July open night -- Jupiter rules!

Tonight was a scheduled open house at the SMO. The weather (cloud cover) was extremely doubtful but there was enough clear sky that I felt I had to make the drive out and open the dome. Good thing I did! All told about 12 visitors stopped by over the evening with the last leaving after 11 PM -- they were the same two ladies who showed up as my first visitors at about 9:30! We had surprisingly good views of Jupiter considering sky conditions but a long wait for the Moon to climb out from behind the neighbor's trees. Cloud bands were fairly easy to pick out on the planetary disk. The four Galilean moons were also easy to see and point out to guests. No neutral-density filter necessary. When Luna finally rose high enough we had to wait for breaks in the clouds -- most people seemed to think the wait was worth it. Views at around 100X weren't very special --soft details, probably the atmosphere-- so I switched to a low-power, fist-sized antique eyepiece and the entire view was changed. We could see the entire nearly-full Moon in the field of view with good detail overall and excellent seeing at the terminator. Even thin clouds scudding across the lunar disk seemed to add, rather than detract. So not too bad a night. My Moon photo (below) apparently was published in Ravenna's Record-Courier newspaper... I've gotta try and get a copy!