Spring apparently means clear nights!

Well, this is Melbourne, so when I say 'clear nights' I really mean 'one clear night amongst the many murky ones.' Nonetheless: today it hit 20C for the first time in many months, there were lovely clear blue skies for most of the day - I sat outside and read! - and it stayed clear for the evening.

We started off looking at Venus, which was a delightful thin crescent. Then, waiting for the sky to darken at least a little, over to Alpha Centauri; split beautifully.

It didn't ever really properly darken tonight; probably we didn't leave it quite late enough. Anyway, Antares (the anti-Ares, ie Mars; cool!) was a lovely reddish colour, and I discovered that beta Scorpius, aka Graffias, is a double: a pair of whiteish-blue stars. Another of the Scorpius stars is also a double, but I did not split it - although it did look quite bulbous, so perhaps I was close.

Close to Scorpius is M7, which I managed to find all by myself - at exactly the same time that J found it through Copernicus, which was quite funny. It's a lovely open cluster, with a nice scatter of stars. Close to it is M6, but I did not manage to find it, which made me a little grumpy. To make up for it J pointed me towards Cr316, which I'd been thinking of finding anyway. It too is an open cluster, but (optically at least) much tighter than M7. Through the 35mm lens, it was quite spectacular.

Testing out just how good my eyes are, and how light the sky was, I next looked at the star G Scorpius, because next to it is a globular cluster, 6441: very faint from here, and you'd just assume it was a smudge if you weren't looking for it. In fact, my next target - M22 - I didn't even see even though I was looking for it. I got - ahem - a little petulant; J had a look to see where I was at... and it was there, in the eyepiece, I just hadn't noticed. Too faint!! - it's another globular cluster.

Really, all of this was a prelude to the main event, which was Jupiter. In order to get the earliest view possible, J decided he needed to do some gardening: bits of a climbing rose were waving about too high. Up a ladder, with secateurs, with only a red headlamp for light... awesome. Anyway, it was a totally classic view of Jupiter tonight. All four Galilean moons lined up, nicely spaced out. Jupiter itself still looking kinda weird with only one dark belt of clouds.

It was a great night's viewing, in all, and not even too cold. Also, not many insects! I'd like to observe in conditions like this all year rounf!

Oh Melbourne

Another lovely clear night! We've been blessed the last few, and apparently it should stay like this. Of course, given we have a long weekend coming up, it's likely to be cloudy...

We looked at Jupiter: Europa was getting very close and, over the evening, we saw it get closer and closer until - blip, its light was swallowed up Jupiter's. It's passing in front, so eventually there will be a shadow chasing behind, but I don't think I'll be up for it. Sadly, along with a lovely clear night, we've got mosquitos. J did a sketch:

I too could see that faint half-band to the south; this was very exciting. I could also definitely see some texture especially in the lower of the two dark, middle bands.

We looked at the moon: going from crescent to gibbous, it looks awesome. There's a really cool section at the south pole, right on the terminator; very cratered.

We split Alpha Centauri definitively.

We gave the UHC filter another go, and the result on NGC 6231 was very convincing (we did a with/without test). It's a winner for urban astronomy. Also convincing when pointed at the Lagoon Nebula (both of these with the 10mm, the rest with the zoom). I tried it on Antares, too, since there's apparently nebulosity around it... I thought I could see some fuzziness, but I might have been kidding myself.

Itty bitty crescent moon

Awww, so cute! 11% waxing and it's a bitty crescent - couldn't be seen until quite close to sunset. But there she is: haven't seen it in a while, and it's very cool. Again. Still.

After the sun had set and it got a bit darker, the moon looked even more impressive because the rest of the disc was illuminated by Earthshine. It's just lovely, against a dark purple background - a star above and below - the disc just hanging there. Pity I'm neither poet nor painter.

I knew J wanted to do a sketch of the moon, so while he was futzing around I swung the scope over to Old Reliable. Jupiter is going to disappear behind our antenna, and then behind our house, in the next few weeks, I think. Tonight though: all four moons - three on one side; two bands, as always through this eyepiece. I think a planetary eyepiece may be on the cards. Maybe for Christmas.

J is currently sketching the baby moon before it disappears behind the tree and fence. After that... I'm not sure what we'll look at. I should look at a map. Fortunately, one of the results of J's spending spree was Sky and Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas, which is a whole lot easier to use than the bigger sky atlas we also got.

I didn't get back out to the scope until the moon had disappeared, so no more lunography for me. There was this, though:

Inspired by the pocket atlas' picture of double stars, I found alpha Centauri - which I think I split, but the south is the brightest part of the sky around here - and then tried to split Kaus Australis - Sag Epsilon, I think - the brightest star in the Teapot. No luck. Spotted J's little favourite open cluster, NGC 6231, and its more diffuse neighbour Cr 316 (not sure what that designation means; something else I ought to learn). Checked out Antares, in Scorpio's tail, because the atlas showed bright nebulosity around it; not in my sky there wasn't. While in the vicinity we tried finding the globular cluster M4; we think we found it, based on a very faint fuzzy patch that was really only apparent when the view was jiggled around.

Ah, urban astronomy. It's all about what you don't see.