planetary nights

Friday night I took out the 8-inch for some "shallow sky" observing.  It falls dark very late, and there was some light fog blowing in from the ocean, so it's not a night for anything except the bright stuff.

I was keen to observe Jupiter, since that night Chi Leonis would be 0.1 degrees south of the planet.  At 113x Jupiter's bands showed nicely, with some darkening and hints of festoons.  The four Galilean planets were all in a row: Europa and Io to the east, fairly close; and Ganymede and Calisto to the west.  Ganymede was about as far out from its relative Jupiter limb as Io, but Calisto was very far away.  Chi Leonis shown as an errant fifth Galilean moon to the south about as far as Europa was. 

One of the reasons I used the 8-inch was I wanted to observe Mars and Saturn, for which I need to have the scope on the other side of the yard from where the 12-inch is set-up.  I spent a good deal of time on Mars at 184x, both with and without the planetary filter.  I sketched what I could see during the periodic stillness, and over the course of the observation built up a fairly good sketch (by my low standards).  Mars was at about 270 degrees aphelic apparition.  The white cap of Planum Boreum shown plainly, along with the darker landscape of Mare Boreum and Utopia, with peninsula jutting into the lighter plain.  Syrtis Major and Mare Tyrrhenum made a strongly dark "C" shaped arc to the north, and I picked up Sinus Sabaeus trailing to the west.  Hellas was a small lighter section near the limb.  With more looking and patience, I noticed some surface shading extending east, which is Aetheria and Elysium. 

Saturn was only "ok."  It was still pretty low and was hurt by the haze and deteriorated seeing.  Cassini's division was clear and the brown equatorial band and greenish yellow polar region.  Moons Titan, Rhea, and Enceladus were easily spotted arcing from the south east of the plant.

I was out again last night with the 12-inch, and had another look at Jupiter.  Chi Leonis seemed to be further away to the west, however since I was using a different scope my sense of scale may well have been thrown off.  A GRS transit was in progress, a little more than halfway across.  I spent a good deal of time on the moon's terminator at 553x & 277x, but was fighting the seeing.  I waited until Mars cleared the neighbor's big tree, and could only see about as much detail as I had in the 8-inch the night before.  So, I will be waiting for better nights to come.