views of jupiter

Last night I had about an hour and a half session with the 12.5-inch.  Since transparency was poor, with a high haze, I spent a good deal of time on Jupiter.  It's still pretty low and I needed to cut some branches off the apricot tree, and seeing wasn't the best, but it was nice all the same.  No moon transits or shadows, but plenty of detail in the belts.  I saw my first white oval, and there were large barges in the equatorial belts, swirled with color and festoons.  I used 277x and the planetary filter and apodizing mask.

I tried some doubles in Leo, for a change of pace:

STF 1424 = Algieba: Bright yellow and yellow-orange pair, 1 delta mag, PA to the east, 4-6" [AB 2.37/3.64, 4.7", 127°]

STF 1448: Pretty orange and blue pair, 2 delta mag, 10", PA to SW. [AC 7.54/9.55, 10.9", 259°. There's a Burnham AB pair 13th magnitude 3.5", which I did not even suspect was there].

STF 1447: Faint white and red-orange, PA to the east, pretty wide 6". Nice pair. [7.52/8.88, 4.4", 117°]

I went back to Jupiter again for a little while, since it was higher. But it wasn't a good night and my heart wasn't in it, I felt tired. Tonight I am sick with a cold and can't go out -- which is too bad since this is the first night in many weeks with above average seeing and transparency. Next time.