Lovely GRS tonight

[Stu]

A quick report, something and nothing really. Main reason for posting is that the views I had tonight count as the best for me this apparition. It has been pretty sparse pickings so far, with poor seeing affecting a lot of the views so it's not a dramatic statement!

This evening I picked up Jupiter by around 8.45, had a nice ten minutes with it still in daylight, then had dinner and came out at 9.45 for the GRS transit. Pretty stable seeing for once, plenty of detail visible including both the north and south temperate zones and belts. There was some high haze around which muted the GRS colour a little, but still nicely defined with its little white brow.

Clouds stopped play by about 10pm, so all in all quite brief, but well worth it.

I've left the GP pointing at roughly the right place so hopefully I'll pick it up more easily if we get more clear skies in the next few days.

[John]

Sounds great Stu

Astro Society meeting for me tonight plus cloudy skies so indoor astronomy

Which of your scopes was out tonight ?

[GavStar]

Hurrah! Skies have just cleared of clouds here and getting great views of Jupiter with Io v close to the limb.

[Ibbo!]

Glad somebody got some good seeing

Shopping,clouds,rain and man flu mean I'm not out tonight.

[John]

16 minutes ago, Ibbo! said:

....Shopping,clouds,rain and man flu.....

What a rotten mixture Steve

I could cope with clouds, rain and man flu ........ but shopping !

[AstroKane]

Down in Essex here - clouds have rolled in, had about 10 minutes on Jupiter.

Guzzling down coffee now - apparently 1-2am should be good my end...must stay awake 

[Cjg]

Great report, managed a few minutes on the GRS tonight with some visitors to Seething. Some good views in the 14" Meade and a six inch reflector, followed By a look at the Double Double; clouded over by 2220 though.  A small window of observing,  but will take whatever comes our way this Summer.

[Stu]

8 hours ago, John said:

Sounds great Stu

Astro Society meeting for me tonight plus cloudy skies so indoor astronomy

Which of your scopes was out tonight ?

The Tak again John, I'm heading back to minimal observing again with just that and the C925 . Not too much of a hardship though  

[Stu]

8 hours ago, Gavster said:

Hurrah! Skies have just cleared of clouds here and getting great views of Jupiter with Io v close to the limb.

At last!! Which scope Gavin? Or did you use both?  

[cloudsweeper]

Nice one, Stu.  It's always a buzz to see the GRS, even though - for me at least - it's usually more of a PGS.  

(Pale Grey Sausage.)

Doug.

[GavStar]

8 minutes ago, Stu said:

At last!! Which scope Gavin? Or did you use both?  

Just the AP last night Stu - not much time with the clouds coming across often. More detailed comments are in the member reviews section. Hopefully just a bit of an apertiser for the future!

[Stu]

7 hours ago, Cjg said:

Great report, managed a few minutes on the GRS tonight with some visitors to Seething. Some good views in the 14" Meade and a six inch reflector, followed By a look at the Double Double; clouded over by 2220 though.  A small window of observing,  but will take whatever comes our way this Summer.

Nice one! Absolutely right, my observing seems to be in bite sized chunks between the clouds these days!

[Stu]

1 minute ago, Gavster said:

Just the AP last night Stu - not much time with the clouds coming across often. More detailed comments are in the member reviews section. Hopefully just a bit of an apertiser for the future!

Great! I'll go have a read  

[kerrylewis]

I had a reasonable clear chunk which I wasn't expecting. I quickly set up the 100ED on the ioptron for Jupiter. Seeing was very steady and the GRS was in full view and looking a good dark red with lots of detail around it in the belts. The moons were all clear discs and showing some colour variation.

i went on to bag Comet Johnson before the moon rose and, for good measure, took advantage of the seeing (and my new Ethos eyepiece) to easily split Zeta Herculis - a first. Then clouds started to appear 

A rewarding session 

 

[Stu]

19 minutes ago, kerrylewis said:

I had a reasonable clear chunk which I wasn't expecting. I quickly set up the 100ED on the ioptron for Jupiter. Seeing was very steady and the GRS was in full view and looking a good dark red with lots of detail around it in the belts. The moons were all clear discs and showing some colour variation.

i went on to bag Comet Johnson before the moon rose and, for good measure, took advantage of the seeing (and my new Ethos eyepiece) to easily split Zeta Herculis - a first. Then clouds started to appear 

A rewarding session 

 

Sounds like you had excellent conditions Kerry. 'Zeta Herc' and 'easy' are not often seen in the same sentence!!  

[kerrylewis]

2 minutes ago, Stu said:

Sounds like you had excellent conditions Kerry. 'Zeta Herc' and 'easy' are not often seen in the same sentence!!  

Yes, perhaps "easy" is bragging a bit, but I was surprised how clear it was with just the 4". In fact I moved on and then  I wondered if I had seen it so went back to it to confirm. I think seeing was extremely good for a short while. 

[kerrylewis]

Hmmm ...reading other threads about the difficulty of Zeta H I am now wondering if I did see it. But what could cause a mistaken view? I was only using 90x mag and this should not have been enough? Anyway, this shouldn't be under planetary - perhaps I'll post elsewhere. 

[Stu]

52 minutes ago, kerrylewis said:

Hmmm ...reading other threads about the difficulty of Zeta H I am now wondering if I did see it. But what could cause a mistaken view? I was only using 90x mag and this should not have been enough? Anyway, this shouldn't be under planetary - perhaps I'll post elsewhere. 

There doesn't seem to be anything else around that could be mistaken for it Kerry, but it seems unlikely at x90. What sort of separation were you seeing?

[chiltonstar]

Jupiter was washed out here last night with 95% cloud, but hoping for better tonight as there is an Io + shadow transit around 22:30 this evening.

Chris

[Stu]

38 minutes ago, chiltonstar said:

Jupiter was washed out here last night with 95% cloud, but hoping for better tonight as there is an Io + shadow transit around 22:30 this evening.

Chris

Great! Not seen a shadow transit for ages!!! Blooming cloud!  

[chiltonstar]

12 hours ago, Stu said:

Great! Not seen a shadow transit for ages!!! Blooming cloud!  

......and again!

10 secs total viewing in half an hour of cloud, although the shadow disk was easy to spot!

Chris

[FenlandPaul]

Nice report, Stu.  I've just come in from a couple of hours dodging clouds but managed to get a very clear shadow transit of Io - like Chris - which progressed noticeably during the time I did my sketch.  then took another look at 2300 (BST) and Io itself had just emerged off the western limb, looking stunning.

[John]

8 minutes ago, chiltonstar said:

......and again!

10 secs total viewing in half an hour of cloud, although the shadow disk was easy to spot!

Chris

10 seconds more than I got Chris !

Had the scope out anyway in case there were any breaks but then the drizzle started .....

 

[Stu]

Sorry to hear that John. Remarkably I did actually get some good views earlier on. The seeing got worse later on in the clear spells between clouds but the shadow was very clear before things deteriorated.