The winter and spring had been cloudy or raining on the Saturday nights so hadn’t been able to make it out. But, I did learn how to use a planetarium software called Stellarium which was very helpful to plan an observing attempt. Additionally, I realized I should stop thinking only Saturday night would work for observing. I think part of the issue with not making it out what that I only had one night to attempt. So, changed my schedule to make weeknights my goal and Saturday night for relaxing.
So, this week looked to be clear. I went out one night to confirm Jupiter’s location and with sunset being later and later each night, I realized I could go into the backyard to setup the telescope. I decided to try the Meade LX70 refractor that I could for the past Christmas.
I started moving everything out once I was sure the skies would stay clear. I decided to bring out all the eyepieces to try. The LX70 mount was quite easy in manual configuration. I decided not to bring the motor or do a polar alignment. The counterweight worked great. I realized that my landscape lights are actually quite bright after you have been outside for more then a brief moment. I will have to think about some options.
Jupiter was very crisp in the low power eyepiece. Since dark, I didn’t recall the size. The mid power eyepiece was okay. The high power started to get fuzzy and the highest power eyepiece was very fuzzy. But, Jupiter’s bands were notice with all eyepieces. I think this has been my first view Jupiter and really cool to see the cloud bands. Three of the moons were also visible which was cool.
I remembered that Venus was also visible so pointed that telescope at it. It was just a bright blob. I was already pretty satisfied from Jupiter so didn’t bother trying with Venus.
I was thinking for next time to try the Canon DSLR with the LX70. I was also thinking that the Lightbridge might show more. Last, I forget to reconnect the finderscope and setup the dual finderscope mount so should get that done.
