Good Things Come To Those...

Hi all

Wasn't yesterday evening wonderful? The clear blue skies, the cloud free sunset and the first stars appearing? Got out the tripod, still beautiful out, popped on the EQ mount, lovely overhead sky, placed the scope on the mount and there's not a star in the sky. There was one thing to note, it wasn't cold, because the language that came from my mouth easily warmed the air.

There were breaks in the clouds, not huge ones, so I decided to tough it out and hope for the best. But as time went on there was no sign of improvement, then it happened. To the south a clear slot appeared and Jupiter shone in all its glory. I popped in my 30mm Ultima plossl, with a magnification of 27X, and there it was, four moons, two equatorial bands, beautiful, even the slight purple haze wasn't enough to spoil the view. I inserted the Baader semi-apo filter and the sight was so much better.

Due to its low southerly location the view was diminished when I went past a 13mm EP giving a magnification of 63X the image didn't improveany , indeed I found that the Ultima gave the best views and sustained me for the best part of an hour looking at Jupiter.

I got a sketch of the scene and the sight of the planet king more than made up for the rest of the crummy evening.

Observing Jupiter showed the quality of the semi-apo filter and the Ultima plossl, combined they brought out the best in the view, even low to the horizon.

I had a full set of Celestron Ultima EPs many years ago, how stupid was I to have sold them?

LOL, I had a feeling where the first half of your post was going from the first sentence I don't think you can be an astronomer in this country without having some masochistic tendencies Great that you got a sucker hole over Jupiter and it wasn't all wasted effort lugging the scope out.

lunartic wrote:

it wasn't cold, because the language that came from my mouth easily warmed the air.

:laugh: :laugh:

well done, you achieved more than me over the last few weeks. Every evening I have stood in in the garden looking up at the deep and dark blue that appeared just before the sun slipped below the horizon. I would be considering bringing out the Dob until an hour later the same sky would be 100% cloud. One evening I swore to my wife that I saw small bright points of light in the sky through a small break in the clouds......she said I was delusional and was watching far to much television and there was no such thing as stars:unsure:

signed

very disturbed

Co Laois

Last night (Sunday night) the wife and I sat outside for about an hour looking up from the back garden. Like what was said before, it was clear around 23:20hrs, and when we went out about 23:45hrs, it was mostly cloud. Still, breaks did come, and we spotted 1 Perseid and 3 Cygnid meteors.

Seanie.