A little after sundown I could see Mercury with 8x42 binoculars.
We also looked at in the 80mm refractor and my 6" refractor.
Mercury was much like the first quarter moon, the same for
Venus. Mars was very small. I think I could make out a polar
ice cap. Saturn was beautiful as always. The Cassini division
was easy to see. There was a nice amber zone on the planet.
Our Moon was also looking good.
Thanks to Mike Koop for inviting us to Houge for a Saturday
star party. The seeing was very good up until about midnight
and then it was still enough to see the shadows and one of the
darker moons transit. Mike very kindly turned out the lights and
hung around with us until very late to turn them on again.
We put car floor mats over the sprinklers. They did quite well at
keeping the water away from the scopes.
I was using my AP 155mm f/7 APO refractor. There was also an
8" f/6 Dob, a 10" f/5 Dob, the 80mm short tube refractor, and a
TV Genesis f/5.
Jupiter was showing festoons between the NEB and SEB. There
was also interesting detail in the NEB and SEB. When the dark moon
came on to the planet it looked like a less dark, almost fuzzy, spot. We
waited until it started to move off the planets disc before we took our
scopes down.
It was a really interesting night.
Clear skies,
Rich
Received on Sun Mar 28 03:56:40 2004