Jupiter and an unexpected Outreach session.

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Being more or less surrounded by trees, I have barely had a glimpse of Jupiter or Saturn this year.

Imagine my joy to be woken by the buzz of chainsaws on Thursday morning! My brand new next-door neighbours have cut down two of their trees to make room for a project. I now have a fairly clear horizon from the E to SSE. The planets are back on the agenda.

Following a heads-up from @Stu about GRS visibility I put the 200p out at 9.30pm on Friday. Jupiter was already shining in the bright twilight. I reckoned I had about 30 minutes before it disappeared behind the remaining trees. No time for cool-down or alignment, I just pointed the scope manually & turned on the tracking. The seeing was better than I expected with such a low target. It was steady at x150. As well as the equatorial belts the North temperate zone was intermittently visible & the GRS and Io seemed to be in a race to be first to disappear behind the limb of the giant planet. I love to see the 4 moons hanging alongside the gas giant.

I noticed six  of my new neighbours & their friends at the bottom of their garden. Looked like University Students.  Don't know what they were doing but I detected the aroma of "herbal" tobacco.

I pointed out Jupiter & asked if anyone wanted to see it through a telescope. They all trooped round & queued up at the eyepiece. They seemed fascinated that what looked like a star was actually a planet, with moons. One was concerned that Io, which was just grazing the limb, might be about to collide with the planet.

I don't know if any of them will take up the hobby, but given what they were probably smoking I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of them woke up this morning believing that they had been to Jupiter, not just seen it through a telescope. 😀