still just as magnificent! (I'm not so sure the Mrs. is in agreement with the magnificent part. Lol. She's not near as fascinated by this stuff as I am. Lol. :smiley: ) Next clearing of the heavens we had, I pointed the scope towards Lyra to take a, what turned out to be brief, look at M57. Always an impressive sight and even the wife agrees on that one. Said it looked like a smoke ring in space! (On a side note, although viewing conditions were not ideal I was able to make out a somewhat green tint to the Ring Nebulae.) Our next stop along the way was M44 in Cancer. And then an old friend of mine, Jupiter! (Besides, to the Mrs., the planets are more of the bees knees than a bunch of "smudges" among the stars. Lol. ) Jupiter looked incredible. Though because of the haze it had a bit of a halo, the northern and southern hemisphere cloud bands could easily be seen, along with the great red spot almost out of view in the southern cloud band. Then off to her favorite, Saturn! Again, magnificent view! That one always makes her smile!! Despite the hazy conditions, I could still make out the Cassini Division and a dark band across the equator, which I assume was the shadow of the rings. After peering at the ringed giant, cloud cover became too dense to continue any meaningful observations, so her and I called it a night. This was around 0300hrs UTC.

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