Above the Cloud - the blog!

Monday 27th July: Got scope out again, his time, in my back garden. I wasn't planning to stay out late but the night air was mild and the sky was Moonless but clear! But at 00:52 BST (23:52 UT), I saw the bright dazzling star that was Jupiter peaking out from behind the row of houses that hampers my view. Grabbed my old laptop and trusty old Toucam, connected them up and shot some footage of the planet. Unfortunately I couldn't get the surrounding moons and stars in the same field-of-view but Jupiter was what I was after. The images here show the planet; stacked webcam frames to give a still image. Of course I also observed the planet through the 8" SCT with 26mm (76x) and 15mm (133x), plossel lenses. Jupiter presented a remarkably still and crisp image. Both Equatorial Belts were easily observed along with both Polar Regions. To webcam, I used a 2.5x barlow lens at prime focus without the right-angled-prism, so yielding a direct view of the planet. Very satisfying and wo...

Sunday 26th July: After a warm, sunny and blue sky day, the evening rapidly brought the cloud! I had planned an evening's observing session in the back garden of a fellow member of Doncaster Astronomical Society , Sandra, who lives just around the corner from me! But yes...you've guessed it, the clouds were trying to put an end to my plan. After a couple of phone calls, I packed scope, laptop, webcam and lenses for a couple of hours observing. The sky was clear when I packed the kit into the car but had clouded-up when I got to Sandra's. We discussed the merits of setting the scope up as the cloud did present a few gaps and wide areas of clear sky were available for short periods. Well I quickly set it up, managing to get a couple of alignment stars; Alkaid in Ursa Major and Arcturus in Bootis. At 01:08 BST, Jupiter was in the eyepiece of the scope and at 76x, gave a pleasant crisp and clear image. The Equatorial Belts were very noticeable as were the Polar Regions. The Jo...

Monday 20th: At long last I have let my own scope see the night sky! Being a reasonably clear night - it wasn't until 23:45 BST that I actually directed my scope at an astronomical object - stars down to mag +4 were easily seen with the unaided eye, though there was some haze out to the west. Well the first object on my target list was Epsilon Bootis, Izar (SAO 83500). Izar is the showpiece Double Star in Bootis. A tight binary, the yellow primary star contrasts with the blue secondary. Through the 20mm lens and 2.5x barlow (250x), both components are resolved into individual stars and show a NE-SW arrangement. There is also a third star belonging to this pair, but either I didn't notice it or because at mag 12, the scope failed to resolve it. Staying in Bootis, Delta (SAO 64589) is a wide Double, easily resolved at any power. At 100x power the pair make an easily resolvable Double. With any more then both stars would be at opposite sides of the fov. The 3rd mag Primary star i...