Moon, transit and doubles.

[cotterless45]

Difficult milky skies, just settled on the Moon and some good views of the Straight Wall and terminator. There seemed to be more contrast and grainy details than of late. 

Jupiter floated in an out of good seeing. Trick is  just focus on a shadow , then wait for details to come in and out, no point in fiddling around with continual focussing. Anyway , I'd never seen such a dark shadow of Callisto near the pole and it was enthralling to watch. Other belt details appeared to the pokes and equator with signs of a festoon here.

On to a beautiful orange and blue double , catch the 20.1" wide 24 Comae Berenices for orange and blue. Still in C.Berenices, get 35 for a lovely triple , being a tight 1.2" with a wider C. 2 Comae Berenices gives lovely contrast .

Just some washed out globular clusters down to M5 completed the milk tour.

clear skies !

Nick.

 

[Stu]

Which scope were you using Nick? The festoons looked huge in the 8", and I just about caught Callisto when it was cente disk. Shadow looked large and very black!

[Saganite]

Pretty much covered the same ground Nick. The Moon was really stable in the 12" Dob and Binoviewers- 190x, and I " lost" myself for well over an hour.

Did not quite make the completion of Callisto's transit shadow as the clouds came in at 11.30 pm, but for a while it acted as a natural filter which enhanced the view.

[alan potts]

A nice short warm milky report from you Nick, I hope you are now not going to endure the weather like I have had to for the past 5 weeks. I do look at the UK on my Sat 24 weather pictures, it shows all of Eroupe just about, looked like a nasty clump of cloud to the west last night.

[Piero]

Another great report Nick!  

The shadow of Callisto on Jupiter's North polar region was very distinct and dark on my 60mm too. It was the first shadow I saw, so no comparison for me, but I was really impressed at seeing it like that! I sometimes have the impression to see the GRS, but its borders are just too confused with the rest of the South Equatorial belt, to really exclamate "Eureka!".  

[estwing]

Yet to see the wall ...Steve says it's like a hair on the ep!...clear Darker skies Nick...

[niallk]

The Wall was just superb last night, jumping out on a full disc view - my first time really seeing it well.  Lost myself wandering through craters, gullies, rilles, domes and all sorts of features I don't know the names of last night.  Just great!

(Jeez - does this mean I need a long f-ratio 'frac??!)

[cotterless45]

Errrrrr, yes. Try 150 f8 achro. Don't bother with those short Apos. We were observing epsilon Lyrae at SGL in fracs and the sky was so bad that Vega disappeared. Fracs punch through when Newts and Cats give up,

Nick.

[laudropb]

Nice report Nick. For once the seeing was good. On the Moon I managed to see the whole of the rille in the alpine valley. First time for a while. I manage to see Callisto in transit and the start of the shadow transit, just as the cloud rolled in to bring things to am abrupt halt.

[cotterless45]

That's good seeing , the rille is about 1km widest ,

Nick.

[Knighty2112]

Nice report Nick. Rupes Recta comes up great in my frac too. Alas, was away for 3 nights with work, so missed any chance to view the transit of Jupiter or any moon views. Sadly, the weekend weather forcast is not good. Up in Scotland for Sunday and Monday night, some may take my small frac up just in case I do get some clear skies.  

[mapstar]

Nice one again Nick and I agree the skies were very washed out and milky looking.

I'm loving the sketch of Jupiter transit.