With thanks to Ganymede!

by Paul Sterngold


I had a very similar experience with my 4" refractor, except that the seeing was outstanding right from the start at my home in Alameda. It was one of the three best viewing sessions I've had from the sidewalk here.

The shadow transit was amazing. I've never seen a moon's shadow so crisp and well-defined against Jupiter before, except once in Rich's 7" A-P from the Peak. It was so clear and sharp that it looked like a piece was missing out of the giant planet. I had planned to go to bed at a semi-reasonable hour, but the seeing was so great that I stayed up after Ganymeded began to attach itself to Jupiter. Again, the edge definition of the moon against its master was amazing. I watched until the little orb was nearly completely assimilated ("resistance is futile"?) into the big planet. Observations were made at 160x at first and later at 229x.

The moon was up high enough by then to wander around a bit there, too. For a short while, the seeing steadied to the point that I was able to crank up the power all the way to 421x and still get amazingly detailed, steady views. (There was some low-frequency seeing effects but not the high-frequency ones that steal so much detail.) I then stepped back to 267x and cruised around near the terminator.

Before visiting Jupiter, I had started on Saturn, which also rewarded me with lovely views. I also split several doubles, the closest of which was zeta Aqr (I think it's 1.8" sep?).

Last night (and this morning <g>) turned out to be the finest night of home-based observing I've had in a long, long time.