Moon and Jupiter Observation

Not long before sunset I took a look at the waxing gibbous moon and Jupiter with 8x42 binoculars followed by a naked-eye view of the same two objects. Having an easy to see bright object (the moon) nearby to focus on and knowing Jupiter's relative position made it easy to catch the giant planet with the naked-eye prior to sunset.

A bit later I observed both with a tripod-mounted, 50mm Galileoscope. A 26mm Plossl eyepiece provided a wide enough field to nicely frame the two celestial beacons. The giant walled-plain Schickard, conveniently located near the terminator, stood out as one of the most noticeable lunar features on this evening.

All four Galilean satellites were visible through the small refractor, with Io very close to the planet's limb.

Before calling it an evening I took a look with the 'stock' 20mm (plastic lensed) plossl. The field of view was too narrow to include the entire moon along with Jupiter, but the higher magnification (despite greater eyepiece aberrations) allowed more detail to be seen on both the moon and Jupiter.

The temperature was +3 degrees F. The telescope was used on an inexpensive camera tripod in my open-air observatory: the Colosseum.

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

On 12/25/12 7:08 PM, Sketcher wrote:
Not long before sunset I took a look at the waxing gibbous moon and Jupiter with 8x42 binoculars followed by a naked-eye view of the same two objects. Having an easy to see bright object (the moon) nearby to focus on and knowing Jupiter's relative position made it easy to catch the giant planet with the naked-eye prior to sunset.

A bit later I observed both with a tripod-mounted, 50mm Galileoscope. A 26mm Plossl eyepiece provided a wide enough field to nicely frame the two celestial beacons. The giant walled-plain Schickard, conveniently located near the terminator, stood out as one of the most noticeable lunar features on this evening.

All four Galilean satellites were visible through the small refractor, with Io very close to the planet's limb.

Before calling it an evening I took a look with the 'stock' 20mm (plastic lensed) plossl. The field of view was too narrow to include the entire moon along with Jupiter, but the higher magnification (despite greater eyepiece aberrations) allowed more detail to be seen on both the moon and Jupiter.

The temperature was +3 degrees F. The telescope was used on an inexpensive camera tripod in my open-air observatory: the Colosseum.

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.


Thank You!

On 12/25/12 5:41 PM, Sam Wormley wrote:
my open-air observatory: the Colosseum.

?

On Tuesday, December 25, 2012 8:08:38 PM UTC-5, Sketcher wrote:
Not long before sunset I took a look at the waxing gibbous moon and Jupiter with 8x42 binoculars followed by a naked-eye view of the same two objects. Having an easy to see bright object (the moon) nearby to focus on and knowing Jupiter's relative position made it easy to catch the giant planet with the naked-eye prior to sunset.



A bit later I observed both with a tripod-mounted, 50mm Galileoscope. A 26mm Plossl eyepiece provided a wide enough field to nicely frame the two celestial beacons. The giant walled-plain Schickard, conveniently located near the terminator, stood out as one of the most noticeable lunar features on this evening.



All four Galilean satellites were visible through the small refractor, with Io very close to the planet's limb.



Before calling it an evening I took a look with the 'stock' 20mm (plastic lensed) plossl. The field of view was too narrow to include the entire moon along with Jupiter, but the higher magnification (despite greater eyepiece aberrations) allowed more detail to be seen on both the moon and Jupiter..



The temperature was +3 degrees F. The telescope was used on an inexpensive camera tripod in my open-air observatory: the Colosseum.



Sketcher,

To sketch is to see.

Thanks. Socked-in in Toronto with storm approaching.

On Tuesday, December 25, 2012 7:08:38 PM UTC-6, Sketcher wrote:
Not long before sunset I took a look at the waxing gibbous moon and Jupiter with 8x42 binoculars followed by a naked-eye view of the same two objects. Having an easy to see bright object (the moon) nearby to focus on and knowing Jupiter's relative position made it easy to catch the giant planet with the naked-eye prior to sunset.



A bit later I observed both with a tripod-mounted, 50mm Galileoscope. A 26mm Plossl eyepiece provided a wide enough field to nicely frame the two celestial beacons. The giant walled-plain Schickard, conveniently located near the terminator, stood out as one of the most noticeable lunar features on this evening.



All four Galilean satellites were visible through the small refractor, with Io very close to the planet's limb.



Before calling it an evening I took a look with the 'stock' 20mm (plastic lensed) plossl. The field of view was too narrow to include the entire moon along with Jupiter, but the higher magnification (despite greater eyepiece aberrations) allowed more detail to be seen on both the moon and Jupiter..



The temperature was +3 degrees F. The telescope was used on an inexpensive camera tripod in my open-air observatory: the Colosseum.



Sketcher,

To sketch is to see.

Thanks for that! Last night I was out looking at the moon through clouds naked eye, but the dark "seas" were still very clear.