Roundwood Cemetery

Hi Aubrey,

Sorry to read that you were feeling unwell of as of late, but glad to hear you are on the mend as it will be great having you back at the meet-ups.

Unfortunately, I spent most of the night wrestling with my equipment: If it wasn't the finder acting up, it was trying to balance the scope on the uneven surface. In saying that Saturn, and Jupiter looked very good at several times throughout the evening. Of course we had to contend with both planets being fairly low in the sky, but from about 11pm conditions had improved enough to pull out some detail on both planets. For example, I could observe all of the following Jovian features: Equatorial Zone, North and South Equatorial Belts, and the North and South Tropical Belts and Zones.  What is more, there were times when for a just a few seconds the planet was sharp enough in the eyepiece to see some Festoon! And speaking of eyepieces, I did get to use my new Orion 5mm Edge-On Planetary eyepiece, which provided 250X, but the sweet spot for the night was 100X. One last thing: Four Jovian Moons were all observed to the West of the Planet. What was striking was seeing Europa and Io so close together. They flanked the Western limb of the planet with Ganymede and Callisto further out West.

In terms of Saturn, 100X was again the sweetspot. It being at opposition I had hoped to observe some nice detail, but the best I could do was make out the Cassini Division. Considering the weather forecast over the next few nights is grim, it might be a week before I get another chance to observe the 'Ringed' planet.

That's my lot for now, enjoy your week and we'll  hopefully see you for the' Perseids' next week.

Best regards,

Darren.



 

Thank you, Paul. 

Those 20x90 binoculars are the business for sure. 
I'm so glad you are getting good use out of them. 
I have observed M 29. 
M 39 which is also in Cygnus is a big favourite of mine. 
NGC 7000 is seriously difficult to see.alright. 
M 11 and M 22 are always wonderful sights. 

Very best regards to you, Paul.

Thank you, Darren, for your kind thoughts.
I much better now - thank you. 
You have given us super reports on both Saturn and Jupiter. 
Seeing Jupiter's 4 moons on the the same side must have been most appealing!
It's also very good to know there is plenty of belt activity is visible in your super Newtonian -  including at least one festoon.

Many congratulations to you, Darren! 
  
Clear to you all from Aubrey. 

Hi Aubrey, 

Very many thanks for your kind words. Those Moons looked very good alright. I am looking forward to spending more time observing Jupiter and Saturn over the next month. I'll be bringing the scope down to Glenmalure next week... The sky will be really dark... Once we can see it