Just a quick observation

... since last night we had Other Things to do, and given it's Easter the moon came up like a spotlight when it wasn't very late (but my goodness it was cold).

Saturn was my first object of interest, and it was great showing it to J's parents; they were quite impressed. And so was I - I could definitely see Titan, and I thought I could see another moon, quite close to the disk on the other side from Titan. Through J's telescope, turns out I was right, and I could see another as well: according to Stellarium, they were Dione and Tethys. If I'm lucky, tonight we should be able to see Rhea too! (Saturn's moons are named after the Titans, the generation before the Olympian gods in Greek mythology).

Swung around then to Mars - quite red, and quite small. Since I was quite tired, and knew we weren't going to get much observing in, I then had a look at each of the stars of the Southern Cross - split Gamma Crucis (and Alpha Centauri too while I was at it). Since I was using a fairly wide eyepiece, I also managed to find the Jewel Box by accident when I was trying to remember if Mimosa Crucis is a double (if it is, not such that I can split in my telescope!).

J also looked at Saturn, and a few other objects, including the nebula in Eta Carina, which he let me look at. I was someone dismayed that we've basically lost Orion for the year.

Dinner, and a show

My darling was in a prolonged bike race in Mansfield this past weekend, so because it was also almost a new moon weekend we took the telescope(s) up with us, for a long weekend.

Wednesday night: cloudy. Bit sad, but not too much. Meant we could sleep well after our outing to the Mansfield Pub.

Thursday: was clear. Very clear. Firstly, though, we had to go and eat our way through DB's voucher for $400 at a local restaurant, won through this event last year. An entertaining night indeed. And then, out to discover just how dark it actually gets in Mansfield. Happily, we were about 1km from the main street - which was actually annoying most of the time, but did mean we were away from most of its (admittedly minimal) glow.

We'd set up the scopes before we left. To explain that plural: I have no picture yet, but J has decided that sharing with me was going to be just too annoying. Therefore he recently bought himself one: a 16" Dobsonian. If he's lucky a picture of it will appear on here at some stage. Because it's newer, and fancier, I decided it ought to be christened Copernicus...

Anyway. It was a great night for viewing. I had planned to find my way around Crux, because it's in a good spot at the moment and southwards-viewing really sucks at our place. I split Alpha Centauri for a start, which is always very satisfying. I also found the Jewel Box by myself, which is also satisfying - and is something I'm having to do all of sudden, what with J off playing with his own telescope. I split a few other doubles, too: Acrux, although I don't think I made out the triple; Gamma Crucis, and Mu Crucis. I also found the clusters NGC 4103 and 4349, and I might have found 4052 but I'm not entirely positive.

I got sick of finding brand new things after a while and swung over to the old reliable, Orion, which is sadly beginning to set awfully early these days! I split Rigel and had a look at the Nebula. Most exciting, though, was finding Mars - getting smaller - AND Saturn! Which looked totally incredible, with the rings directly across the face of the disk so it just looked like the pictures. And we think we saw Titan, too, and possibly another moon even! It was terribly exciting.

J went hunting Messier objects. Found Omega Centauri, M46 and M47 - which do look cool in the same field of view, because the former is a fuzzy blob and the latter is a loose, dense conglomeration; M50, M78, and M79 as well.

We stayed up until about midnight. We'd shared the night with D and K, for a while - they piked a lot earlier than us, but made lots of appreciative noises, especially over Saturn.