Jupiter and Mars

by Bill Arnett

Mark, Dave, Akkana and I happened to get together for dinner this evening. I remembered that tonight was the night for a nice appulse of Mars and Jupiter. So we brought a couple of scopes and set them up in the parking lot in front of the restaurant. I had my Pronto and Akkana had a 90mm f/5.6 Maksutov. Miraculously, the clouds disappeared just in time and we had a nice view. I was able to go as high as 140x (7mm Nagler with TV Big Barlow (which looks really silly; Dave said "Which end do I look into?")) but it was better at 100x (4.8 Nagler). Jupiter and the Medicean stars were in their usual neat line with the Red Planet off to the side only 11 minutes away (only slightly farther than Callisto). I love these little astronomical "events".

We had a couple of visitors, too. It's always nice to be able to show people that their world doesn't end at the edge of the parking lot :-)

Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 21, 1998 00:40:59 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Feb 15, 2005 20:19:32 PT