Two Planets, Two Doubles - Early Enjoyment

[cloudsweeper]

6.30am, clear-ish sky, Jupiter on show - so quickly set up the 8SE, and the enjoyment began, although results would have been better with more cooling!

The full Moon was low in the west, Jupiter about 20deg in the south, and Mars a little lower, further east.

Not having seen Jupiter for a long time, it was good to see him again with the usual entourage.  The equatorial belts were easily seen .  Io and Europa formed a close pair, in a line perpendicular to the general orbital plane, and further out, Callisto and Ganymede were slightly further apart, in a line at about 45deg.  Together, they resembled an easy double double.  Very pleasing.  I upped the mag to x113, but any more and poor seeing/lack of cooling ruined the view.

Quick look at the Red Planet, then on to two doubles in Scorpius which lay close by.

Acrab is a quadruple (or quintuple, depending on source), but anyway an easy visual double, 13.5", which split nicely into a mismatched pair at x145.

Jabbah is a septuple system (quite rare, as they tend to break up), which split into another mismatched pair at x56, separation 41".  (Another, closer component should be manageable - something for a later occasion.)

After 40 minutes, the sky was quite light, although Jupiter was still clear.  I packed up to the song of a couple of blackbirds and headed indoors for breakfast.  Great start to the day!

Doug.

[Bino Pete]

Sounds like you had a good morning. I’m hoping to get out tomorrow evening if the forecast stays the same!

[Paz]

Nice report. It is odd hearing about Scorpius at this time of year but that's because I very rarely venture out at this time of day!

[Stu]

A very pleasant way to start the day Doug