July 3, 2018

I looked through a telescope the other day

The weather gets to amateur astronomers from Seattle sometimes. I had several conversations at the Seattle Astronomical Society’s annual banquet back in January with attendees who, like me, fessed up to not doing much observing these days. It’s so cloudy so often that we tend to forget about the telescope, waiting patiently in the corner down by the door to the wine cellar. So it was fun on a string of clear evenings recently to get out and get some scope time.

I even announced it on Twitter.

The views of Jupiter on that night were a little murky, though the Great Red Spot occasionally popped into sight as plain as the cyclone on your face. The next evening seeing and transparency were about as good as they get in West Seattle, and I enjoyed some of the best views of Jupiter I’ve ever had.

I also took a look at Saturn, which was at opposition June 27, but on that evening it was still awfully low in the southeast sky and thus looked pretty fuzzy. I’m looking forward to some better views of Saturn as it comes around a little earlier in the evening each day. I took a few peeks at Venus, too.
While Jupiter and Saturn are among my favorite observing targets, the big show of the summer will be put on by Mars. The Red Planet will reach opposition on July 30, and this particular apparition will be an outstanding one. Mars will be the closest it has been to Earth since 2003, which was its closest approach in 60,000 years! It was that event that pushed me to get more involved in observational astronomy. This summer we’ll have great opportunities to see surface details on Mars.

As I write this, at 1 p.m., it’s looking pretty clear outside, though some clouds are in the forecast for the early morning hours. I shouldn’t even think this, lest to jinx clear skies, but I think I’ll get out again today and see how Saturn is looking.
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