setting up shop

It wasn't too cold, mid 50's, and no moon, clear, so I thought I'd start setting up shop in the backyard observatory at GGG tonight. I set up and leveled my little ETX table but didn't bother setting up the scope. I opted for a chair and 7x50 binocs instead and focused on the Perseus/Cassiopea area just northeast of the house. Limiting mag was about 7. I easily found the double cluster and the major stars of Perseus and all 5 bright stars in Cas. The dc didn't come close to its brilliance in CO this summer but at least it is fairly high. I may try it with the ETX in a few days. There was a lot of smoke in the air and it smelled bad outside so I quit early. I hope every night isn't 'burn trash' night this year.

More moon and Jupiter

The moon is almost full but I decided to setup again tonight in front and see if I could snag a sidewalk visitor or two. I did meet Floyd Smith, a neighbor and first year resident of GGG out walking his dog. It took three tries to marginally align the ETX, not a good night. It wanted to use Vega which was behind a palm tree, and after I started on my second try, the power went off. I finally took the timer of off my outlet and at least stopped that little aggravation. The third time was better: I got Vega ok but missed Fomalhout but found Jupiter ok as well as the Moon. All four moons were on the same side but IO and Europa were overlapped too close and I could not split them. Calisto was barely visible just to the south of a line between Jupiter and the other three moons. Ganymede and the two overlapped moons were plenty bright and easily seen. I was able to make out one cloud band on Jupiter just fine with the yellow filter. Moving on to the Moon, there wasn't much of a terminator but Cardanius and it's companion crater Krafft were obvious, very clear and high contrast. Grimaldi, the dark circular plain, was obvious as were two craters just to the north: Hevelius and Covalarius. The yellow filter kept the brightness down enough so that it wasn't painful to look at the moon but it wasn't as comfortable as first quarter.

Jupiter's Moons and our own

It was exceptionally clear, calm, and warm outside tonight, and my old computers weren't cooperating, so I decided to haul out the scope and see if I could find Jupiter and the moon. I was rewarded with a fine appearance of the ISS and when I turned to Jupiter about 7:00 I was rewarded with a smaller satellite crossing the FOV while I was focusing the ETX. Pretty cool. I found Jupiter after a quick and dirty alignment and experimented with my four filters. The yellow one worked best and at least one cloud band was clearly visible. Ganymede and Callisto were clearly visible but Io and Europa were aligned and very close to the planet's glare so I could only barely make them out. I was using my 10mm ep so things were fairly large. The 10mm and yellow filter seem to make a nice pair with the ETX and Jupiter. I had no problem keeping things in the FOV. I next turned to the moon and it was also nice at 35x and a yellow filter. Not so bright that it hurt and Bullialdus crater and it's companions A, B, and C were clearly visible along the terminator. Bullialdus A is only about 14 mi wide. Copernicus was also a fine sight. I couldn't find my portable map so had to use my laptop's Virtual Moon Atlas.
It may be time to reconsider deep sky stuff and start paying more attention to the moon. I thought I might be able to snag a walkup or two but no such luck. One guy came by as we were watching the ISS go over. Turns out he had worked on it at Houston so wasn't particularly impressed. Ho hum.