Monrovia Photo Album

The Clear Sky Clock forecast for Saturday evening, April 16, called for nearly perfect conditions, and we had three great targets to view. Jane and I decided to bring out the really big guns to our favorite street corner in Monrovia. We were joined by Lisa Tatge from the JPL Cassini mission to show the Moon and talk about her work on the spacecraft. Here are some pictures from this memorable evening.

We set up early and had very good views of the 8-day old first quarter Moon by 6:30 p.m., well before sunset. Not long after sunset, we were showing stunning views of Saturn in the big refractor, and views of Jupiter and the four Galilean moons in the 12.5-inch reflector. As Jupiter rose higher in the east, we switched to show beautiful detail on Jupiter in the big refractor, including the Great Red Spot and an occulation of Io.

The telescope lineup included a 6-inch Schwarr Companion dobsonian, a 12.5-inch f/5.7 Litebox dobsonian, and an Astro-Physics AP180EDT Starfire 7.1-inch f/9 apochromatic refractor.

After sunset, I took several natural-light photos from a camera tripod. They're fun pictures with the motion blur of the crowd around the big telescopes. The yellow tint comes from the glow of the sodium street lights.

When we finally shut down about 10:15 p.m., over 250 accidental astronomers had stopped by for a look.