19:00 – 02:40
GingerGeek, Alan and Bob came over. GingerGeek brought over his 4″ dob and set it up on the patio slab tower. Alan Lorrain then went about aligning it on the Moon.
So with the Moon successfully acquired and whilst GingerGeek started looking at other targets through the scope, I opened the dome and slewed the 12″ to the Moon too.
Alan, Bob and GingerGeek found a small bright mountain inside the terminator. We decided to try and find it through the 12″. When we did find it we then tried to work out what it was.
It transpired to be Mons Piton, named after the top of mount Teide on the island of Tenerife. We would need to view it the news night to see it in full daylight.
Sky Safari
Next up was a quick look at the Ring Nebula M57.
We then wanted to seed if we could make out the central white dwarf.
However through the Red and Blue filters and the Luminance filter we could not see it. Finally through the Green filter it stood out very well.
Whilst slewing around with the 12″ in the dome, I had also setup the travel scope with the Mak 180 on top. I wanted to grab some data on Jupiter in particular and Saturn just as it was nearby,.
I took a whole bunch of data for the next hour or so which I will process at a later time.