Quick Visual Observing Session

Not a bad tonight! We had several large storms move through the area two days ago, but the skies were clear with a faint wisp of cloud on the horizon. I spent a good hour or so with my trusty 6" Dob in the front garden. The seeing was so-so, maybe 2-3/5 at best. Jupiter was bright but through the telescope it was shimmering a lot. I could still make out the cloud bands and four moons easily with the 10mm Radian, but got a better, crisper view through the Panoptic 22mm. Venus was beautiful - very clear gibbous-like shape and super bright. Always a great site! I moved around and focused on Mars. With the 10mm Radian it was really big. Nice and red, with some hint of patches of darkness on the surface when the atmosphere steadied. I also checked out M42, and through the light pollution could still see the brighter, wispy nebula clouds extending far and wide - a nice view!

This Friday night promises to be clear and calm, so I'm packing my gear and going out into the countryside, hopefully. My guide camera is fixed and I can now finally get a shot of some stuff around Orion, which I have been itching to shoot all winter. I am also contemplating M101 but not sure who it will go with an 80mm imaging scope. We'll see.