observing report 27.03

[jobe]

Hi all

managed to get out for a short while last night.

lincoln, breezy with a damn near full moon up.

was out early so after aligning i swept straight round to venus.

it was bright but didn't notice anything other than a full disc.

it was emitting colours red through to violet (from top to bottom).

not sure if this is the norm or not. it was the same in both the 5 and 10mm.

saturn. had another look at this but the view was getting buffeted around with the wind. titan clearly visible but dionne was only with averted vision. i couldn't make out anything the other side of the planet.

cor coroli. decided to try to split this which i managed with the 32mm right down to the 5mm. the second star was about half the brightness of the main one. i didn't notice any different colours between them.

moon. i had a look at this without any filters which wasn't easy. it was nearly full so had a look around the terminator which showed up some nice detail in the 10mm.

i have now ordered a polarising nd filter from flo. i think the idea is you can change the level of 'filtering' which i like the idea of.

thanks for reading.

jobe

[DarkerSky]

Nice one Jobe. I would imagine the colours you were seeing with Venus is the effects of atmospheric turbulence and the fact that you're looking through a fair slice of atmosphere. The light gets refracted through different air densities ( i think) revealing the colours of the visible light spectrum. It is similar to how Sirius seems to flash through colours when the air is poor.

[bish]

Nice report - I'm glad that some people are managing to get out there and do some observing. A combination of work and cloud have really curtailed my sessions this year.