Hello, one and all.
It was great to re-observe with my astronomical friends Darren and Paul in the Sugarloaf car park on Friday night 18th November 2022.
But we had the super addition of President Mick McCreary of the Irish Astronomy Society with us.
I had both my William Optics 158mm f/7 apochromatic refractor and the William Optics 70mm f/6 small apo with me of course.
There was a 10 to 14 km/h breeze, but the real problem was the dew. The air temperature was 5˚ Celsius. I had 7 layers of clothing on me. And goodness me! Did I need every one of them? The chill was bad enough. The seeing was not good at all at the beginning. Paul could see that by stating he could barely see the Milky Way with his eyes. Darren observed Saturn with his 10” reflector and the view was so poor – absolute mush! I observed from 21.30 till 23.00 UT with my refractors. It was good to be home at midnight.
1. Jupiter was the “star” of the night. Its magnitude is now -2.7. Distance: 651,177,000 kms from us. At 11x with my small 70x I could easily bright 4.8 magnitude Ganymede on its western side. There was great excitement at 40x in the main scope when we could only see 1 other moon very close to the north western side of Jupiter. It was 6.1 magnitude Callisto! I have just figured out how close separation-wise this moon was to Jupiter: a mere 9.5”. Magnificent! The other 2 moons – Io and Europa were behind the giant planet until 22.14. Io suddenly appeared a full 4 minutes early. Using my 167x eyepiece, a lovely tiny speck appeared to my observing eye some distance from the planet.The moon had to clear Jupiter's massive shadow. It was a huge thrill to see a 3rd moon joining us live! At 140x I observed the North and South Equatorial Belts and the North Polar Region and not much else. I wondered if there was a split visible in the SEB. Still it was a memorable night with my favourite planet. There were 3 field stars near Jupiter. One of them was a 7.6 magnitude star called HD 224037. This orange star has a spectral class of K5.
2. After all that excitement, I moved the scope to Mars. I had to clean with a small cloth 3 of my eyepieces at this stage: 38mm, 28mm and 6.7mm, the dew was causing some noticeable problems. At 140x and 167x, I could just about see the North Polar Hood. Syrtis Major was supposed to be on view, but yours truly could NOT see it. It proved that the seeing was still not good. So I left my planetary viewing for the night.
3. My 3rd and final object was a single star. Mick and I expressed our gratitude to Paul for pointing out to us Mu Cephei the Garnet Star which Sir William Herschel discovered back in his day. We could see this famous star - that has a spectral class of M2 - with our eyes once we got our bearings. It varies from 3.4 to 4.5 in magnitude. At 40x its “Jaffa” orange colour was a delight to behold. Thank you, Paul!
Now I wish to ask Paul to remind me regards what I need to kill these dew problems which my scope has from time to time. Any time, Paul! Thank you.
I'm noticing that Amazon UK don't have in stock a Lens Dew Heater.
Here is the link:
www.amazon.co.uk/Temperature-Regulator-U...83863990464099&psc=1
Clear skies to everyone from Aubrey.
