[John K]

Got together yesterday afternoon and evening with some of Australia's finest planetary imagers (in fact the world I should say!) and finally met face to face with David Pretorious (DP), Anthony Wesley (Bird) and Paul Haese (Rumples Riot).

We had a great night. We battled low cloud, variable seeing, a near full moon next to Jove and dew dew dew and more dew! with extreme moisture in the atmosphere. Seeing peaked at around 7/10 (my estimate)

The most popular accessory was Anthony's $7 hairdryer (become dew remover) and it did the rounds of the 4 scopes. (Thanks for fixing my PC as well Anthony and collimating my scope!).

We compared equipment and tequiques and had a great laugh before the serious business of imaging and comparing captures. Some stayed up until 3am processing and over the comming days expect to see some amazing images as these guys and others will be there for the whole week.

Highlight for me was looking at Jove visually at around 400X through Paul's amazing 18" scope.

My result from last night attached.

The dreaded "onion ring" effect due to moisture and possible condensation on the optics made an appearance but otherwise quite a nice result that I am happy with.

John.