Well, what a stupid night for an observing session, but I think the diehards just wanted a night out last night! Contrails to the max killing the sky, big moon, but at least you could see the moon as opposed to 99% of recent nights!
One of the young guys brought his brand new Celestron NexStar 8SE Schmidt-Cassegrain scope with computerised mount, and we had a bit of a play. $AU1500 landed from the States, compared to cheapest Oz price of $2499 at Andrews, and up to $3495 elsewhere! Really pleased for him as he started off with a small cheap refractor as a young schoolboy, and with little available dough & hard saving has gradually worked up through 4.5" reflector, 6" reflector & now the 8" SCT. Not much to look at other than Jupiter & the Moon, and views were pretty good. Also had news that the club has been given an 8" dob, which should be handy for new members or visitors to use. One of the members has been fixing it up - mirror's good apparently but it had been left out pretty much in the weather for about 8 or 9 years!!
Anyway, had a squizz at the Moon & Jupiter through my scope (4.5" f8 reflector) and surprise of surprises I was able to crank magnification up to 225x, using 8mm EP & 2x Barlow. Seeing doesn't usually allow that here, and Jupiter was showing some nice fine detail and the colour was very good. Maybe the haze helped in reducing the brightness. Moon was great, quite steady at 225x and lots to see. Aristarchus and the nearby rilles were excellent, as was Schickard which showed lots of tiny craterlets in its floor.
Worth the trip out - our timing & hopefully our skies will be better next month.
Visitors are always welcome, so if you're ever up in NE Victoria please drop in - now we can even supply a scope!
Our observing nights at the Porepunkah airstrip are posted here:
http://brightastronomy.webs.com/
Cheers -
