Last night (Nov. 13) we had "only" 15 people show up on a night when one could look at the sky and usually see no more than a cloud-shrouded Moon and an occasional glimpse of Jupiter. Yes, it was that bad. On a night when we shouldn't have even opened, an attendance of 15 is a surprise.
Still, the clouds thinned enough on occasion to allow decent views of the Moon and surprisingly good looks at Jupiter and the Galilean Moons. Jove's Southern Equatorial Belt was not visible though there are photographic signs from other sources of its impending return. At Stephens we were able to see traces of other cloud banding this and the last time we looked at that world (Oct. 9) and at no greater than 122X magnification. Again, given the conditions, the quality of the seeing was a surprise.
Clouds did close us a bit early but didn't stop us from seeing our two main targets for the night.
