Night of 17/10/22 & Morning of 18/10/22

[PeterStudz]

Totally unplanned session in Southampton and I’ll keep things short as I’m a bit tired. 

Got the Skywatcher 200p Dob out late evening for what was going to be a quick look at Jupiter with my daughter. Even though there was a screaming jet-stream forecast to be over our heads we were surprised by the views.  Transparency was definitely good. 

After that I decided to have a few hours sleep and have a go at Mars in the early hours and anything else that I could see. I was going to leave the Dob out but it was already covered in dew, the secondary starting to dew up too. I’d neglected to Attached a few shield. So I lugged it back indoors to dry off. 

Up at 3:30am and got setup. Dew shield attached this time. The moon was out but the sky looked good. Although had to look hard at Mars in order to resolve surface detail. No quick look and go. But it was there. Along with some white in the North Polar region and maybe a hint on the South Pole. Could just go to 240x with a StarGuider 5mm before things got fuzzy. Surface details coming and going. I do find that a variable polarising filer helps on Mars, at last in its current position. I also had a go at doing a sketch. Not easy on something so small. My first proper sketch but it’s there. 

Also had a look at a few other targets which weren’t great probably due to the bright moon. Mind, the Pleiades looked great in binoculars. 

Then finished off with the moon. Nice along the terminator. The features that immediately jumped out to me were Copernicus, Eratosthenes and shadows on and near Plato. 

Finally packed up, everything covered in dew, at around 6:15am. Fog horns sounding in the Solent, so in that respect I was lucky. 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by PeterStudz