Global Astronomy month observing session 27th of April 2012.
On the evening of April 27th we held an observing session at
Carpark No.2 in Banna Beach. We had a nice crescent Moon, Venus,
Mars and Saturn as well as the beginning of the summer constellations
on view. In the image here Betelgeuse in Orion is just visible
to the right of the tripod above the sand dunes.
Venus is a thinning crescent in the telescope now as it continues
its swing back toward the Sun to be ready for its transit the
6th of June. More details in next month's talk. The image over
shows it just below Auriga in the constellation of Taurus.
The Moon was just over 30% illuminated but was still bright enough
to limit any deep sky observing. In the north near the terminator
were the remarkable craters of Eudoxus and Aristoteles while in
the South, Maurolycus and Clairaut were even more so.
Mars was nice and high in Leo but gave up very little detail
and had noticeable shrunk in apparent size since our last viewing.
Saturn was stunning with it's rings well open again and four
of its Moons visible, Titan, Tethys, Rhea and Dione visible. The
Cassini division was only occasionally spotted when the air steadied.
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