Home Forums RAC Main Forum General Discussion Observing tonight? Re: Observing tonight?

#11477
Dean Johnson
Participant

    Stup and I had a great night. While I was set up and waiting for him to arrive, I found Venus in binoculars, the 1st appearance of the Evening Star since the transit. Steve found it first naked eye. Then we took an observation of Jupiter, all 4 Galileans and the bands visible, but it's starting to get a little shimmering around the edges. Saturn was great, but not far up enough for a decent look. I saw two moons for sure (Titan of course) and hints of others.

    I was going to go back to it, but then we got into some obscure stuff. I pointed out Delta Corvi. Steve couldn't find it at first, but I showed him that and about 15 minutes later we could see the split of the double naked eye. Stuppo went after the Leo triplet and I tried Iota Cancri. We both got fooled for an hour. He was ranging too far from his target FOV and I was fooled by an 8th mag. wide double near Iota. Once I found Iota thru my telescope, I went back to the binocs and finally could split it, but it looks VERY different at 15X than 81X.

    Steve found the Leo triplet and you should have heard how excited he was. That was wonderful. We both have to work in the morning, but what AGNFA! The best part was being out there in a t-shirt and not having to put on a sweatshirt or a coat all night long. Urrragh!!!