Observation Report 13/2/2011

Around 11pm the sky eventually cleared after a day of heavy cloud and rain to show a sky mostly washed out by the moon. This was my first chance to try out my new (to me) Startravel 102 though, so I wasn’t going to let the lack of things to look at put me off.

Given the brightness of the moon it seemed sensible to start there, so I spent a good hour or so finding the Apennines, Tycho, Clavius, Proclus and Mare Serenitatis. I tried to find a few other features towards the eastern limb, but being lit from overhead I wasn’t really able to get a good view. They will have to wait for another time. Those features near the terminator were stunning though, even at only 20x magnification. I did try 50x magnification, which made it tricky to identify whereabouts on the moon I was and it was tricky to get anything meaningful in focus beyond that.

On the point of packing up I noticed Saturn had crept around the corner of the house, though it was still fairly low on the horizon. Starting at 20x and working my way up to 125x magnification I ended up with a beautiful view of the planet and rings, closely accompanied by Titan. I look forward to seeing it higher in the sky over the next few months.

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