Astronomy Log: 2019006

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2019-06-22

Date/Time:	2019/06/22 22:07 EST
Location:	Balsam Lake, Ont, CA
Temp:	13°C
Seeing:	3/5
Conditions:	Clear
Telescope:	Skywatcher 8" Dob
Eyepieces:	Orion E-Series 10mm

Prolog

My daughter Jen, my wife April and I all went up to Balsam Lake Provincial Park to help in a night sky presentation by the park staff. The intention was we would bring our telescopes and help out with the presentation and then let visitors observe through our telescopes afterwards. In the end, that's what happened, however the mosquito population overwhelmed us and Jupiter was the only target that got observed.

Target: Jupiter | Sol V

With just the 3 of us and the park ranger that did the presentation there (River), we decided to just use my daughter's 8" Dob for a peek at Jupiter. It was after 10PM and the skies were still quite bright. Part of our issue is that we just passed the Summer Solstice, so we were fighting the longest days of the year. The view of Jupiter was still awesome - the GRS was near the meridian and plainly evident even though the planet was just 15° above the horizon. Ganymede was to one side with Io, Europa and Callisto lined up on the other side. The two main belts were visible but unfortunately no further details were revealed. It was a test of my Dob-using skills to keep Jupiter in the FOV at 120x during this observation.

Epilog

We will be returning to Balsam Lake in about a month for another session. The mosquitos should be much less then and I hope we'll be able to deploy both our scopes for a quality observing session with River and some of the park patrons.