Blog for Tuesday 4th September 2012
Andrew Robertson and I have a competitive thing going with our observing, each trying to outdo the other, by seeing first, seeing further, seeing more etc, it is tongue in cheek and adds to the fun and incentive to observe.
With Jupiter very well placed high in the pre-dawn sky, Andrew stole a lead and got out on Monday morning to observe, making a sketch and sharing with a group of friends, detailed in his sketch was a nice chain of light ovals. OK he had done it now, I had to get out there now and do the same on this the following morning. Andrew used his excellent 12” Takahashi Mewlon scope, he suggested that I use my historic 12.5” Calver reflector but I took the easier and quicker option of using my 6” triplet refractor piggy backed on the main telescope. It was a pleasant morning, there wasn’t a great deal out of the ordinary to be seen on the Jovian face (if one should say such things when looking many millions of miles into space at a mysterious distant world?) but Ganymede was wonderfully placed on the limb, I thought it was going to be occulted by Simon Kidd’s excellent photograph taken a little later showed it transiting.
Anyhow I made a sketch just after 5am making use of the Denk binoviewer with a pair of 15mm Panoptics giving 144x, capturing as much of the standout regions and darker features…take a look here
It was now too late to go back to bed so my day started early and no doubt my batteries would be flat by late afternoon…the price to be paid for competing with retired Andrew 
And so to work Dale