My small party with my wife Valerie, a friend called Mark, his son Matthew and daughter called Joy joined me in our back garden with my William Optics 158mm f/7 apochromatic refractor.
I first observed the Moon at 20.30 local time (19.30UT).
Even then both the Lunar X and the Lunar V were visible at 40x.
That's a bit strange, because they weren't due to appear until 21.20 local time (20.20UT).
I got lots of "Wows" as the young son and daughter saw both letters.
And I got even more "Wows" when I increased the magnification up to 112x.
I'm blessed that my 10mm eyepiece gives a full 37' fov.
As a result the whole Moon fits in.
I also saw 1 occultation.
The star SAO 78979 whose magnitude is 8.1 disappeared at 20.54 Local Time. I could even see some faint Earthshine at the time.
At no time could I see the K8 class star called SAO 78940. It just proved too faint for my scope. But I didn't mind. It was an interesting experiment.
The little ones were very happy to observe the quadruple star Castor split at 112x.
And lastly, we all observed the scarlet coloured star R Leonis at 11x and 40x.
Over on
www.aavso.org
someone has agreed with me that its current magnitude is 9.0.
It's nice to get it right.
What a great night all round!
I've decided not to do any observing on Saturday night because I'm too tired.
Very best regards from Aubrey.
