Weather forecast for Saturn Observing tonight

[Jonathan Sabin]

Regarding the weather forecast for tonight's Special Summer Saturn Observing event out at the Celery Fields, it appears that we'll likely have a lot of high, thin clouds - - but the odds of actually getting rained out are pretty slim.

Obviously, I'd much rather be able to tell you that there's a 100% chance of crystal-clear skies, dry air and temps in the low 70s, but this is the summer and those are few and far between here in Florida!

Unless something changes between now and late this afternoon, our event is a "go." And hopefully, we'll have a few really nice clear "holes" through which to observe tonight!

The event details, in case you missed them earlier:

Although Sidewalk Astronomy is currently on "summer hiatus" until September, I am pleased to announce that the Local Group of Deep Sky Observers will set up telescopes for a SPECIAL SATURN OBSERVING EVENT at the Celery Fields (6893 Palmer Blvd) in Sarasota on Saturday, June 23rd from 10:00 p.m. until midnight.

[Wolf Schutze]

Cool deal see you out there. I’m planning on being there by sunset to get in some moon and Jupiter observing.

Wolf

[Ed McDonough]

Wow, a very nice event last night once the skies cleared around 10:30. It was great to see and be able to share our love of the nighttime skies with so many guests, particularly the young folks. And we all got a nice sneak peek at Mars coming up...nice, bright and orange in the southeast, a little prelude to July 20th at Robinson Preserve.

Jim, your view of Saturn at 260x in the 4" APO was jaw dropping. Further evidence that nothing beats a high quality APO refractor for planetary views.

[Wolf Schutze]

My lesson last night was that nothing beats a good set of planetary eyepieces. All I was using previously was Plossls and stacking in a barlow to retain eye relief as I wear glasses. Well recently I bought a set of Burgess TMB eyepieces from the post that was on here a few weeks ago. OMG! what a difference! Using the Lightbrige 12",  I could easily count 5 bands across Jupiter and the Cassini division in Saturn's ring was plain as day. Lunar craters look like they are right there that you could just reach out and touch them. It was like a brand new scope. Had I known the difference I would have bought some long ago.

Wolf