Awesome Chromacor



I'll still be gushing for a while about the combination of the Chromacor and my 5" refractor. Seeing conditions were better last night; I was able to go up to 286x on Saturn--and the image was just beginning to soften, largely because of turbulence. I could see one brownish cloud band about 30 degrees from the equator--and what I think are some of the fainter satellites nearer the planet.



Jupiter did better at 190x, and here there was more detail visible than I could ever hope to draw. The cloud bands across the planet (at least four dark bands) were not even stripes, but tremendously irregular and complex, with swirls at the edges that I could not quite resolve, but that I could tell were present. There was only the faintest hint of chromatic abberation--so little that I was not always sure that I was seeing it.



And all this from my backyard, which is suburban, light polluted, and suffering the turbulence of cooling concrete! If the sky clears, I'll go to the Boise Astronomical Star Party tonight, where I have a decently dark sky, twenty miles east of Boise.