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An Astronomic weekend Pt 2

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(@scott-zelenak)
Posts: 600
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What went wrong and what went right.

Wrong:
1. I have a lump on my left temple that every mosquito in New Jersey found delicous.
Not sure why, but that seems to be the sweet spot for skeeters. Huge lump.

2. My formula are at least an AU off and I have a sign error (I hope) somewhere.

3. Condensation. Geez I don't remember that. WTF. Every instrument was soaked by dawn. No wonder mold is an issue. Thank God I am well stocked with dessicant packs - even after letting them dry all day. I'm sure that got inside.

Right;
1. Jesus, Jupiter is beautiful. I'll post a pic but it does no justice. The T-3 with 40 mag showed the planet (and at least five bands) about the size of a pea and the Galilean moons looked like bright stars. Jupiter is in Aries so there are no bright stars behind. Again the pic does no justice, I tried every few hours but the best one was the first. It's just impossible to get a pic through the eyepiece.

2. Because I had no recorder (per se), I used a handheld voice recorder to record me reading angles.

3. Again no recorder, so I had my laptop sing out the seconds with a voice program.

2. and 3. Fooking brilliant. Works excellent.

Ok, here we go with a bad pic.
BTW, if you never turned a scope at the moon or jupiter, shame on you.

 
Posted : October 8, 2011 2:47 pm
 BigE
(@bige)
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Where in the sky and can I look for it and can I see it with binos?

Venus is clearly visible in the SE from here in the late evening and by morning it's the last "star" and is in SW in early dawn.

I/we did a treat a couple months ago and got to see the ISS do a fly-over. That was my 2nd time seeing it.

Dumb-A on me for giving away my telescope (a cheapy but worked) many years ago.
E.

 
Posted : October 8, 2011 2:57 pm
(@scott-zelenak)
Posts: 600
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Man you can't miss it in the east after nine, it rises almost due east and blazes brighter than Venus.

One more bad. Light. Can't get enough of the kind you need.
The moon darn near blinded me through the DKM3-A and T-3.
Ruined my night vision for quite a long time.

Edit; Good. I did get a latitude series in with north and south stars crossing the meridian. I had a program of stars to observe and added a few, hoping my formulae to identify stars by observation then backing into RA & Dec would work. Turns out it does.

 
Posted : October 8, 2011 3:08 pm
(@dave-ingram)
Posts: 2142
 

That's actually a quite good picture. Just a little overexposed, but you almost have to do that to see the moons clearly.

I didn't get as ambitious as you and dig out my telescope. The pillow felt very good last night.

I have a digital imager for my telescope and here's an image I captured.

]

 
Posted : October 8, 2011 3:33 pm
(@noodles)
Posts: 5912
 

> 1. I have a lump on my left temple that every mosquito in New Jersey found delicous.
> Not sure why, but that seems to be the sweet spot for skeeters. Huge lump.

Get some Tea Tree Oil and put a dab on it 2x a day...I guarantee you it will heal up and NO skeeters will EVER get near it again as it heals. Trust me. 🙂

Photo of Jupiter and friends is gorgeous!! I have been lucky enough to view Jupiter, Saturn, and a few others through those giant telescopes at the observatory many years ago...Crazy and fascinating all at the same time. :star:

 
Posted : October 8, 2011 3:33 pm
(@dave-ingram)
Posts: 2142
 

Google "Cartes du Ciel" and it will lead you to a very good, free download skychart. Then you can find where anything is at any time in the sky.

 
Posted : October 8, 2011 3:37 pm
(@mapmaker151)
Posts: 177
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> Google "Cartes du Ciel" and it will lead you to a very good, free download skychart. Then you can find where anything is at any time in the sky.

Thanks for the link.

 
Posted : October 8, 2011 4:55 pm