March 11, 2016
Blackheath Observing – Friday 11 March 2016
Report by: Rupert Smith
Friday 11th saw us returning to Blackheath for an observing session. After what seemed like a never ending spell of bad weather which had caused previous observing sessions to be cancelled, we finally got a break! Unfortunately while generally clear, the evening had a quantity of dew in the air which significantly reduced what we could see. However, despite this a small crowd of hardy souls gathered to see the sights, the main one being Jupiter. Ironically despite the sky making something as obvious as Orion’s Belt difficult to see, Jupiter provided a wealth of detail. Cloud detail and the Great Red Spot were easily visible as were the four Galilean moons with Io and Europa positioned next to each other, their different hues clearly apparent.
Our first real Blackheath observing event of the year attracted 5 telescopes and plenty of people to make use of them. The increasing dew did make them all look as though they had been left out in a rain storm and more than one car needed ice scraping off it by the time we left, but hey, better than cloud!
Posted under: Blackheath, Flamsteed, Meeting Report, Observing and Imaging Group
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