Hello astronomy fans! I got out on the night of Aug. 30/31 for five and a half hours. Venus was visible in the west and when I looked at it, I could see a fainter "star" to the SW.
I looked at it in my scope and it showed a disc. Since it neither showed rings or a red color, I think I was looking at Mercury. Correct?
Jupiter showed three moons, one to the west and two to the east. At 10 p.m. I focused back on Jupiter and stared at it because I knew that Io was to re-emerge from Jupiter's shadow. At 10:09:30 by my watch, a tiny glimmer of light appeared! It took about 20 to 30 seconds to match the brilliance of the other moons. IT WAS SO COOL! I can't believe how neat a phenomena it was. If you've never seen this happen before, you should. Few things happen in astronomy right in front of your eyes and this is one. I highly recommend it. 8)
I picked up two open clusters in Cygnus (NGC's 6866 and 6834, both very nice), two open clusters in Aquila (NGC's 6755 and 6756 both in the same FOV), two clusters in Scutum (NGC 6712 globular, and NGC 6664 open) and NGC 6633 an open cluster in Ophiuchus, to up my Herschel 400 total to 189.
AGNFA!