Moon, Six Planets and colour in Orion.

[Kunama]

Nice clear night for planet finding last night :thumbsup:

Phil, his son Alex and I spent a few hours planet hunting and scouring the Lunar Apennine Mountains, Cassini Crater region among others.

We successfully found the Moon, Earth, Venus, Mars, Uranus and Neptune ( the first three really weren't a challenge ;) )
Uranus and Neptune were seen as discs but with the Moon hanging about, no moons were seen.

We also viewed several craters along the top ridgeline of the Apennine Mountains as we'll as great detail in the Cassini crater and the area surrounding it.

We also managed to eek out good colour from the Great Nebula in Orion.

Tools for the job:

Takahashi Mewlon 300 / EM400
Kunama "Guinevere" 18"F5.6 with Nexus DSC
Nagler 31,22,17
Delos 14,10,6,4.5
The pick for the night was the Nagler 17 in the Mewlon300 and the Delos14 at 182X in the 18".
The theoretical limit for lunar detail with the 18" combo is 1.1miles, I think the smallest detail we could clearly see was about 2miles.

Oh...... the 6th Planet..... I got up at 4.30am to view Jupiter in all its glory :thumbsup:

[Atmos]

Very nice Matt, looking forward to Feb!

[Tropo-Bob]

An enjoyable read Matt.

I been poised ready to find Neptune again, but the weather is not cooperating. Its interesting to see these planets moving towards the Northern sky after us having the better view for so many years.