Post by jglover on Feb 6, 2005 3:55:10 GMT -6
Set up the scopes this evening as it *appeared* clear. The clear sky clock said everything would be just fine, but just like the local weather forecasts, it was wrong. Clouds and fog rolled in around 10pm, effectivley blotting out everything. I left both the ED80 and the ETx set up just in case. Woke up about 3 am, still overcast but Jupiter was poking through so I plugged it into the system and both scopes slewed right on the planet. Pretty good considered I aligned them at about 7:30 this evening. A quick check showed Io should transit the disk about 3:20am this morning so I decided to stick it out and see if I could pick up the shadow. Nothing, I was about to give up util about 3:30am when....boom...it popped into view. A tiny black dot crossing along the equatorial band. Very cool, I've never seen a shadow transit before! Seeing is only marginal right now, things dance in and out of focus but in those steady moments, it obvious in both scopes. I'm runnign the ETX 105 with a 9mm Nagler at 163x while the ED80 has the 13mm Nagler plus a 2.5x Powermate for at 115x. Actually the shadow is more distinct and sharper in the ED80 at the lower power. Looks like the seeing can only stand about 120x reliably tonite, but still, there are times when things settle down and the ETX view is spectacular.
I did try and get ridiculous and used the Pwoermate on the ETX, but it just would not take 408X....
Anyway, back out to watch a bit more, then it is definitely time to pack it in for the evening.
I did try and get ridiculous and used the Pwoermate on the ETX, but it just would not take 408X....
Anyway, back out to watch a bit more, then it is definitely time to pack it in for the evening.