by Robin Casady
I did some of my observing from indoors last night. A friend and I were testing an electric focuser prototype for the Astro-Physics 10" Maksutov-Cassegrain. An Astrovid 2000 was running video of Jupiter into a Sony DCR PC-100 camcorder.
Prior to that, we observed Saturn and Jupiter through a Zeiss Binoviewer with 16mm Zeiss orthos. The seeing was somewhat better than previous sessions this year, but not wonderful. Saturn showed a beautiful crepe ring, and the Cassini division brought forth that technical astronomical phrase, "You could drive a truck through it." The planet's shadow on the rings was so sharp and contrasty that it didn't look real. We couldn't see Enke's ankle minima gap thingy, but saw some variation in the A ring that hinted that something was there.
Jupiter showed lots of gnarly bits. There were several white ovals. I thought I saw a few garlands, but couldn't be sure.
Fashion Data: For outside observing I was wearing a pair of L.L. Bean pants with nylon shell, nylon liner, and polyester inter-fill. The forest green of the nylon was accented by blue plastic zippers down the full length of each leg. This blue is echoed in the blue nylon jacket with integral hood and magenta zippers on the front and pockets. This outfit was accessorized by Rigel Systems Skylite with blue lanyard.
Indoor observing required the disassembly of some componets of this stylish outfit.