opposition night (Blue Mountains)

6:15 PM. Trevor and Tony picked me up from my home. Fortunately, Tony had reminded me to bring a projector. In short order we were on the 400 highway making good progress. We exited onto Hwy 9 for Orangeville. Grabbed some dinner at the Champ! From the back seat, I spotted Jupiter in the east.

9:30 PM. We arrived the Carr Astronomical Observatory around 9:30 PM. Richard was waiting in the lot, windows fogged up. He had been in the parking lot since 8:00. Apparently the wifi signal was wobbly so he caught up on some reading.

The skies looked rather clear. Jupiter had been tantalising us. As Trevor and Tony unpacked the minivan, I headed directly to the Geoff Brown Observatory. Powered the building. Then the red lights in the Warm Room. Fetched the Dell computer from the house but then remembered, as I put the laptop bag on the counter, I could use the netbook now! Yes! Connected the USB and fired up TheSky6. Connected (from the netbook) and let it locate the Home position. Opened the roof.

Finished the rapid setup. First up? Big, bright Jupiter, of course. It was opposition night!

Dropped in the Plössl 55mm in the C14. Looked at fifth planet while it was exactly 4.0 astronomical units away. Lovely! Bright in the eyepiece. Colourful. Only 3 moons were showing. The seeing was rather good even though the telescope was only just starting to cool down. Went to the Panoptic 27mm. Oh. There's a barge. A large dark brown oval barge on the north edge of the north equatorial belt.

I had not yet started SkyTools3 Pro. I launched it and quickly built a new observing list. Added Jupiter and then checked the planet in the Interactive Atlas. No moon shadows were showing. Barge confirmed.

Richard was setting up too. His little Orion Eon 80mm refractor with newish Canon XS. He was going to collect more photons from the Flame Nebula. Hopefully. A project he had started a year ago.

9:44. Paged Tony on the cordless phone intercom to come and look at Jupiter. Trevor came out a short time later. And we were clouded out! Snooze, you lose.

Headed to the house, to dress properly. Was still wearing the clothes from the city. Was toqueless. Bumped into Tony as he orbited counterclockwise 'round the east side. We noticed the grass was wet already.

I put several layers on, including the winter coat. Grabbed a re-energised gel hand warmer. Just in case.

Tony came out, finally. Saw a glimpse of the Jovian world in the C14 with the 27mm. Tony said he didn't like the view in the SCT. We put the Radian 10 then Radian 5mm in the TV 101. And, again, we were clouded out.

I complained about eyepieces fogging as I extended the Tele Vue telescopes integrated dew shield. I asked Tony if I could get us some dew heaters. He said I should write it up!

10:16. Emailed Dietmar—for Tony—for list of CAO guests.

Checked the conditions on the weather station:

• 10 min average wind speed: 12.6 km/h
• wind speed peak was: 25.7
• humidity: 87%
• ambient outside temperature: 2.9°C
• with the wind chill: -0.4
• the dew point was: 0.9

Ah ha. So we were below the dew point when you considered the cold wind.

10:28. The dark barge moving toward the meridian. It seemed stretched now. A bit longer and thinner than before. Made sense: it would seem compressed near the limb.

10:48. I spotted the Great Red Spot! The GRS was coming around. The seeing was still holding up and I was able to see the large tan oval near the limb of the planet. Told Tony and Trevor who were both sitting in the kitchen. Trevor leaped up to take a look. Tony came out later. There was lots of detail was visible on the surface!

10:54. Io emerged from behind the planet! I discovered this to be happening in the ST3 software but Trevor spotted it first. What a show. GRS, barge, Io, during this surprisingly clear night, with the gas giant so close...

11:03. Helped Richard with Caph, beta Cassiopeiae. He wanted to know if it was a double star. I couldn't remember. Checked in ST3, but couldn't immediately find it. Had to look up Bayer name in Google first... Confirmed. 31 arc-second separation. We agreed it would probably not be the best target for focusing.

Trevor took the reading, after some coaching, with the Sky Quality Meter... 20.9 and 7 degrees.

I showed Tony how I was using my netbook and SkyTools3 to operate the telescope. I added the Andromeda Galaxy. Dropped the TV 'scope to approx. 30x with the Radian 18mm. Spotted M110 off to the right. Tony saw it too. By the time I had figured out where M32 might be, the sky had softened.

Both Tony and I were tired. Trevor had retired some time ago. Bailey and Niels were long gone. We left Richard in the GBO. "You have the con." Tony coached him on the roof.

I made for the house. Looking forward to getting in my PJs.