(Nearly) a night with the planets or that's what happens when you buy new gear.

[johnfosteruk]

So I decided to have an early session with Jupiter, Mars and Saturn this evening what with the latter 2 of those elusive creatures just starting to creep up above the rooftops opposite the front of us.  About half past 9 I found Jove looking all pretty with GRS almost dead centre of the disc and Ganymede, Io and Europa putting on a good show. The seeing good but not quite exceptional, plenty adequate to tease some detail using the 10mm and Barlow supplied with my OTA. I can't wait to unleash the Baader Hyperion 8mm on Jupiter (half of the new gear mentioned in the title - and as we shall see, already the new gear cloud genie has punished me, before it's even delivered) 

Half an hour later and a little cloud comes in over Jupiter but over the rooftops to the left there's Mars so around we go. At 9 degrees altitude, over rooftops and my current EPs I'm never going to get a great view but at 10mm - 90x if I concentrate I can just discern subtle light & dark areas which I'm happy with, you take what you can get and its good to have evidence you've not just been looking at a featureless disc  

Then the clouds came in over Mars again so it was back to Jupiter until Saturn peaked over the rooftops. Some kids walking back from the shop seemed interested and got talking and came for a look, they were most intrigued by Jupiter and her moons. The views in that direction were good. 

Then, right about the time that I was expecting Saturn to appear the clouds rolled in, nothing heavy but enough to obscure everything to the south east. I waited it out for half an hour but by then everywhere was cloudy, to be fair clear outside did forecast it for 11pm so no surprise, it was just a little early. 

So the lesson this evening kids is that the cloud genie seems to be reading my emails, he knows I've got stuff on the way and is punishing me already, change your passwords.

Seriously though, there's  plenty of time for Saturn, she should be positioned nicely over my local horizon in the coming weeks, I'm looking forward to as much time in her company as I have had with her big sister over the last few months. It's just as well we have these neighbours to keep us busy on short summer nights.

 

[laudropb]

Nice report of a good session.