Plato Sketch 09/01/14 .

Early morning Jupiter & Daylight Astronomy.

The skies were cloud free at 5.00 am , I decided to grab the C8 and does some observing, with perhaps a bit of astrophotography.

Jupiter was a splendid object, very bright in the 20mm erfle eyepiece.

All four Galilean moon were easily spotted.

With the 9mm eyepiece in place the planet's North and South Equatorial belts stood out easily.

The North and South Temperate belts were not that noticeable, the seeing wasn't as good as I had expected.

The North and South Polar Regions were visible, the South was noticeably the brighter of the two.

Here is this morning's quick sketch:

As the night turned to day I tried a bit of daylight Jupiter observing.

The image detail of the planet in broad daylight was slightly better - I took a few shots.

Mare Nectaris in a cloudy Sky.

 

Early this evening the clouds cleared long enough for me to capture a few images of Selene.

I'm still working my way around using my C8 Celestron as an imaging platform. 

The above lunar picture is my first attempt at astro imaging with a Schmidt Cassegrain telescope.