27-4-06 Anyone out here tonight?

[[1ponders]]

Anyone else out enjoying the clear skies tonight? Or are you all stuck in front of the box watching Smallville with the kids? :)

[matt]

I'm out amongst it all:)

Just watched Io disappear into Jupiter's shadow, but the seeing's a bit ordinary here tonight.

Gonna try and grab a few avi's and see if I get anything worth having a play with.

What you up to?

[[1ponders]]

Waiting for the meridan cross. Seeing is much less than ordinary here. Maybe I'll get lucky and pick a perfect 5 minutes :P If not I'll do a bit of widefield work for a while.

[ballaratdragons]

I got Fog

[[1ponders]]

And in comes the cloud :P

[[1ponders]]

All you need now Ken is the Moon and it would look beautiful :thumbsup:

[ballaratdragons]

Terrific Paul! That would give me 2 reasons to not look for the comet tonight.

Hopefully the fog will settle in a few hours. I am determined to see Wachmann/Schwashman or however ya spell it!

[[1ponders]]

Plenty of time Ken. There's still a few hours before it raises it's glowing head.

[ballaratdragons]

2am is the best time here. That is when it is at it's highest.

Go away fog! (blowwww)

[[1ponders]]

I think the seeing is improving. It's hard to tell. How do you tell the difference between mush and slush :(

[h0ughy]

showers and high cloud
hope to see the comet later this evening, heaps of moisture in the atmosphere and that reflects the city lights

[gaa_ian]

Yay I have clear (well almost) post Monica skies :thumbsup:
Had a good look at Joop & the GRS.
Six nice Galaxies in Leo :D
Ngc 3201, which is a very nice globular in Vela !
Any other suggestions ?

[leon]

pretty lousy in Ballarat at the moment, maybe later

[astroron]

I am Having a break tonight aftr nearly continuas week or more of observing till midnight or later every night, but weather permitting will be back at it tomorrow night

[[1ponders]]

Well got a dozen or so shot of Jupiter. Hopefully I'll be able to pull something out of the them. Clouds really starting to move in now. Time for a bit of processing then off to bed.

[janoskiss]

It's been great till now (I mean 1/2 hour ago since I walked off without pressing submit). Jupiter's GRS staring right at me through the big Dob. I don't think I'll be able to bring myself to use the 8" very often. The 12" just shows so much more. But it sure is a royal pain carrying it through the house down the stairs and back again at the end of the night.

[Nightshift]

I hear ya Steve, I struggle with mine on timber floors with the family asleep downstairs, it's just impossible to be quiet.

However, I dont know what murk Paul was looking through coz I have just come inside after watching (we live about 500 mtrs apart but I am probably 75 meters higher) and timing the GRS transit (I reckon 9:50 was centre) and I had incredible clear seeing, short moments of murk but the GRS was the best I have seen for a long time, in fact on the North Equitorial Belt I saw two evenly spaced small clouds that when viewed with the GRS made a perfect smiley face that looked just like this one -> :zzz2: (the Z's could be the moons)

[[1ponders]]

Yep fortunately I got all that Dennis, (didn't look quite so stable on the screen unfortunately) but just after f transit, in came the cloud and increased the upper level humidity so Jupiter looked like it was sitting on a bowl of jelly.

I hope Ron's booked a ripper night for us on Saturday.

[jjjnettie]

Same here Ron. I've been having marathon sessions since Beth came over. The dob has been living in the front paddock for weeks. I only put it away this arvo because we're going away for 4 days. We'll be at Jimna at the 4WD Expo selling our coffee. It was -9 there this time 2 years ago. BRRRRR. I'll be taking my bino's and tripod though so I can continue to follow the comet.

[janoskiss]

Wow! I hope there were some other Melbournians out there, cranking the power up on Jupiter, becayse seeing has been exceptional here till 10 mins ago as some light clouds are passing, which is just as well because I had to call it a night anyway soon. 300x steady as a rock. 370x still sharp no probs. And the new Dob did a fantastic job! I could not believe the fine detail I was seeing. Aperture + seeing = FUN. I'm very curious to see any images people got after the GRS transit because I saw some very interesting storm detail I'd like to compare.

[vespine]

You must be kidding me??? Seeing was shocking in St Kilda! Must have been the smog :( Stars were twinkiling right op to the zenith and there was a haze over the whole sky, it got progressivley worse until I gave up by 11:30, maybe someone started burning their open fire, but it wasn't that cold...

[Nightshift]

I was born in Melbourne, lived there 35 years, it's always that cold.

[vespine]

I was born in Warsaw, Poland. Trust me: it's not. ;)


:lol:

[janoskiss]

You tell him, Vespine! ;)

btw, no I was not kidding about the seeing, it was brilliant last night till about 1am.

[ving]

well i was out there for a bit.... shocking seeing tho. I took some shots and headed in as clouds came over...
spent the rest of the night playing "name that tune, 80s edition" with the family :)