Re: [Chaos-l] Little River last night

[Robert Nielsen]

Nice report, Jon ... wish I could have been there!

Concerning the dark spot on Jupiter, I've definitely seen the same spot ... and it isn't the GRS.  Check out APOD (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html) today ... there is a great photo of Jupiter, with two of the new dark spots visible ...

Robert

On Oct 22, 2011, at 10:24 AM, Jon Stewart-Taylor <joncst at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Hi all.  Little River last night was a very nice night, as it usually is at the park when the weather cooperates.  We had a small crowd, maybe 2 dozen at the most, i think (Mickey?).  The Milky Way was prominent overhead, and stretched almost horizon to horizon, though without much detail.  The open-cluster tourist traps were very pretty, and the Ring and  Dumbell nebulae and M13 all performed to standards under the 5+ LM skies.  Surprisingly, i don't believe anybody  spent much time on M31.  I didn't even look at it, for two reasons.
> 
> First, In the early part of the night, i was (overly ambitious!) trying to keep 4 instruments turned on the same object, starting with Mizar and Alcor.  The four were: 10x50 binoculars (on  tripod), Denali 15-45x zoom spotting scope (on tripod), Meade 60mm "Christmas trash"-type scope on alt-az mount, and 10" dob.  The idea was to show the differences in what you can see through the different types of instruments.  That worked to some extent, but one person really can't operate that many non-tracking instruments at once and still have time to chat.  Also, my telrad died early on.  First, the dewing was Ferocious, and i'd forgotten to bring the battery for the dew heater.  When i tried to wipe the glass, the lens fell in.  I tried just the 8x10 finder, but it was dewing also. The Denali proved too hard to find things in, especially after the dewing set in.  The binoculars were far enough away that most people didn't notice them, and i didn't have time to "advertise" them.  Mostly i split time between the 60mm and the 10".
> 
> Second, i eventually just spent the rest of the night on Jupiter (which was at least easy to find).  At the start of the night 3 Galilean moons were visible, but towards the end of the night the 4th emerged  from behind the planet, starting as just a bulge, then gradually clearing the planet and moving away.  Research after-the-fact showed:
>   Friday 2011-10-21 9:04 PM Io Occultation End (S -32 J 106 27)
> Despite an unsteady atmosphere the seeing was surprisingly good in "waves": so good i took the 10" up to 200x.  A little patience would give off-and-on clear glimpses of detail in the bands, and especially a dark spot at the western limb of the planet.  At first i thought it was a moon shadow, but the geometry didn't seem right.  Then i thought it might be the Great Pale (formerly Red) Spot, but it was in the wrong band.  At this point, i think it was just a dark spot in the band.
> 
> I packed it in around 9:30, about 1/2 hour after the "official" end of the session.  Thanks to Little River and Morehead for hosting.
> 
> J.
> -- 
> Jon Stewart-Taylor:  joncst at earthlink.net
> Chapel Hill Astronomy: http://www.rtpnet.org/chaos
> 
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