Sat night MB

by Casey Fukuda

The trip to MB Saturday night looked anything but inviting. A marine layer seemed to be making it's way in from the west. I met Dennis there around 5pm. We set up our scopes hoping for the best. From 6 to around 7:30pm, things didn't look too good. There were patches of clear, but clouds crowded the sky. Yusuf, Murali, Nick, Meifong, Lee, Jim and his son Robert showed up. We all optimistically reminded each other the CSC said that it would clear up around 8pm.

Well, around 7:45 there seemed to be more clear sky than clouds. Although it never really became completely clear, there were plenty stars and DSO's to make the night well worth the trip. How do those people predict that CSC? I thought it was all smoke and mirrors. A lot I know.

By 8, Saturn was low in the east. M1 was supposed to be within 2 degrees of Saturn, but we couldn't see it thru the haze and light dome of the eastern sky.

I spent the next couple of hours manual guiding piggy back shots of the Pleades and M42. The winds were calm. We had periods of high moisture in the air and then dry spells. I thought for sure we would get dewed out early, but we did not. The night started out damp, it dried out, then got damp again and by the end of the night, the equipment was dry again. Go figure.

The highlight of the night was Jupiter. Around 11:15pm, Jupiter was high enough in the east to observe with 300X. Jupiters disk appear to be the same size a Saturn's rings. As I was waiting for short durations of good seeing at high power, I saw a black spot on the face. At first I thought it might be a speck of dirt but Nick and Meifong confirmed it was a shadow of one of Jupiter's moons. S&T says Io was transiting tonight. That was a sight.

As Jupiter climbed into clearer skies, the two main equatorial bands became very apparent. Several other smaller bands showed up above, below and between the main bands. I'm not positive, but the Great Red Spot seemed to be breaking up one of the two main bands. It appeared to be a lighter, less dense intrusion moving across the face. The GRS is light tan these days, isn't it?

Just when we were congratulating ourselves for seeing the Io transit shadow and GRS, a small protrusion appeared off the western limb. Again I thought it was dust or even bad seeing, but it was quickly apparent Europa was reappearing from an occultation behind Jupiter. Nick and Meifong made the discovery first and I confirmed. It didn't take long to resolve the moon from the main planet.

Io's transit shadow, the GRS and Europa reappearing from occultation all within a 30 minute time frame. It was an exciting secession of events. Not bad for a night that started out so iffy.