2022-09-04

• Condition: VG5
• Location: Terry Peak, South Tower: 44.32, -103.83

Took Soren to Terry Peak! He was so excited to go. I had him work the telescope to find and focus in on Jupiter and Saturn. There was a low “haze” that settled on the hills which seemed to glow with the bright moon tonight. It made for a very peaceful setting.

9:45PM

• Target: Jupiter
• Scope: ST80
• Setting: 150x

Jupiter was super bright in the sky. Had Soren manually slew to it with the red dot. He had a little difficulty getting used to the zoom and focuser, and I had to help him with it. We could see Jupiter clearly, but no bands. Three moons also appeared brightly surrounding it.

9:58PM

• Target: Saturn
• Scope: ST80
• Setting: 150x

Once again, had Soren slew to Saturn to help familiarize him with how to work the telescope. He did a little better with focusing on this one. We could easily make out the rings again.

10:10PM

• Target: M 39
• Const: Cygnus
• RaDec: 21h32m +48.26
• Type: Open Cluster
• Scope: ST80
• Setting: 33x

Found from π Cygni. Easy find. Lots of bright stars in the cluster. Ran into trouble with the telescope hitting the tripod legs at the angle needed to see.

10:23PM

• Target: Moon
• Scope: ST80
• Setting: 59x

Soren really wanted to look at the moon again. I think this is the first time he’s seen it through my zoom lens (which is a much cleaner image than with the stock lenses). When he looked at it for the first time, he let out a loud “Wow!”