Sandymount observing -Friday 19th July

Hi all. Would any of us care to come down to the Martello Tower, Sandymount, on Friday 19th July from about 8.30pm? I have just seen the weather forecast on RTE and they are promising clear skies all day and night on Friday.
We can observe anything at all, but I shall be looking at the Moon and Saturn. The Moon is close to Rho Ophuichi, a quadruple star.

Clear skies, everyone.

Aubrey.

Myself and Joshua could do with a night out

It will be great to have you along, Paul and Joshua. The problems I had with my berlebach mount have completely eradicated thanks to the great skills of our friend Bob. We fitted new reinforced clamps. I tested them out last night.

Aubrey.

Anyone else wishing to join us? Liam Smith is thinking of joining us.

Aubrey.

What a brilliant night my wife Valerie and I had with Liam Smyth, Paul and young Joshua at the Martello Tower at Sandymount from 9.30 pm to midnight. Paul had his 8" scope and I had my 6.2" apochromatic refractor and this is what we saw.

1. 11 day old gibbous Moon viewed at magnifications 40X and 112X: glorious walled plain Schickard was right on the terminator. Its floor was almost in complete darkness but we could see its vast rim. It is 227 kilometres in diameter. Cigar shaped Schiller was visible. Craters Bayer, Drebbel, Clausius, Lee, Vitelle, Dunthorne, Gassendi, Doppelmayer, Hainzel, A and C, Letronne and A, Flamsteed, C and B, Billy, Epimenides, Hansteen and Mons Hansteen were all observed. Lacus Excellentiae and Rupes Liebig were sighted also. One final stunning observation was seeing flooded ghost crater Flamsteed T was right on the terminator -3 beautiful curved lines.
2. We moved on to Saturn at 22.30 and frantically waved at Cassini taking pictures of Earth as it orbited Saturn, and many others joined in waving for a full 15 minutes. We could see Titan, Rhea and Dione close by. Kappa Virginis is still close to Saturn.
3. Our 3rd object was quadruple star was Rho Ophiuchi. At a mere 40X, I could see components C and D, but 112X was required to split A and B quite easily.
We went to our homes wonderfully satisfied.
My thanks to all who stopped by, and special thanks to Paul, Joshua and Liam. We must try and do it all again next month.

Aubrey.

I have to say it was one of the more enjoyable nights down at Sandymount, there was so many people passing up and down the prom and most of them stopped of with us to have a look at whatever we had in our scopes. Aubrey's telescope was by far the star of the show with the valleys, craters and mountain ranges he was showing people on the Moon. I kept it simple with the Moon and Saturn both at 63x, I did push them out to 119x later on.

The amount of people that thought I was crazy while I was telling them to wave at Saturn was unbelievable as well but when the time came there was about 10-15 of us looking like loons :bigshock: .