Clear At Last!

[Geoff Barnes]

Finally! Only my second clear sky of this winter and it's almost over! Been atrociously dull and wet on the mountain this year, we've had over 1.2metres of rain so far!

So it was with great joy I got the 12 inch Dob out of mothballs and onto the front lawn with the urgent desire to have my first look at Jupiter and Saturn since last year. Completely clear sky with reasonably stable seeing, things could only have been better if the darned 3/4 moon wasn't right in the vicinity washing out details a tad.

Nevertheless, I had great luck with the GRS in prime position and at the same time Io gradually disappearing behind the planet. Could see a fair amount of turbulent activity along the north equatorial belt with two very large dark brown barges. I found the 6.5mm Morpheus gave the best views at around 230x, I tried with 4mm and 5mm EP's but the view with so much moonlight was too washed out to gain anything.

It was also great to see Saturn again, like welcoming back two long lost old friends.

Again a bit disappointingly washed out, Cassini was easy as usual but dark grey rather than inky black, not much else on the rings, a hint of cloud belts on the planet and 4 moons in close attendance and that was about it.

I did have a try at splitting Antares without luck this time and also Lyra's double double which is always a bit lost in the haze and glare down on my north horizon. I split the easier double just about at around 180x but the tighter double was just jiggling around too much, both were a fuzzy mess really.

Decided to finish off while I was in Lyra with M57 which revealed its ring quite nicely albeit very faint and no other details.

Not the greatest session ever but with only two opportunities all winter I'm certainly not going to complain! 😁

Edited August 29, 2020 by Geoff Barnes

[AstroNebulee]

Nice report of your tour around the night sky last night and pleased you finally got the scope out of storage for the clear skies which have long been overdue for you, I know what you mean about reaquainting with old friends in the skies, so reassuring and friendly welcome, we in the UK. We should be due for a couple of good nights this wee here and got some captures of Mars, Venus and Sirrus last night with my skymax 127 (still got to process says images to see if anything nice) shame I missed Jupiter with the grs (still waiting to get that one) as Jupiter went to far out of my bedroom window view as live in a first floor flat. Will give the skymax another airing tonight and then put my explorer 150p back on the mount for Sunday night. Clear skies friend and not so far apart for you 

[F15Rules]

Hi Geoff,

How weird is our world and our climate these days!

Good to hear your enthusiasm at being able to get the scope out at long last..if it's any consolation, we in Blighty have had some really lousy skies in recent weeks, and the few clear nights we've had have often been very unsteady with quite poor seeing.

I've always felt that August isn't a great month, weather wise, day or night, whereas September can be a lovely month and more settled..here's hoping both hemispheres can get an extended spell of clear, dry atmospheric conditions - especially for Mars! 😊

Dave