by Bob Czerwinski
It was one of those nights at MB. Joy and No Joy. [snip...] Then I noticed the cause of it all. Mr. Crisp's towering AP 180mm (that's 7.1 inches of pure triple decker fluorite plus a bit oil folks) f/9 Starfire EDT Refractor. [snip...] Rich actually put an ocular on his scope, after tearing off the nest of wires to gain access to the business end of the scope. It wasn't fair, because the Moon was doing a backstroke, and Jupiter was pulsating. ...
A swimming Moon and pulsating Jupiter is right! Ye gods! Arriving at 9:15pm, it's the first time I've looked at Jupiter through someone's AP without seeing some evidence of the gas giant's bands or zones. Just a pale-white blob stood before us; the NEB and SEB had completely vanished. Three Galilean moons were visible - sort of - with the fourth either transiting or behind Jupiter. Save for the identifying moons, we could have beeen looking at a severely bloated Regulus. Ol' Jove was simply the King of Fuzzballs last night. I don't think I've ever seen the seeing this bad before.
But, oh, what a 'scope! (Thanks for the views anyway, Richard.)
Posted on sf-bay-tac May 24, 2004 09:59:22 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 12, 2004 20:17:51 PT