Venus, Jupiter, and Porrima - 2004-11-05

by Jeff Gortatowsky

So I did get up at 4:20am PST (12:20UT I believe), put on some sweats, and setup the Teleport 7 and my Oly 2100UZ. Out on the office balcony it was a crisp morning with a tempertures in the low 50'sF (~ 11C) I'd guess. Down right chilly for Southern CA. :D There were some high cirrus clouds in most directions but not to the east. There just the slightest wiff of a breeze. Jupiter and Venus were beautiful to say the least and made a nice diagonal line with Porrima. Venus and Jupiter had traded spaces from yesterday morning... ships passing in the night...

I turned on the Teleport's mirror fan to cool it, as I set the 2100UZ for manual mode, 100ISO, (to try and keep the noise to a minimum), auto white balance, and made some shots of a few seconds each from a tripod using it's timer mode (sometimes). Some at f/3.3 most at f/2.8. Enough of this 'imaging' stuff.

I sat down and popped the 7mm Celestron Othro in the Teleport (144x) and took a look. Uh oh... It was then I knew I was in for a 'tough row to hoe'. Venus at 20+ degrees above the horizon was a roiling 'colorful' gibbous phase with little spikes shooting off in random directions. I guessed at 60 or 70 percent illuminated... ho humm... :D (StarryNight says 81%)

Off to Jupiter. Yep... looks like I was viewing it through a shallow moving creek... oh well, I was awake, warm, and it was a lovely morning... I 'toughed it out'. :D

Most of the time I could easily make out Ganymede's shadow. And of course Ganymede was easy to spot. Occasionally I got a glipse of some splits in I believe the SEB. I never did see Europa but I did suspect it's shadow once or twice in the NEB. Confirmed that this morning with StarryNight. But was looking in the 'wrong place' for Europa!

An unexpected treat was to see Io emerge (I mistaken thought it was Europa!) from behind Jupiter! Through the watery seeing it look very much like a moon ending it's transit. that 'pimple' effect. How wrong I was! (I had no computer or charts with me and had not noticed the appearance of Io in my simulations yesterday!)

With the seeing really annoying me, I went back to the camera and took some more shots as the first light of dawn brightened the skyies over the Santa Ana Canyon and Yorba Linda. (Can you tell I am spoiled by the good seeing around Palomar Mountain?)

Pictures are at the URL below... comments welcome... I wish I could digitally improve them and send one on to S&T but I am not really savvy with that stuff... :D

http://www.fototime.com/inv/F3138978D948290

I took a quick look at saturn which thankfully was well worth it with Dione, Tethys, and Rhea making their own diagonal line. The seeing directly overhead was good enough to make out the subtle equitorial banding on on saturn as well as polar darkening. Cassini's Division and the crepe ring as well as the darkening of the rings as they curve around were visible at ...

Ten minutes later the teleport was collapsed, and everything was back in the office. I was back in bed happy I had gotten up. This is how memories are made yes?

Posted on sf-bay-tac Nov 05, 2004 11:31:04 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 21, 2005 00:03:51 PT