June 17, 2016 Long Island, NY, USA
10 pm I looked out the door and I had about 40% cloud cover. Well, that means about 60% open sky. That is enough to take a chance on setting-up.
Started with my 10X50s to scan the planets and the sky in general. I had no list, no real plan so I was looking around for inspiration. And the fluffy white clouds just kept floating through. Sometimes large areas were covered and sometimes it was at least 60% clear.
Decided to go after Saturn and Mars.
Seeing was not too bad. Mars was showing some dark and light variation on the surface. Used the Celestron 8-24 zoom, mostly in the 100X range. Later tried the 6.7 mm/180X. Not too bad at his level. Added the "crystal view moon filter) No real info on it but it seems to be a neutral density filter with about 40% transmission. Cut down the glare on Mars and let me see a bit more detail. Tried the 4.5 mm/266X. And that was not bad, if I was patient and let it drift in an out with the turbulent air.
Now over to Saturn. Back to the zoom. Here I was playing with clouds. I would be looking at Saturn and then it was gone. Clouds rolling through. But the vew with the zoom was not bad. Then did the 6.7 and the 4.5 bump with pretty good results. Again used the Crystal view moon filter. Also tried my Orion Jupiter filter (80A?) but went back to the Crystal view or nothing at all.
Managed to sketch the position of 5 mons, some banding on the planet and the Cassini divide in the rings.
Swung over to Lyra to chased down the Ring Nebula with the Zoom. Got it quickly. View was no better than previous attempts. Also used the 6.7 mm.
After that I decided to go wandering about with the 2" 25 mm ES 70 degree eyepiece. Swung over to Deneb, the along the Northern Cross to Albireo. Then over to the coathanger.
Clouds kept rolling through most of the evening. But around 11:30 the sky pretty much went clear. Continued my random wandering till about Midnight when I called it an evening.
Not well organized but it is always good to get under the sky with an eyepiece in my eye.
