Wednesday 24th August

I'll be there around 8.30.

Michael.

I met Aubrey and Paul last night. After a cloudy start it cleared up nicely. 

I brought my Nextstar 11 to try my hand at planetary.
I captured Saturn and Jupiter (images below).

We finished up the evening watching the start of an Io shadow transit.

A great evening all round.

Michael.

Saturn
 

Jupiter and Io (burry thing on the lower right )

Hi Michael,

Delighted to read that you brought your big Nexstar. I love your images, and to watch some of the Io transit was a nice bonus...Great suff!

Clear skies, and thanks for sharing.

Darren.

Hello Michael. 
It's great to see these 2 very fine images of Saturn and Jupiter. 
I do see the Cassini Division in Saturn rings and the Great Red Spot jutting south of the South Equatorial Belt. 
Directly east of the Red Spot I do see that bright temperate zone I saw also. 
I will report later what I observed on Wednesday night. 

Very best regards from Aubrey.  

Hello all. 

The 3 of us had a pleasant time on Wednesday night. 
As Michael has said we had to wait for the clear skies to arrive. 

With my William Optics 158mm apochromatic refractor I observed the following:

1. Arcturus and CN Bootis were spotted at 40x. Arcturus had its orange hue of course. 

2. Straight up I spotted Izar and split it at the usual 112x. Pulcherrima was fading and reappearing from the cloud. It also looked very good at 140x. I must have kept observing Epsilon Bootis for a full 20 minutes. That was because most of the sky was still overcast. 

3. Eventually I could see the Plough. So Mizar came next. Easily split at 40x. Magnitudes: A = 2.2. B = 3.9. Sep = 14.6". PA = 153 degrees. Of course Alcor and that 4th component were easy to see. 

4. The southern sky became more clear then. Albireo was nicely split at 11x with my small WO apo. At 40x was much nicer. Magnitudes: A = 3.2. B = 4.7. Sep = 34.9". PA = 54 degrees. As the spectral classes are K3 and B9 I had no trouble seeing the orange and blue colours. 

5. Cr 399 (the Coathanger) came next. At 40x I could see the 2 southerly stars were orange very easily. This 100% verifies Paul's recent sketch. 

6. The sky was much clearer now. So it was time to observe Saturn. Its magnitude is +0.3 right now. At 40x the rings were separated from the planet and Titan was visible. At 140x the famous Cassini Division was observed quite easily. Iapetus and Rhea were seen. It was wonderful to see the ringed planet again. It is still in Capricornus. 

7. Finally I finish with Jupiter. Its magnitude is -2.8. At 40x all 4 moons were visible. Ganymede was the brightest. At 112x I could see that the South Equatorial Belt was very pale grey. But the North Equatorial Belt was far more dark. At 167x I could see the Great Red Spot jutting out of the southern part of the SEB. Although I couldn't make its colour, it was still a delightful sight. I also noticed a reasonably dark north polar region. 

Clear skies from Aubrey. 

Hi Aubrey,

Very many thanks for sharing your observations with us. It was great that the skies cleared for you all. By the sound of your wonderful descriptions of Saturn and Jupiter they put on a good show lasf Wednesday. Jupiter seems to be much higher in sky this year, so I'm looking forward to reading more of your observations on it over the coming weeks.

Clear skies,
Darren.