Initial Obs 3/10/

[barx1963]

Full report to follow.
Finally got out for a decent session Sunday Night. Had about an hour and half on Friday but very cold and out of practice, so spent much of cruising the sights (47 Tuc, Jupiter etc.) Sat night looked clear but very high thin cloud knocked everything out. Sunday night was warm, still and clear with slmost no dew.
Best evr view of detail on Jupiter for about 1 minute of stunning seeing. The remaining belt was mottled and I could see lots of finer bands.
Got quite a few new galaxies which I will detail in my next report, just rapt to get some time at the eyepiece after so many months!

Malcolm

[Rob_K]

Good stuff Malcolm! :thumbsup: Look forward to your report on the galaxies!

Cheers -

[astroron]

:hi:Malcolm I hope you get some good weather to give your scope a good workout:thumbsup:
Cheers

[Paddy]

Looking forward to your notes Malcolm. Shaping up for a great night here, hope you're getting the same south of the Great Divide.

[Suzy]

I always love reading obs reports Malcolm - thank you for posting. I wait eagerly for your further report.

[pgc hunter]

Looking forward to the report Malcolm. Interesting you mention high cloud, no sign of it here on that particular night.

What magnification were you using on Jupiter?

[barx1963]

Thanks guys, Sab the Jup viewing was at 115x using the 13mm Nagler. Produces a small image but very clear when the sky is still. I can push it to 187x with my 8mm Orion Stratus or 230x with Nag and Barlow, but never had much joy.
I am probably going to be stretching to get a full report typed up as we are flying out to NZ on Monday and I have heaps to get done before then.:mad2:!

Malcolm

[pgc hunter]

Likwise I find it hard to get above 200x with the seeing here, anything below that is usually a goer in all but the worst seeing. If I can get to 250x or more, I'd consider the seeing excellent....and this almost never occurs...

had a few instances of good Jupiter viewing at 267x on the same night with lots of festoon activity, white ovals and ruffling in the NEB visible, but seing was generally too variable so about 200x was the realistic limit.