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Saturn, the Moon & Jupiter

Kent Blackwell
 

After the program at the Chesapeake Planetarium Thursday night 85 people were treated to views of Saturn through the Celestron C-14 and the Moon through Mark O's 4" Tele Vue refractor. It's funny to see people's reaction to their first views, especially of Saturn. Most were floored by what they saw but one man was completely comatose. No reaction whatsoever, so I asked, "Do you see it"? His answer? "Yes", and he walked away. Everyone else had big smiles on their faces seeing both Saturn and the Moon. After most of the crowd left, I pointed the C-14 to Jupiter. The GRS (Great Red Spot) was on the meridian but nowadays I refer to it as the GPS (Great Pale Spot). I could barely see it. When I was ready to roll the scope in for the night, I noticed the corrector plate was completely fogged. If that happens to you (and it surely will) be sure not to cap the lens when you take the scope inside. Let it slowly adjust to the warmer temperature. 

Kent
jimcoble2000
 

Did you stick a pin in him to see if he was alive?

It was a pretty good crowd. The usual one teenager (male) too cool to expand his narrow horizon (or just to show his girlfriend how sophisticated he was). I advise she ditch him. The red spot was pretty tough and seeing was certainly not good on Jupiter. I stayed away from it mostly. I can't believe we looked for Neptune with a scope that has a zillion mm focal length when all the people were in the show. Talk about a hopeless cause. I could do it dead reckoning with a wide 4 inch. Neptune has been non spectacular this year. Mars also was hopeless around 2300 last night. Seeing was just too rough. But it was a nice evening and it gave me the chance to do a late night eyepiece cleaning session. NO Muffy please do not rest your head on the scope................................

On Friday, November 4, 2022 at 09:56:27 AM EDT, Kent Blackwell <kent@...> wrote:


After the program at the Chesapeake Planetarium Thursday night 85 people were treated to views of Saturn through the Celestron C-14 and the Moon through Mark O's 4" Tele Vue refractor. It's funny to see people's reaction to their first views, especially of Saturn. Most were floored by what they saw but one man was completely comatose. No reaction whatsoever, so I asked, "Do you see it"? His answer? "Yes", and he walked away. Everyone else had big smiles on their faces seeing both Saturn and the Moon. After most of the crowd left, I pointed the C-14 to Jupiter. The GRS (Great Red Spot) was on the meridian but nowadays I refer to it as the GPS (Great Pale Spot). I could barely see it. When I was ready to roll the scope in for the night, I noticed the corrector plate was completely fogged. If that happens to you (and it surely will) be sure not to cap the lens when you take the scope inside. Let it slowly adjust to the warmer temperature. 

Kent

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