Syrtis Major, one of my favourite features on Mars will be visible in the evenings of this coming week.
It can easily be seen in most modest telescopes.
For example my old 4.5 inch reflector and 70mm refractor could both easily see it, albeit a small image.
I've made a chart of the times of possible viewing for the coming week.
Had to be quick this morning, the streets of fast moving cloud were intent on spoiling my Sol viewing!
After a bit of patience, I was rewarded with a glimpse of a wonderful swirling prominence.
So far it's probably the best dancing prominence I have seen with this little telescope.
I was hoping that the prominence would break in half and form two distinct loops, but unfortunately within the next twenty minutes the structure had notably dissipated.
No observing this past week, the weather stopped play!
Though I am hoping to observe a few Galilean shadow transits sometime over the next couple of weeks.
For the remainder of November Io and Europa will be visible for evening viewing.
Here are the dates & times to watch out for:
Typed on my 85 year old typewriter ! -
Still going strong after all these years.
Our village was cloud free for several hours last night, this gave me the opportunity to go outside and observe.
The Moon was bright, Jupiter, and Saturn were high up, plus Mars would be around later in the evening.
I was spoilt for choice.
Jupiter first, not the best of seeing conditions, but the Newtonian returned a fair view of the Great Red Spot.
The gibbous phase, (my favourite), was just at the right position to show off the Moon Maiden.
She is always a welcome sight. I first made a post about this Clair-Obscur effect back in July 2012.
Just after 7pm Mars could be seen climbing from behind the Frenni Fawr to the north east.
I did briefly observe Mars later in the evening, but there was no discernable surface detail, though the North polar cap was in evidence.
Around 19h30m UT last night the clouds parted long enough for me to set up my new 150mm reflector (Thank you Nick).
A quick equatorial setup and straight over to Jupiter. Speed was of the essence as clouds were loitering over towards the south west.
Jupiter stood out really well through the 10mm ep (plus the x2 Barlow).
Both the South Equatorial and North Equatorial Belts were easily seen.
There was a transit of Io in progress, the shadow of Io was inky black and stood out well on the South Equatorial Belt. I didn't see any sign of Io itself.
Those clouds were getting closer!
Time to have a quick look and La Lune.
The f8 reflector returned beautiful images of the craters near the terminator.
Simple afocal camera photography gave me the picture that you see below.
The day started well enough, blue sky and a promise of sunshine.
By 9.00am the clouds rolled in.
Between the gaps I managed a couple of photos.
"A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness."
Albert Einstein
Daybreak this morning the weather looked cold and eclipse miserable, it looked as if I might miss out on today's Sun and Moon waltz.
My village and the surrounding area is renowned for more than its fair share of cloud cover and rain.
Its a pretty good bet that, if its raining in our back garden it will be dry and blue sky nine miles down the road in Cardigan.
So with telescope in suitcase we headed northwards to Cardigan town.
I had packed the telescope, two eyepieces and tripod. The Samsung S6 was to be my imaging device.
Spode's Law was in action, and as we arrived in Cardigan, the clouds rolled in to greet us.
No matter, soon we parked, and set up the telescope.
We were in luck, within five minutes the clouds parted and the eclipse was upon us.
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I could see the Sun above, but had to wait for the showers to stop before I could properly take out the telescope.
Eventually patience paid off and several photos were taken of the eclipse.
Initially I was going to image with a mylar filter on my refractor, but the little Ha telescope did a great job, and it managed to capture a couple of prominences.
I didn't manage to sketch the recent Full Moon, but I had a go at the gibbous Moon, as seen with my opera glasses. It was a cold night,...
