Well, it's been beautiful here in Orange County each night this week. Although the skies are bright down here, I set up the 8" LX200 behind my folks house and have managed to do some observing a few nights this week. The plan for tonight was to finally break out the Lunar and Planetary Imager and my 2x Powermate and try to image Mars and Saturn.
We went out for an early dinner at the Olive Garden so that I could get an early start at the telescope. We got home around 6:30 PM and it was perfectly clear out. So I went upstairs and got my imaging gear out. I even loaded up the Nikon FM-10 camera with Fuji Provia slide film so that I culd photograph the moon--it has looked so good the last few nights that I was inspired to photograph it.
With great excitement I brought my imaging and photography gear outside and started to uncover the telescope. As I was removing the cover, I looked up at the moon...to find it mostly covered with clouds. Uh ho. That was 30 minutes ago, at about 7:00PM, I immediately went inside and fired up the computer to check the Clear Sky Clock. Sure enough, it indicates that precisely at 7PM the skies would get cloudy. It predicts that the clouds will stay the night. It figures.
Oh well, it was fun doing a little lunar and planetary observing this week. Imaging will have to wait until I return to the Bay Area tomorrow night.
Bill Drelling
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Received on Sun Jan 20 19:41:07 2008