OK, so I'm a sucker - and I'm doing it all again tonight!
Sky is clear to the west at sunset this time - so Mercury, Saturn & Mars were all subjected to a decent but leisurely viewing. Jupiter of course was beaming down from near overhead so I spent 15 mins or so observing it in as much detail as my eye could capture (and the seeing is way better tonight than it was last night I'm pleased to say).
So - 4 planets properly observed, no problems so far, sky cloudless, 3 to go!
I went inside again about 7:30 pm I think to organise something to eat, with the scope outside staying cool and the new Uber-fan mod that I added just today on the rear end running sweet and fast!
(There will be a separate post about this, with pics, sometime very soon. I only hope that when star gazing in the company of others I don't get noise complaints.)
Anyway I eventually went outside again around 9:30 - sky now about 40% covered by patches of clouds: fast moving, big patches, and as I watched it just got more and more cloudy. I uttered several of those special words that are reserved for just such times ("Sentence enhancers" as I once heard them called on a cartoon) so figuring my "7 planet" dream was over I brought the scope inside, packed it all up and thought about an early night.
Stupid me (eternal optemist me?) about midnight looks out the bedroom window (which faces east, though not much sky can be seen). I get a glimpse of one single semi-bright star and I'm suddenly pulling on long pants, shoes, pullover, etc all over again. Grab the dry ep's, shove in pockets, drag the OTA off the base, run outside with the base in hand - to see clouds!
[more sentence enhancers]
I can be a stubborn son of a beach when I want to be, and for the next 90 minutes or so I at on a creaky wooden chair suffering very light on and off rain. I would leap up and drag the scope out from under the BBQ area "tarp" when I saw the very brief sucker holes coming (I was getting 20-30 seconds of view through these, no more).
[LOTS of sentence enhancers, muttering to myself almost constantly]
I managed to get a couple of quick (1-2 minute) cloud breaks eventually occuring in the appropriate parts of the sky, allowing me to eventually locate and view both Neptune and Uranus, even though for very brief periods! So with both of them confirmed and added to my "viewed" list tonight that's 6 down, Pluto still beyond my reach, and only Venus yet to go.
I'm pretty tired - but it's only just over 2 hours til she rises now, I've left the scope out back in the small covered BBQ area, and glory awaits!
Hope I don't fall alseep now or I'll look like a right idiot!
