It was great to spend one more evening down at the Martello Tower Sandymount with my 6.2" apochromatic refractor and its guidescope. Valerie and I met up with Michael Murphy, Paul (Lunartic), Bob O'Brien, Liam Smyth, Val Dunne, Paul Walsh and his son Joshua, and Robin. This is my report of what we saw.
1. 9 day old Gibbous Moon using 40X and 112X. We observed Copernicus right on the terminator. The centre of the crater was in complete darkness as the Sun had not yet shone into it. Rupes Recta was on view as a black line, and I could see a lovely un-named mountain range extending out the crater Eratosthenes -quite a nice view. The "ghost" crater Stadius could just be seen nearby.
2. Jupiter's 4 moons were all east of the planet: Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede from left to right.
3. M44 (Beehive) star cluster observed at 11X and 40X.
4. Loveliest object of the night for me was Zeta Cancri (Tegmine). We could see all 3 components at 280X and 320X. We enjoyed it very much.
5. And lastly, Saturn, low down in the east with Titan and Rhea observed at 112X and of course the rings.
I would like to thank Michael for organizing the event. We all went home very happy.
Aubrey.
  