Hello astronomy fans! I got out for 3 and a half hours tonight and got set up by 7 p.m. I spent most of a half hour looking for Jupiter/Mercury, but I had low clouds to the west. I got my scope set up and found my first Lunar II target, but went back to the binocs for just one more sweep.
I found Jupiter! I used my scope to nail down the planet and moons, ( the SEB is back, by the way ), but no Mercury. I swung my scope back to the Moon, looked to the west, and there was Mercury below and to the right of Jupiter! Hooray! Mercury showed a disc, but not much else besides chromatic aberration. Both planets were higher in the sky than I expected them to be. After 10 minutes, the clouds covered Mercury and 10 more after that Jupiter was gone. But hey, it was pretty cool to see them. The next three nights are supposed to be even better if the weather holds up and tomorrow night looks very good indeed. 8)
Back to the Moon. I nailed craters Alpatregnus, Beer and Feuillee, and Montes Recti, Teneriffe and Spitzbergen. I'm over half done with Lunar II.
I finished with looks at Arturus and Saturn. I viewed Saturn through moderate cloud cover, but the rings are opening up nicely. We are in for a glorious season for Saturn, and I had a Glorious Night For Astronomy! 🙂