Back Out Again (18th July 2020)

[rob_r]

A short 90 minute observing session on Saturday night, a rare sight was a clear sky for once after what seems like a couple of months of persistent cloud and we had a full day of drizzle near Preston. The sky started to clear from about 9pm with the odd high cloud floating through. This was by first outing in about 3 months and my SynScan controller pretty much confirmed that when I powered on and it displayed the date from the backend of April. Using the fading light, I setup my Mak 127 up on the EQ5 mount and hooked into the mains after carefully avoiding my wife's 5ft high sunflowers. This time around and after seeking advice on here, I used the 'Polar Align App' on my iPhone and a wooden holder I fashioned from some scrap wood to see if it could do a better job of aligning without having to break my back. Plus, the reticule is rotated so it is already a little trickier than it ought to be. With no views to the west due to houses, there was no NEOWISE for me, but I think I spotted a faint dot above the setting sun earlier in the evening at about 9.30pm. Thinking back, I'm not sure if I mistaken it for a star now and unfortunately I don't have a pair of Bins to confirm.

Being based up in Lancashire, it is still light during the evening and we still not getting full darkness. I could only see the brightest stars principally Vega practically straight up. With that in mind and knowing time was limited as it was due to cloud over again towards midnight, I powered on and one star aligned to Vega. Left with around 90 minutes I decided just to observe rather than getting the imaging kit out and to get back into the swing of it. I wanted to see if I could spot M57 but that seemed to be a bust. I caught the first ISS pass at around 10.30pm to the south, unbelievably bright and silently drifting from west to east. I had a look at Vega as more stars were becoming visible as it got slightly darker. The polar alignment seemed OK with the targets just off centre but within the field of view so just need some minor corrections, I figured it may have been more to do with just using a one star alignment during the setup. Maybe I had M57 but just couldn't resolve it well enough.

Time passed into the eleventh hour and spotted a bright object emerging from behind the tree line at mere 10 degrees above the horizon, Jupiter was slowly coming into view, an ideal target for my scope. I had about half an hour I thought before it disppears behind another set of trees. Using a 10mm eyepiece and even with less than optimal viewing conditions,  I could make out the cloud banding and the red spot. With a mirror diagonal the moons lined up vertically, Callisto at the bottom then Io just underneath the gas giant then Ganymede quite a distance directly above, all within view comfortably. Europa was in transit behind the planet. After a good 30 minutes observing the planet, clouds started to build and was affecting the view. I was disappointed that I was clouded out for Saturn as it would be following close behind to the east but happy enough seeing Jupiter for the first time this year. Getting on for midnight, I packed up and got some sleep in preparation for my 19 month old daughter waking up early morning. 

Opportunities where I can park work and daddy commitments for a few hours coupled with clear skies are a rarity indeed and it was just good to be back out under the night sky despite not locating my intended target of M57 and missing out on Saturn. Looks like next opportunity may be Thursday but forecasts seems wildly inaccurate at the moment but wouldn't be up late enough anyway.

Edited July 20, 2020 by rob_r

[bomberbaz]

Good report, your getting the same skies as I am. However I was viewing Neowise up til midnight then a couple of double after that. 

It wasn't Neowise at 9.30, earliest I have picked it up is around 10.30 but that was when it was a magnitude brighter than it is now.