Planetary night here at Lake Macquarie. Started out early with the 16" dob on Jupiter and pushed the magnification to over 300x with the 11mm Nagler EP and the 2x barlow but the image suffered and dropped back to 163x and 200x without the barlow and got much crisper views and lots of cloud band detail.
Roller the dob out again at 2am for a session with Mars and Saturn. Again found that the 11mm and 9mm EPs were the pick for best detail at 163x & 200x. Ring divisions, ring shadow on surface with good detail and steep ring incline this time. Mars always seems the most difficult but had good results approching opposition now with surface detail dark areas and polar cap all visible. Tried some filter switches , even the Baader Contrast Booster which is an achro CA filter - need to find a good Mars filter.
Finished the night with a whip around the Virgo galaxies including the Markarian group.
Packed up and rolled back at 4am. Sky quality metre showed 20.86 at quiting time - a good night here.
