Open night at Stephens Memorial Observatory: Thin clouds didn't keep 27 people from visiting this night and enjoying fine views of the giant planet Jupiter and its Galilean moons. We observed Jove's twin equatorial cloud belts, some additional bands of clouds, and a few sharp-eyed viewers caught glimpses of the Great Red Spot (actually, my first!). Adding to the experience, one of the four visible moons moved closer to the disk of the planet as the night progressed. Eventually moon Io began its transit across Jupiter, first visible against the south equatorial band, then disappearing into the planet's glare. Earth's Moon put in an appearance far later than I'd have wanted -- I got the timing wrong back at the beginning of the year whilst setting up our schedule! Most visitors viewed it as it rose through clouds and neighboring trees, then they headed home. They did, however, spy lunar seas and craters through a network of bare tree branches resembling eyelashes, said one viewer. Our last visitors of the night, however, were rewarded with our usual clear, bright, and astonishingly beautiful lunar sights as presented by the great Cooley Telescope. One, an experienced sky watcher, said it was the finest view he'd had of Earth's neighbor in 40 years of observing! As we left the observatory at the end of the event we looked up at our Moon floating in a thin sea of cloud and there, surrounding it at a good distance, was a beautiful halo... a fine way to end the evening!
Photo: The Moon as viewed through the Cooley Telescope of Stephens Memorial Observatory, Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio, November 12, 2011. Afocal technique with Canon PowerShot G11: ISO 400, f/4, 1/500 sec., at 8:57 PM. Photo by James Guilford.
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