(SNES) O.R. 1/04/02

[Timetrav2@webtv.net (Andy and Barry)]

January 4, 2002
Time: 7-815PM
Location: North Kingstown, RI
Weather: Cold, still air, and heavy clouds.
Equipment: XT-8

Seagrave and Frosty Drew "clear sky clocks" show clear sky.  Here in
North Kingstown we were socked in by 8:00pm.
Both Andy and Samantha were up to some observing from the side yard and
after the telescope cooled down for an hour we went out to observe
Jupiter and Saturn before we got clouded out.

Jupiter was very nice this evening. I guess it took a little over an
hour for the telescope to cool.  When it did the image of Jupiter was
extremely steady. Four bands could be seen  with the best images
appearing when clouds past over the planet cancelling out some of the
brightness.  Three moons tonight with the fourth hiding.

Saturn was much higher than Jupiter and was "Rock" steady.  With
approximately 95X at the eyepiece the Cassini's division was easily
seen, and pretty little shadow of the rings floated on the planets
waist.  I am not good at spotting the moons of Saturn as they seems to
much like stars to me.  Although I thought I spotted two of them, one on
each side at three or four of the planet diameter. 

We took a try at M42 and got about 90 seconds of looking at it before we
called it a night because of clouds,

Bruce and Darlene came over and saw the planets for the first time, and
were excited about seeing them. Bruce could not believe that he could
see the moons of Jupiter so well.  I love sharing the telescope with my
neighbors. Just wish we could have had a better night.

http://community.webtv.net/Timetrav2/TIMETRAVELERS
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