day time with GOTO (Blue Mountains)

It occurred to me that with Randy's GOTO 'scope still set up (and untouched) on the pad, we could take advantage of the evening's alignment. "Let's go for day time planets." Be careful what you wish for...

I spent an hour with the Celestron Advanced GT controller trying to find Venus and the Moon. Meanwhile, Phil was hitting these targets with his refractor on the alt/az mount!

Then Phil pointed out that the latitude and longitude settings are much more important for solar system objects. Oops! Randy's setup was configured for Toronto. I changed that and slewed to Venus. Nothing in the finder scope. But I panned a little and spotted the planet. I centred in the eyepiece and synched the controller. A bright round disk. Nice.

I slewed to the Moon. Bingo!

I slewed to Saturn. It was very difficult to see.

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Margaret wanted to use her 'scope too. I started to help her but I caught her moving tripod. Oops. I tried for another hour but couldn't find Venus.