Sess. #277 9:45-11:00 Mike Wirths' lm=5.5 s=5
Moon near Full Clear Skies -4C
A bit Windy, but not in the observatory... ;-)
A most excellent dinner at Mike's home with the much reknowned Butter
Tandoori Chiken and most tasty ever lentil recipe. Janice, Ingrid,
Attilla and myself were Pam and Mike's lucky guests. Many thanks to
them for such a feast, and the warm hospitality as well.
An observing session began later in the evening, with Mike, Attilla &
myself attending. ( Janice had not brought observing garb. ) We
observed with Mike's 'smaller' 18" scope. Moon, just past full,
reduced limiting magnitude to maybe 5.5
Moon 1: A very attractive target that we returbed to a few times in
the evening. Most striking was Tycho's rays - they seemed about twice
as detailed as I had seen them thus far. Each ray seemed to have
small thin filaments.
Jupiter: Was getting low and so was barely above the northern edge of
the pulled out observatory roof. Unfortunately, the seeing was only
passable. It just so happens a moon was emerging and a shadow transit
was in progress with the inky dark shadow located in the middle on of
a belt. Bino-viewers, sporting a couple of Zeiss lenses I believe,
were added by Attilla - you see so much more with 2 eyes.
Moon 2: This time we looked at many features on the moon at approx.
200x The most striking thing for me was to notice how the usually
smooth grey mare areas were peppered with literally hundreds of tiny
craterlets. Rich details, and some hits of coloration - blue-grey vs.
brown-gray vs. white, etc. Messier A & B Craters with their con-trail
like ejecta was another favourite of mine. Aristarcus was extremely
bright white. We also looked at the crater Petavius, which was well
placed for us to see the prominent single radial line within it. I'll
upload and old sketch file called Petavius.gif to the sketches
directory on this group. Night vision was quite impaired after
observing the moon.
Castor - binary - kind of yellowish to my moon-blasted eyes, but more
accurately whitish-blue to Attilla. Sep 4.0" & whitish blue says the
manual.
Gamma Leonis - binary - Sep 4.4" - these actually were yellowish. Tube
currents were noticed when stars placed out of focus. This was due to
the lowering temperature outside.
Polaris - binary - Sep 18.4 Yellowish primary and whitish-grey
secondary.
Mizar - binary - since we were dooing doubles without any maps, it
needed a visit. Sep 14.4" - the 18" scope was definitely overkill for
this one. Still, quite attractive.
Epsilon Bootis - binary - Sep 2.8" & a bit of colour constrast (
yellow - blue-green ). Two magnitude difference between them makes
them more attractive to my eye.
Muchos Gratias, Amigos!
Roland Prevost( aka Photon Man )
PS- B.T.W., Attilla, who was that author you mentioned the other time,
you know, regarding Photons and interesting scientific theories
thereof?
