Slightly hazy skies but the bright ones still shine

[John]

The forecast tonight was not too good but I put the Takahashi FC100DL out anyway. A hazy cloud layer dominated the sky but Venus was twinkling though and the scope view was very rewarding. Some definite hints of contrast variations, slighty darker and slightly lighter areas, were visible on a crisply defined disk at 225x - 300x. 

The thin haze persisted so all but the brightest stars were invisible. Jupiter was bright towards the SE though so that was my next target. 130x-150x provided the best views of the gas giant and up 6 belts were visible plus the north and south polar darkenings, much lumpiness across the north equatorial belt with a couple of festoons looping down across the equatorial zone. The Great Red Spot was in transit and I've been following it across the disk as I've observed. The GRS is tightly nestled into the GRS hollow on the south edge of the south equatorial belt and seemed a pale pinkish colour tonight. The thin haze muted Jupiter colour tones a little I felt but the view was still very enjoyable.

The four Gallilean moons were nicely set out in a 2 plus 2 arrangement with Jupiter in the middle. Europa is going to pop behind Jupiter's disk shortly so I'll "pop" out again to see that. The apparent disks of Jupiters 4 largest moons were clearly different sizes in the eyepiece tonight - I could have made a fairly good estimate of which was which by their apparent diameters alone I reckon.

I could just about find a few bright double stars and Epsilon Lyrae, Izar and Delta Cygni made a nice diversion from the solar system targets.

The moon is 99% or more illuminated tonight but there are still a few shadowed craters in the area around the dark floored Grimaldi so I'll have some lunar exploring to do for a while .....

 

 

[MarsG76]

What a excellent night of observing for hazy conditions.... nicely written report, literally reading it here while at work and you report made me wish I was outside starring into the eyepiece.

[Stu]

Nice one John. We had similar conditions but no time to observe. I did think that perhaps conditions might be quite stable given the haze and it seems that was the case. Shame I couldn’t get out, wanted to see GRS

[David Levi]

Nice report. I was looking at Jupiter and the Moon last night as well. Despite the haze Jupiter was incredibly steady. I pushed the magnification up to 250x but was more satisfied at 200x magnification. The GRS was looking nicely red and the NEB was quite dark. I could only just make out the dark north polar region with difficulty.

The Moon terminator was interesting with lots of bright rocky islands floating in the darkness.

[John]

1 hour ago, David Levi said:

..... lots of bright rocky islands floating in the darkness.

Nicely put David

[chiltonstar]

Very nice John.

Unfortunately, the haze here was a bit too dense, with the Moon only just visible. Shame, because I wanted to try out some unusual filters on Jupiter and the GRS.

Chris

[John]

4 hours ago, chiltonstar said:

.... Shame, because I wanted to try out some unusual filters on Jupiter and the GRS.

 

Sounds interesting Chris - I'll look out for reports from you on the results

[Red Dwarfer]

Very interesting report - thanks for the heads up on Delta Cygni - I'd never knew of that triple before I wiki'ed it a moment ago ...

I missed Jupiter last night but bagged some newish doubles , including Kuma in Draco , 26 Draco , 16/17 Draco and Kemble's Cascade with that nice little 1502 cluster at the end of it ?

[mark81]

 Sounds like A real nice session there.  It's amazing to hear what really can be achieved by using pure quality (of course you have to know what you are doing) maybe not the biggest scope but reports like this make you wonder if a huge scope is really needed!  With a few other reports on the SW 100ed I'm certainly leaning towards something like this for my next scope ..

[Eastman]

Great session John, great to see so much detail on Jupiter.

Amazing to see the different sizes of the moons.

[John]

Thanks for the comments folks

Another GRS transit in progress right now. Fine views again - Skywatcher ED120 tonight.

[Red Dwarfer]

1 hour ago, John said:

Thanks for the comments folks

Another GRS transit in progress right now. Fine views again - Skywatcher ED120 tonight.

Thanks for the heads up - looking at the GRS in the Mak now ?