Just a quick report. I noticed that there was going to be a shadow transit of Ganymede last night about 8pm PST so I set out my 10 inch F/5 dob to cool with the hope of seeing catching before the clouds rolled in.
To cut to the chase, this was the darkest, sharpest, cleanest shadow transit I have ever seen, I have seen a few since I am fatally attracted to them..
When I first popped in the 9mm eyepiece and took a look, it was near the edge but it was just glaringly obvious. After are few moments of observing it I pondered the question of which smaller scope should I try... I went for broke and pulled out the 60mm Pentax. At 167x it was clear and obvious, not a challenge at all. I fooled around a bit with the magnification, at 115x (~50x/inch) it even better and at 90x it was very nice as well. I have seen shadow transits with this scope before but never so dark and obvious.
I started playing with the 10 inch, with my recently acquired 20mm Type 2 it was right there staring me in the face, couldn't be missed, that's was about 71x. It only became a challenge with a 32mm PLossl, that's only 44.5x but the 5.6mm exit pupil made for a very bright image and glare made spotting the transit difficult but it could be seen.
And Jupiter itself was showing quite nicely, the equatorial bands resolving with several subbands. The views were quite good upto 300x, at 410x, it was breaking down.
As I had been viewing delta cygni, the unequal double with my 4 and 5 inch scopes and barely eeking out a split, I took a gander with the 10 inch Newt... It was clean and clear, no doubt about it. With the 7mm Nagler, I could put it right up to the field stop and watch the double drift out of view, still cleanly split...
Oh those shadow transits, how I do love them...
Jon
To cut to the chase, this was the darkest, sharpest, cleanest shadow transit I have ever seen, I have seen a few since I am fatally attracted to them..
When I first popped in the 9mm eyepiece and took a look, it was near the edge but it was just glaringly obvious. After are few moments of observing it I pondered the question of which smaller scope should I try... I went for broke and pulled out the 60mm Pentax. At 167x it was clear and obvious, not a challenge at all. I fooled around a bit with the magnification, at 115x (~50x/inch) it even better and at 90x it was very nice as well. I have seen shadow transits with this scope before but never so dark and obvious.
I started playing with the 10 inch, with my recently acquired 20mm Type 2 it was right there staring me in the face, couldn't be missed, that's was about 71x. It only became a challenge with a 32mm PLossl, that's only 44.5x but the 5.6mm exit pupil made for a very bright image and glare made spotting the transit difficult but it could be seen.
And Jupiter itself was showing quite nicely, the equatorial bands resolving with several subbands. The views were quite good upto 300x, at 410x, it was breaking down.
As I had been viewing delta cygni, the unequal double with my 4 and 5 inch scopes and barely eeking out a split, I took a gander with the 10 inch Newt... It was clean and clear, no doubt about it. With the 7mm Nagler, I could put it right up to the field stop and watch the double drift out of view, still cleanly split...
Oh those shadow transits, how I do love them...
Jon
