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I have just returned from Bretti, no rain other than a few drops during the day. Allan can give you the details on Saturday night as I was not there then. Allan_L and I arrived around 5pm on Sunday. There were clouds moving around so it was a case of observing in the gaps. Monday night was good, at least until the cloud moved in again around 10:30pm but cleared again later but we found fog this morning.
I left the dob at home and used the AR102L refractor exclusively this time. I wanted to see how hard I could push the magnification on it's 102mm f9.8 1000mm fl. Detail on Mars and Jupiter were my primary targets, along with the usual nebs, etc. I pushed it to over the usual refractor target of 2x the aperture (which would have been 204x), using up tp 220x. Best seeing was around 180x however. As usual the TV 11mm Nagler was the best.
We all managed, in our respective scopes, to catch the Ganymede shadow transit on Jupiter last night. Allan seemed to have the best detail on Mars, doing filter swaps, (and you'd expect so with all that aperture) but I could see the polar cap and the major dark hook feature (Syrtis Major I think).
I came back today because the forecast was for widespread rain from early tomorrow morning and I did not want to pack up in the rain. I hope the two Allans have great viewing tonight, probably be the best as I have left.
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