Observing log for March 17, 2005
I wanted to view the moon today since it’s in it’s first quarter (a half-moon) and I thought the terminator would yield a good set of shadowy craters to look at. Well, they did and it was kind of cool to watch.
I made the obligatory swing towards Saturn and I stayed up late enough to see Jupiter in all it’s glory. My wife even came out into the cold. This was her first time looking through the scope and she laughed out loud since the images are so outrageous to first-time observers.
Yes, the planets are out there and they do look like you see in books. Just smaller in the eyepiece.
I tried to get my laptop to control the scope but failed. I’m close and I should have that working soon.
I ordered a cheap universal camera mount which I hope to use with my Sony F707 digital camera. Maybe some of these observing logs will start to contain pictures.
Finally, I was testing the auto-tracking of the scope and Saturn seems to be locked on for about 40 minutes and it still seems to be dead-center in the eyepiece. This is good but a long exposure will be the final judge.