A warm January night
by Jim Hendrickson
Unseasonably warm temperatures and sunny skies gave way to the now typical less-than-favorable conditions at night during this night before Full Moon. Dave Huestis, Conrad Cardano, and Bill Gucfa. At least two local families visited, one of which brought their own telescope, a Celestron SkyProdigy Mak-Cas which Conrad helped them to get up and running.
Bands of clouds continued to filter down from the northwest, and winds were calm. The Moon was completely blotted out by a thick cloud cover momentarily before thinning out, which presented conditions which remained favorable for observing Jupiter.
Due to the persistent light cloud conver and haze, a stunning lunar halo was visible though much of the session, and I photographed parts of it with a 35mm lens.
Conrad briefly opened the 12-inch Meade before realizing that not much could be seen given the haze and bright Moonlight. He then helped a family set up a Celestron go-to telescope which they had brought.
Bill Gucfa arrived for his Clark telescope retraining, after Dave and I had already opened. The sky was clear enough to observe Jupiter and its moons.
Later in the evening as our guests left, Bill and I took turns photographing Jupiter through the Clark telescope. The seeing conditions were quite favorable and Jupiter presented a fair amount of detail in its belts and bands. It is also becoming more noticeable that Jupiter's sunlit side is offset to our angle of view with slight limb darkening along its eastern edge.
Sky conditions appeared to be improving at the close of the session and the temperature had dropped into the high 30s.
