I brought the scope up to Te Horo, and we got a brief view of the moon, Saturn, Jupiter and its four moons.
When the clouds broke the seeing was good.
Saturn was as clear as the other night, despite how bright the moon was.
Jupiter’s moons had moved, and were even more visible than the other night.
The moon was half full, and even without a moon filter it was viewable without eyeball discomfort.
The kids loved seeing the moon, alas only one waited to see Jupiter, however they seemed to be amazed by it.
The big takeaways were:
- It was easy to realign the finder scope, something I’d been concerned would be tricky.
- The scope is definitely portable (relatively). Not on-a-plane portable, but definitely in-a-car portable.
- My lessons from my first session worked again: start wide, gradually zoom in, be extra patient.
- Overall time: less than an hour. Not too cold, not much light pollution, and I was close to did and drink.
Once again, I was so thrilled to see what I was seeing.