Attn Melb observers: great seeing tonight

[PhilW]

For folks in Melbourne, this is definitely the night to haul out your scopes & have a good look at Saturn. The sky is not transparent, but the atmosphere is extremely stable. Well worth trying your high power eyepieces & barlows!

[§AB]

I was supposed to be outside this morning viewing Jupiter but couldn't even lift myself outta bed. I thought I saw a bit of cloud aswell. SO that's night 3 I missed out on.

And now its too late, will be cloudy tonight and showers and cloud for the rest of the freaking week, Melbourne style. :mad2::mad2::mad2:

GGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRr

DAMN UNI :mad2:

[programmer]

Well I did wait up for Jupiter but was a little disappointed. Apart from the clouds.. when they did break the view was reasonable but to me, not quite as brilliant as Saturn the night before. I could see 3 bands but no spot. This was actually my first view ever of that planet, so I was still pretty chuffed, but the clouds did spoil the party for me. I didn't try beyond 200x, being my 12.5mm barlowed.

[PhilW]

What time were you viewing Jupiter? It may have been a bit low when you were looking at it - I find the early hours of the morning best right now, when it is near the zenith. The spot is very obvious, & if you didn't see it, then it would be on the other side of the planet.

[programmer]

Hi Phil

It was about 1:30am as I had to wait for it to clear my rooftop, which probably wasn't helping the seeing. I looked hard for the spot, but I'm sure it will be obvious in better conditions and closer to zenith. I'm not a morning person unfortunately :(

[erick]

I got out at 9pm, primarily to get a feel for a newly-acquired eyepiece. Spent a while on Saturn. Not that good for me. Some moments of good seeing, but I think transparency was down - I could smell smoke earlier in the evening. However I learnt what I wanted about the eyepiece so a successful evening:thumbsup:

[PhilW]

I ended up spending about an hour off & on observing it. I would say it was the second-best night I've had this Saturn season (the best was in the early hours of the morning at the start of 08). The eyepieces I used were:

- Pentax XF 8.5
- Pentax XW 7
- Nagler 5mm T6
- Pentax XF 8.5 + TeleVue 2x barlow.

The air was easily stable enough to support the barlowed XF (375x), but the most pleasing view was with the XW 7. It's not a traditional planetary eyepiece, but I get great planetary views out of it regardless.

[§AB]

that's pretty bloody impressive when taking into account Saturn's modest altitude. No doubt 500-600x would've been doable if Saturn were near the zenith like Jupiter. Last month I got a few seconds of rock steadiness on Saturn at 350x on my 12" dob, very nice, but most of the time so far I've found it hard to exceed 200x.

[Rob_K]

Hi programmer - there was a Red Spot transit at 10pm last night (also 7:56am this morning). This is midpoint, and the spot is said to be best for viewing for about 50 min either side. So at 1:30am it wouldn't have been showing. Sky & Telescope have GRS transit predictor on their web-site, but you do have to register (no charge) to use it. There is other freeware on the web, such as "Jupiter 2".

Cheers -

[programmer]

I got a copy of Jupiter2.. good stuff. Looks like I won't be seeing the spot for a while... :(

[§AB]

certainly won't with the upcoming CRAP weather :mad2::mad2::mad2:

[programmer]

Yes.. there is that too :(