Observing with friend.

[Marvin Jenkins]

Two weeks ago one of my closest friends came over from the UK for the first time since Cov kicked off. He has had really tough year with bowl cancer and multiple operations but is in remission thank thank the stars, so we did.

One week visit and every night perfectly clear and the first night pretty much new moon! When does that ever happen.

Now Sam has a small refractor SW 500 mm fl at home but hasn’t used it due to the circumstances, so he brought it here and we put it on my EQ5.

First thing that made Sam swear was the shear number of stars and clear as bell Milky Way. For the most part it was a teaching week, from setting up the kit, how to observe and using tools like phone apps and Stellarium to plan sessions. I won’t list it all but a whole bunch of the usual Messier’s some deep sky stuff including NGC 7331 at 53 million light years away. Sam said it just looked like a smudge! Typical.

Last few nights were occupied by Lunar observing but the highlights were observing Jupiter and moons plus Saturn every night in a row. I think we had two Jupiter transits, Io and Ganymede. For Sam the stand out was Saturn with three moons showing.

To tell you the truth I found the whole educating role quite daunting, but it was one of the most rewarding things I have done.

Marvin

[Stu]

Great stuff Marvin, must have been good to see your friend, and nice to re-bond over the scope setup and stargazing 👍

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

That post could be an episode of Mortimer & Whitehouse Gone Fishing for stars with telescopes. That reads like a smashing week you both had Marvin. 👍

[apaulo]

always rewarding to share time and knowledge with friends

[Marvin Jenkins]

It was interesting week as up till now I had never used a frac just newts so that was a pleasant surprise. Not a surprise is the quality of the plastic eye pieces that come with the Star quest.

An immediate purchase of super plossls were made after using my eps. Our wives even braved the night and looked at the moon for ten minutes.

The only thing missing was the double session but one night we managed that with Drambuie!😂