Posts Made By: Ed Moran

11" SCT
14mm, 12mm & 10mm eyepieces, medium blue filter

I haven't been able to observe lately due to weather and other priorities but I was able to get the scope out last night. Weather was clear, calm & comfortable with slightly above average seeing. E & F components of Trapezium easily seen @ 156x.

At 280x the A ring was gray-blue in color with the Encke Minima popping into view half the time. The Cassini division looked to be visible all the way around but that may have been an illusion. It has a definite "width" to it at higher powers. It seemed to pass tangentially to the South Pole and the shadow cast by Saturn on the rings was very sharp. The B ring showed differences in color, texture & brightness as one went towards the inside edge. The C ring was obvious where it passed in front of the planet but less so away from that location. I've noticed that its appearance is affected by more than just "seeing" conditions. Maybe transparency is an issue too....

I found the best views were had without any filters on Saturn last night, which is usually the case for me.

Jupiter looked a bit better than usual, supporting 280x rarely but 233x fairly consistently. Ganymede & Io were definite disks, with Io looking a bit yellowish. Lots of irregularities and details in the equatorial belts, with two dark bars or barges in the northern? eq belt. The northern & southern polar cap areas appeared striated at times. I didn't stay out long enough to see the GRS move into view :-(

The view of Jupiter was improved slightly with a medium blue filter.

Oh no! My GPS scope might have to be 'gasp', aligned the old fashioned way if they shut off the "civilian" signal when the war starts!


Just another reason to dislike Saddam.....

OK, here's your dilemma of the day:

You are the President of the United States.

You've just learned that there is an asteroid headed for France that will completely wipe out their entire country.

It is scheduled to hit about 2:30 a.m. in just two days from now.

You have enough ships and military personnel nearby that can help evacuate their people safely, but they are on stand-by in case of war with Iraq.



Your question: do you set the VCR to record the asteroid hitting France, or do you stay up to watch it live?

(insert rimshot here)

CNN's "Chief News Executive" spills his guts in the NY Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html and admits he and other "journalists" knew just how evil Saddam's regime was. He claims he kept his silence in order to protect his Iraqi staff from retribution. One must ask:

How many MORE Iraqis died hideously, under torture, because he and his ilk kept the truth from us? How much sooner would this tyrant have been removed from power if the media had told the truth about Iraq?

His European comrades must have known these truths also. How has their silence in the face of these crimes against humanity affected Euro-opinion? How much more support would we have had if these journalists had done their jobs properly? Is their hatred of Dubya so great they would cover up Saddam's crimes in order to frustrate him and the U.S.?

Enquiring minds want to know....

All the great sketches and pics here have inspired me to try my hand so here goes...

This is a sketch from last night, around midnight local time. It's my first Mars attempt and my second planetary sketch over all. I'll post my first attempt (Jupiter, ten years ago) as a reply to this post.

Thanks, Ed

Moon & Mars

11" SCT

200 - 350x

While waiting for Mars to climb up out of the soup I spent some time on the 1-day-past-full Moon. I used a 50% neutral density filter to cut the glare a bit. Nothing really spectacular to note lunar-wise except for two items:

1. The double-crater Messier in Mare Fecunditatis immediately caught my eye as I scanned away from the terminator. The two parallel rays streaming from "Messier A" are prominent and obvious under full illumination and look like lunar skid marks. The north-south rays from crater "Messier" weren't as apparent but were seen easily.

2. Plato - Craterlet counting time again, and under full illumination 5 white spots or pits stood out nicely. I think they are more easily seen under these conditions as compared to when Plato is near the terminator (if you can stand the glare!).

Mars - 200 to 350x, medium orange filter used with 50% ND filter - Around midnight local time, when Mars had climbed up to around 30 degrees above the horizon I started my run. The seeing was a bit above average, shimmering a little but not boiling. The close proximity to the Moon didn't seem to have any negative effects in terms of contrast reduction or off-axis glare. The South Polar Cap looked sharp-edged, with a small notch to the east of the central meridian. The Mares Tyrrhenum, Cimmerium & Sirenum stood out well. In between these "seas" and the South Polar Cap were areas of lesser contrast (Ausonia, Cheronesis, Eridania, Mare Chronium) that came and went as the seeing fluctuated, occasionally sharpening up nicely during moments of better seeing.

There appeared to be a thin, white haze at the North Pole of Mars, or maybe it was a bit of the ice cap itself? I couldn't say for sure but something was definitely there.

A thin but thickening cloud layer began to roll in from the southeast and I continued to observe Mars until it was completely obscured. I was hoping to see an effect I've noticed when this occurs when observing Jupiter, whereby the overall contrast improves as the cloud layer dims the planet, but Mars simply got dimmer and dimmer with no overall improvement.

All in all, a very satisfactory night of observing from suburban Orange County, California.

Thanks,

Ed

11" SCT, 233x
8:00p.m. - midnight PST

Amazing! First, the Callisto shadow began its transit around 8:50 p.m. local time. About an hour later, Ganymede began its transit across the face of Jupiter and was so dark, it looked like another shadow transit. It remained this way all the way across the disk. At about 11:00 p.m. local time Io began its transit in front of Jupiter but I lost it soon after. (Why was it so hard to track and Ganymede so easy?)

Io's shadow crept onto the disk a half hour later. Right then, it looked like a triple shadow transit. Finally, at about midnight local time Ganymede's shadow edged onto the face of Jupiter and it looked like four shadow transits at the same time. Amazing!!

Ed

P.S. I added a screen capture from SkyTools2 to show what I saw. Io is shown, but I couldn't see it :-(

Ms. Heinz-Kerry, asked by a reporter to expand upon her use of the term "Un-American", goes ballistic and denies, SEVERAL TIMES, ever saying it. Unfortunately for Ms. Heinz-Kerry, her comment is on tape (I heard it). When the reporter DARES to persist in his questioning, she gets vulgar and pulls a "Cheney". Will those in the media who were shocked by VP Cheney's remark remain consistent? Will they express outrage at the outright lie told by Ms. Heinz-Kerry?

I won't hold my breath...

For those of you "lucky" enough to live in an area with a Pacifica Radio Network station I highly recommend listening to their coverage of the convention. For those of you unfamiliar with Pacifica, suffice it to say that, in general, they think Stalin was a bit too "right wing" and that Pol Pot probably had the right idea. Well, maybe I exaggerate a bit, but you get the idea....

Anyway, they are way disappointed with the Democrats in general, Kerry and Co. specifically, and are simply brokenhearted that Howard Dean "sold out" to the corporate fatcats. They are very upset with the way Nader has been treated by the Dems. Somebody get me a band-aid, my heart is bleeding...

In their own funny way, they are actually pretty accurate in their descriptions of the Demo's doublespeak. No doubt their coverage of the Republican convention will not amuse me nearly as much, but it's worth a listen to if you can.

P.S. Last night's speakers were coma-inducing, but it was fun to hear Jimmy the C. say "newky-ear" (I know, I know, Dubya sez "nucular", but at least we know he's not the only President to massacre the word). Tonight, Ol' Ted was relatively coherent but uninspiring. Dean was, on the other hand, pretty darn good. Methinks they picked the wrong guy....

After listening to the DNC speakers I am soooo depressed. I didn't realize America sucked so bad. Silly me, I thought I lived in a great nation, one that has, over the past 100 years, liberated hundreds of millions people from tyranny, saved countless others from disease and starvation, defended half the world from agression and provided a home for an endless stream of immigrants looking for a better place to live than the hellholes they were escaping from.

I thought I lived in a nation that has taxed and spent itself into debt to defend, feed and educate it's own people, along with the population of a third of the planet.

Instead, I find that we are mean, cruel, nasty, greedy and actually dare to think that we might defend ourselves without asking for permission from those who would be speaking German and/or Russian (if they had survived the "liberation")if we hadn't saved their sorry behinds.

God, it really hurts to learn the truth...

If only we were as generous, enlightened, brave and compassionate as the Euro-Socialists then maybe we would deserve to have a leader as great as Mr. Kerry. Oh, the shame of living in such a benighted nation as ours