Friday 25th July 2009

Was there something special about last Friday night weather/atmospheric-wise? Apart from it just being a good night I mean, everything just seemed unbelievably clear, I had a look at but I didn't see anything unusual in the forecast. I Had the best seeing I've ever had out at my parents house which is a total darksite in South Galway on Friday night, Milky Way stretching to the horizon and thousands upon thousands of stars. I had a great view of Jupiter, squinted and squinted but could not make out the new impact site in my 102 SLT, wasn't expecting to either, ah well, it was a great night anyway, could not believe how clear the sky was @ 2-3 am, basically just pressed "Tour" on the hand controller and saw more objects in an hour than I have in 6 months, kept going back to Jupiter because it was just awesome looking, at times I was viewing @ 216X with the 6mm EP and a 2X barlow which is usually a blurred mess on other nights but it was crystal clear, hope we get a few more nights like that soon because I was blown away, there were satellites all over the sky and not a puff of wind, wish I had an AP setup.

Hi,
I also noticed that aswell, the seeing was especially good, I suppose the jet stream was far off.

The jet stream archive should show the position for the time you mention.
virga.sfsu.edu/pub/jetstream/jetstream_atl/small/0907/

Once the clouds rolled through here in south Dublin things cleared up nicely. Even though Jupiter was low on the horizon I managed to get some wonderful views of it, crisp and sharp with lots of detail.

These nights are rare and it was nice to catch one.

Paul

A few of us went to Killylane, and had a very good night. Bit murky early on, but after midnight, the seeing was excellent. At one point, I was viewing Jupiter in the Celestron C6 ,using an 8mm Hyperion and a 2x barlow, giving 375X, the first time I've ever had the magnification so high and been able to see anything clearly. Still couldn't see the impact site though.

I havent seen any stars since I made this thread 3 weeks ago : angry:

This has to be some kind of record year for bad visibility so far is it?