Planning for tonight

[iceman (Mike)]

So, clear blue skies today and will be clear tonight.

Jetstream not looking favourable, but there's a High to the North West, maybe it will have some influence. Scope is already out and collimated, fan is on to help cooling.

If the conditions are good, my night will go like this:

- Jupiter: 6pm - 8pm (I can't image it once it goes overhead)
- Moon: 8pm - 10pm : Unfortunately it's almost full so there's not a lot to see but I'll get something on the limb.
- Uranus: 1am - 2am : I haven't captured Uranus with the new scope, so i'm hoping conditions are favourable for it tonight.
- Mars: 5am - 7am : With the dust storm raging on Mars i'm not entirely keen because there's so little features to see at the moment, but if conditions are good i'll give it a go.

The only spanner in the works is that I have a bad cold/flu at the moment and have felt crap all day. I don't know if my body will let me stay up tonight.

Hope conditions are good where you are, but I know the moon will ruin it for most

[beren]

Good luck for tonight 4000km west of you the conditions are the opposite

[radu5er]

Originally Posted by iceman

The only spanner in the works is that I have a bad cold/flu at the moment and have felt crap all day. I don't know if my body will let me stay up tonight.

Hope conditions are good where you are, but I know the moon will ruin it for most

Ah yes my friend, but for a newbie using binoculars on a tripod...a bit of clear sky is a wonderful thing indeed. Already had a gander at the moon with the wife before tea and it looks good here.

Sorry to hear about you being under the weather, Dr. radu5er recommends an alcohol rub...internal of course!

Hope you feel better soon

[iceman (Mike)]

Well things aren't going to plan so far.. the seeing is 2/10 at best..

Not looking good

[radu5er]

Sorry conditions are so poor at your location Mike.

However, on a more positive note...

The wife came out again tonight just after tea and had a look through the tripod mounted binoculars at Venus and Jupiter, where she was able to see a couple of moons.

Then she made the comment, "I'll bet this would look better through one of those bigger telescopes."



Yes dear, whatever you say.

[Tamtarn]

Hey Rick

Seeing it's now her idea Rick go for a 12"

[radu5er]

Well that's right David...I really should be a generous bloke and make the sacrifice for her shouldn't I?

[iceman (Mike)]

Well last night was a write-off, tonight isn't looking much better.. jetstream still overhead and perhaps some high cloud drifting in tonight. There's a nasty cloud band approaching from the west by the looks of the BOM satellite maps.

I'll stick to some full-moon practise for the total lunar eclipse!

[Orion]

We were out last night as well and conditions were that lousy that we couldn't see the separation in Acrux!

[Ric]

It was quite a decent night down my way, even though the Moon was close to full it gave me a good opportunity to experiment with the new Ha filter and some different DSI settings.

Today is a different story with lots of cloud around, there will not be much happening tonight.

Cheers