[AZ-Observing] Jupiter & The Beehive

Suffering from a severe case of observing withdrawal, I took the ETX 60 out 
in the backyard for a quickie session tonight. Although there was a high thin 
Cirrus layer, I was able to knock off a few item on the SAC Urban List. All 
open Clusters, as the seeing wasn't much good for anything else. As you'd 
expect in a 60 mm scope from a backyard right next to the loop 101. most of 
the observations were rather unremarkable. The exception that makes the rule 
was M44 & Jupiter. Using the 25 mm eyepiece gave 14x and a 2 deg 52 min FOV. 
Jupiter is about 1.5 minutes from M44 to the SE. M44 just about fills the 
field at this power. I've always seen M44 as a drawing of a tree and tonight 
this figure did stand out, albeit upside down. I counted 25 stars in the main 
part of the cluster including three nice doubles. there were probably about 
the same number of stars around the periphery of the cluster, most just at 
the limit of the telescope, which I estimate to be mag 9, give or take a bit. 
Jupiter was very bright (duh!), but due to the poor seeing it was hard to 
hold any detail. At this power the disk is very small so even under good 
conditions, you'd have to really look to see anything other than the EQ 
belts. They did pop in and put with seeing, but it was more out then in. 
Ganyemede sat by itself to the west of Jove while Io, Europa and Callisto 
queued up to the East. Quite a pretty picture. Without a doubt, this 
observation made the session worthwhile.

Jupiter will move to within 52 Min of M44 on Apr 6 before beginning a 
retrograde motion. Don't miss the opportunity to look at this pair while the 
lookin's good

See you all at Flat Iron tomorrow

Rick Tejera
Editor SACnews
Saguaro Astronomy Club
Phoenix, Arizona
SaguaroAstro@xxxxxxx
www.saguaroastro.org


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