A Four Planet Night

[The Warthog]

I wanted to take in Uranus and Neptune as well as Jupiter and the Moon tonight, so before I went out I wrote down the RA and dec for each of the four targets.

The Moon was hung up in the upper branches of my golden delicious apple tree, so I went to Jupiter first, centred it in the ep, then offset the mount by +2 degrees, and turned off the RA drive for seven minutes. I had to do this twice, but Uranus drifted into the FOV, and I was able to put a higher power on it and confirm a little bluish disk.

I then put the scope on the Moon, which had drifted into clear sky, and offset the declination by -5 degrees, and held down the fast forward button on the RA controller for 51 seconds, which gave me roughly the 7 minutes difference that I needed to get Neptune in the FOV. I confirmed the disk shape again with a higher power, and gawped at it for a few seconds. It's only the second time I've seen Neptune. For that matter, this was only the third time I had seen Uranus, either.

Then I went back to Jupiter at about 156x and decided that the steadiness of the atmosphere justified going all the way, and put my 2x Barlow in. The NEB was quite clear, and I could occasionally see something in the south that I thought might be the GRS. Apparently the GRS was in that position, so I'm putting it down as a 'possible.' I added a green filter to increase the contrast with the bands, and it did make the NEB stand out even more.

I spent some time going up and down the terminator of the Moon, but without my atlas at hand, I was only able to name those features that I have well memorized. Copernicus was outstanding tonight, revealing quite good detail in its central peak complex.

I'd have to call this a successful night.

[perrin6]

I didn't see the GRS but I did see Io's shadow and a little to the left Io itself, both were in front of the SEB,

Alan

[The Warthog]

The shadow transit was over by the time I got there.