My First View: Jupiter and 4 Moons

[Mikea]

Looking out from the bedroom window just after midnight: a bright object in the sky just over the trees between me and Brixham. Quick check on Stellarium - it's Jupiter. Took the scope out, completely muffed up the 2 star alignment (it wouldn't let me use the stars I wanted!!), and went manual to line up on the planet. (GOTO can be a pain sometimes). Definitely a wow! moment though as soon as it all came into focus with the 15mm EP. To see the moons all lined up was amazing - I have never seen this before. The 5mm EP definitely showed the 2 bands. Jupiter is still low in the sky, so it wasn't that clear all of the time, but I was still chuffed to bits. Clouds moving in from NW now so time for bed!

[Talitha]

"...went manual " Well done!

Those words always remind me of Neil Armstrong.

These unexpected/unplanned sightings are the most memorable.. serendipity is a wonderful gift.

[Mikea]

Hehe! I am a traitor to the GOTO clan! The problem is that the GOTO software only prompts for certain stars to align to. By default, it goes for magnitude greater than 1.5. I could have quite happily aligned on Deneb (which it gave me) then Altair (which it wouldn't let me have even though it was surely brighter than 1.5). Not even in the 2 star alignment option would it give me Altair . Instead it wanted some stars beginning with Z that I can't remember/don't know and Arcturus. Arcturus would have been ok had it not resulted in the tube clobbering the tripod , forcing the "abort alignment" action!! Actually, I didn't think it was slewing correctly to Arcturus - elevation seemed to high.

Anyway, not worried about that. I saw something new to me .

I think I can reconfigure the alignment options to give me more stars....

[Talitha]

"some stars beginning with Z "

Was it Zuben Elgenubi in Libra? IIRC there's four 'zubens' in there. A bit late in the year for them though. Hey, it'd be great if you could input your own alignment stars, though.

[Mikea]

It was Zubeneschamali, although strangely the handset gives me two options: Zuben elschamali and Zubeneshamali. Which, according to my understanding, are one and the same thing but spelt differently! Not only that but it's quite a dim one and not in a good position for me at present, so wasn't ever really an option!

Jupiter is battling with clouds today. He's making a valiant effort to shine through, but brief glimpses don't warrant getting the scope out