Come join the friendliest, most engaging and inclusive astronomy forum geared for beginners and advanced telescope users, astrophotography devotees, plus check out our "Astro" goods vendors.
Come join the friendliest, most engaging and inclusive astronomy forum geared for beginners and advanced telescope users, astrophotography devotees, plus check out our "Astro" goods vendors.
Observing trip to the desert is always a gamble. Clear Outside forecast showed high clouds appearing around 19:00 and disappearing around 22:00 and clear dry night after that. Well, it was right about the first part.
I arrived to mostly clear skies
Was welcomed by some wild life.
The high clouds arrived as predicted in bulk and have thrown a magnificent show at the sunset.
But they never left.
Jupiter - Io and GRS transit.
It was almost a skunk, except around 22:30 I caught a semi-descent view of Jupiter. GRS and Io were transiting. Small details of Jupiter disk were lost to Earth clouds, but salmon oval of GRS and black sharp dot of Io’s shadow were easy to see. After sitting on the target I also spotted the brown disk of Io against the North Equatorial Belt in front of the Io’s shadow. I watched the transit for a few minutes. Io’s disk has slid to the Jupiter’s side and became first a whitish half circle on the Jupiter’s rim and in a few moments cleared the Jupiter disk completely. That’s was fun!
After that I tried to wait out the clouds, waking up every hour or so to check the sky. Nope. Checked last time around 02:30, the clouds were still there. Went to sleep for good after that.
So, this weekend was more of play than win. . This is why they call it fishing not catching. Wait, this is from a different hobby.
Too bad about the clouds, but at least you got some viewing in. Nice photo's; wish I was there, clouds or not
All the best,
Mark
"The Hankmeister" Celestron 8SE, orange tube Vixen made C80, CG4, AZ-EQ5 and SolarQuest mounts.
Too much Towa glass/mirrors.
Solar:
H/A - PST stage 2 mod with a Baader 90mm ERF on a Celestron XLT 102 (thanks Mike!)
Ca-K - W/O 61mm, Antares 1.6 barlow, Baader 3.8 OD and Ca-K filters with a ZWO ASI174mm.
W/L - C80-HD with Baader 5.0 & 3.8 Solar film, Solar Continuum 7.5nm and UV/IR filters with a Canon EOS 550D. Member of the RASC