Weird Visual Session Last Night

[Hans Tucker]

Last night I had an opportunity to do a visual session looking at Venus, Saturn Jupiter and the Moon. For the life of me I could not settle on an eyepiece I was chopping and changing just to get a comfortable view eventually settling on the Pentax XW 7mm. For a relatively warm day the views of Jupiter and Venus were brilliant, Venus is more pleasing visually when it is a crescent. The cream of the session last night was the view of the Moon. For a monocular view the image appeared 3D. I also fear my eye floaters are getting worse .. either that or something needs cleaning.

[leon]

It probably did Hans, I have once experienced that in my lifetime when all the conditions were just right, magical view indeed.

leon

[Hans Tucker]

Dang .. was looking at having another visual session tonight but I put my faith in the wrong weather reporting site. Should have gone with the BOM rather than Bintel :sadeyes:

[Startrek]

I use Cloud Free Night ( CFN ) and Weatherzone ( location specific ) between the two of them you get reasonable forecasting and outcomes
Bintel , great Astro supplier , lousy weather forecaster

[astro744]

Has anyone ever wondered why the 7 day forecast changes daily? I don’t just mean the 7th day but all the 7 days, (not always but often). I know it’s not an exact science but why bother with a 7 day forecast to the nearest degree Celsius each day?

I can accept that the forecast is more to predict a trend in the upcoming whether but I have to laugh each time daily temperatures are shown for 7 days in advance only for them to all be updated the next day.

As for viewing Venus, I must agree this is one of the best times in its orbit around the Sun. I was using a Tele Vue 60 with 1.6mm Vixen HR giving 225x (tracked on GM-8). I saw a beautiful crescent last week with a hint of darkening in the cloud belts before the clouds on Earth rolled in again. And yes there were many floaters in my eye at 225x in 60mm but absolutely zero false colour; the image was white, this just after sunset with Venus still quite high.

[Hans Tucker]

Looks like clear skies tonight ... another opportunity for visual observing session