Hi folks,
My poor brand new XX14g scope has been sitting in storage gather not photons but dust...
So when I saw that tonight was clear I decided to set it up and at least have a look at Jupiter. My courtyard has probably the worst night sky FOV in Sydney, with roof tops and trees covering much of the sky, I have a small window of opportunity. And if that isn't bad enough there are the three large 360 degree balls of pathway lighting, a shocker of light pollution right there my friends...
Anyway, I set up the scope, re-read the instructions on how to perform the simple auto-tracking feature and waiting for Jupiter to crest the roof of the block of units across from my block.
She emerged at around 2045hrs. Considering the poor conditions I was delighted with the image. My daughter got to stay up late and had a look as well. She said she could see three moons in a line and one at a funny angle (actually a star: SAO 92768) and a black dot on Jupiter. Well that piqued my interest!
Indeed there was a black dot and also a faint spot. A quick look at Sky Safari confirmed my suspicions, we were observing a transit of a moon and Io was the moon. My daughter was very excited though she said Jupiter was a bit small (I was using my 17mm EP). So I popped in my 5mm EP (damn the stability!) and she was much more impressed even though the seeing wasn't great.
Anyway, I'm glad to have gotten the scope out for unofficial Jupiter first light. I refuse to classify any viewing I do in my courtyard as first light hehe
Thanks for reading,
Simon
