Session at Dempsey today

[Airconvent]

With the pretty clear skies after so many days of rain (rainiest in 30 years!), I thought I would call for a dempsey session today. was amazed when most were not interested....
!
anyway, I met up with David Lian and Richard Low at dempsey and apart from the moon, the sky was clear! (it remained clear until clouds came in at 3am). The mood was relaxed and we spent more time talking shop rather than observing! I was also playing with my ETX goto, doing some tuning.
In the end, we decided on quality instead of quantity, so ended up looking at M44, M42 and M41 only...wanted to try some galaxies as well with Leo so high up but with the moon glare and some clouds , it was a lost effort.

Spent a large proportion of time comparing the images between the Skywatcher Mak 127, Richard Low (rlow)'s Megrez and my ETX105. The Megrez, as usual gave some very nice wide view shots of Orion. As for the ETX, I was amazed that I was able to match the images of the 127mm Skywatcher in terms of brightness and sharpness inspite of the smaller aperture. I had the impression the 127mm would be better but this is the first time I did a side by side comparison.

The prize of the night was of course the jupiter moon transit.

At around midnight, after setting up our equipment, we noticed that Io was now very close to the planet itself. Now we all know that all 4 galilean moons are spread out in a line but only today did I notice they were not properly aligned in reality with Io & Europa on opposites sides of the axis. Eventually, Io did transit and we were able to see its shadow on all 3 scopes present. I pushed mine to 378X (9.7mm series 4000 + 2.5 TV barlow )and although it was hugh in the FOV, it did not result in a clearer picture , only a softer one. It seems the best view was using the 14mm radian at 100x.

Apart from a meteor, we did not really see anything else as clouds started coming in by 3am. Ironically, when I reached home, Hougang was clear but was too tired to continue....yawn

rich

[elton]

Caught the Io transit too. Watched it until the moon melted into the planet surface then it was too high to view from my living room. First time on the teleport and saw the shadow on Jupiter resolved nicely to a disk. Seeing in the east was quite good. There was a large feature somewhere in the centre. Was it the GRS?

[Airconvent]

Caught the Io transit too. Watched it until the moon melted into the planet surface then it was too high to view from my living room. First time on the teleport and saw the shadow on Jupiter resolved nicely to a disk. Seeing in the east was quite good. There was a large feature somewhere in the centre. Was it the GRS?

HI elton...its about time you join us at dempsey :-)
anyway, we did try to look for the GRS but either it is too faint or my aperture too small....was not able to see it.. anyone can confirm if the grs is visible at 2am last night?

rich

[harlequin2902]

HI elton...its about time you join us at dempsey
anyway, we did try to look for the GRS but either it is too faint or my aperture too small....was not able to see it.. anyone can confirm if the grs is visible at 2am last night?

rich

Just checked my "Jupiter features" software and it shows that the GRS was only visible at around 5am (just rotating into view) on 1st Jan.

That reminds me, I think I shall make it a point to check the time it's visible just before I go out for any observing from now on .

[rogermun]

Hey Rich,

I suppose the CSN was not activated. I would be interested too. It has been awhile since I last saw clear skies.

Cheers!
Roger

[acc]

Ehh CSN was not activated that nite. Was having a holiday at Bintan and my, the sky there was clear and dark! Too bad the moon was up though...

[Airconvent]

Hey Rich,

I suppose the CSN was not activated. I would be interested too. It has been awhile since I last saw clear skies.

Cheers!
Roger

alamak fren,
I did call you twice that night but your phone was switched off...
As I go to Dempsey only after 11pm, if I activate, it will be mostly those who can drive like yourself since transport will be a problem for those who don't drive. anyway, will call you again the next time we activate again...
for those who drive and would like to be included, do PM me with your mobile number and I will call you if there is a late night activation...
those who are asleep by 11pm need not apply!

[Airconvent]

Ehh CSN was not activated that nite. Was having a holiday at Bintan and my, the sky there was clear and dark! Too bad the moon was up though...

hi cc, the moon may be up but we set up where the moon was behind a building, so the effect was not so great...

rich

[elton]

Rich, I don't drive so your past-11pm session are out of reach to me. I won't mind checking out dark spots in the east though.