Members' observations, Things we see through our humble 'scopes... Options

[Stu]

Gorgeous clear night in Kendal tonight, the Moon looked spectacular in my 4.5" scope. Took some pix, didn't turn out too bad...



Saturn looked really nice too, with at least 3 of the "other" moons visible.

[DDAVIS]

Among my favorite memories of telescopic observations:

Seeing Mars and Saturn in 1971 with a large telescope being used by the USGS in Flagstaff. I was with Charles Capen and Gerard De Vaucouleurs. Mars was near closest approach, and De Vaucouleurs was refining his sketches of Mars which were later published in Sky and Telescope. The seeing was quite good and I later made my own drawing of Mars. Then we looked at Saturn, and it was gorgeous, looking like a sharper version of the Stephen Larson photo showing the wide open rings that was for years the best photo of Saturn. In the 80's I was with some astronomy buffs with telescopes, and while I was looking through a 10 inch with a wide field I heard several people cry out just as I saw the bright meteor they were reacting to zip through the field of view! It looked like multiple parallel dazzling white streaks leaving trails that briefly glowed red then a soft turquoise as they were distorted into a fading wavy path. Iin 2003, I was invited to look at Mars through the Mt Wilson 60 inch. We also saw Triton next to Neptune. When we later saw the Orion nebula, the sight ranks with my all time revelatory visions. One could see the brightest part of the magenta pink nebula visually as well as the usually seen greenish central regions. Later I rented time on the scope and looked at various nebulae and Saturn. In moments of good seeing the Encke gap in ring A could be seen as a delicate fine arc. Some observational drawings:

http://www.mssimmons.com/mw/dondavis.htm