WoW! I was looking at Jupiter Thursday evening. It was great!

We have got to find some way for Mike to transport his new 6" AP. It's a really nice scope and I am sure that everyone would enjoy it.

First we looked at M29 and M56, which I had found with my binocs at Montebello the night before. From now on I am going to sketch what I see! At Montebello on Wednesday, I sketched out M29. On Thursday when I looked in the viewfinder at M29, I could see it very clearly. It was right where it had to be in the left leg of the stars that were shaped like an "A." And WoW! was it gorgeous in the 6"! I didn't draw M56 on Wednesday. When I looked in the viewfinder Thursday, I saw that little group of stars shaped like an arrow, but I couldn't remember exactly where to look for M56. It was hard to see and I didn't have my Star Atlas. I was very beautiful in the 6", so I know it was there, but I really see the advantage of sketching. Now I am anxious to read the next chapter in "The Guide to Amateur Astronomy" by Newton and Teece, which is about sketching.

I guess we started looking at Jupiter at about 10pm PDT. I believe the shadow the John Pierce mentioned was from the moon off the leading edge of the planet. At Montebello on Wednesday when I saw the moon come out from behind Jupiter, I noticed the distance that it was from the planet. Wouldn't you know, that moon that was making the shadow on Thursday was the same distance from the planet. If you imagine the position of the sun and look at Jupiter, you will see that shadow is just where it should be located. Unless your scope is flipping the image. I am a little embarrassed that in my post about Montebello I mentioned that the sun had set off to the left of Jupiter. Of course it sets off to the right. I just got tricked because the image was flipped. If the image was true the sun would have had to have been off to the left.

I took the time to sketch Jupiter on Thursday. It is amazing how much more I can see when I just stare for a very long time. I read in "The Guide" that it was very important to look for at least 20 seconds. Everything is so much more beautiful that way! When I was sketching Jupiter, I looked for much longer than this and it was logarithmically more exciting! I don't know how long I looked, but I had to stop because everything had moved too much. Maybe ten minutes? It was good that I had to stop because it prevented me from overworking my drawing. I think it would be good to draw a long planet so I could keep adding on as the planet turned.

Of course the seeing varied during this time, but WoW! when the seeing was good Jupiter was beautiful! It was actually beautiful even when the seeing was bad. I don't remember ever seeing so much detail! Except maybe that time in the observatory at the Peak, when I saw the GRS at about 2:00 am PDT. It's hard to compare though. At the Peak, I had been tracking meteors all night and the moon had long since set. My eyes were wide open and Jupiter was much higher at that time.

Sorry that I couldn't make it to the Peak Friday or Saturday. I hope to see you all soon!