New Hamp TELESCOPE VIEWING NEWS

Tis the year to be viewing.

I've looked at saturn and seen it's love handles... I mean rings.

I nearly burned my eyes on venus

Having a little trouble picking mars out on a clear night.

And last night I saw Jupiter and his four (?) biggest moons. It was the first time another planets moons were visible to me. Truely beautiful.

Tonight if it's clear I'll try for mars and venus (thought I may need to use the lunar filter to cut the blaze down on venus).

I've seen the moon but not at the full magnification potential of my scope so I'm going to see how close a look I can get.

Some time in the near future there will be a night when all 5 naked eye planets (Mercury, venus, mars, jupiter and saturn) are veiwable at the same time. Right now they form a path across the sun/moon pathway but mercury isn't veiwable at a good spot or time yet.

Sometime (might have already passed but I don't think so) venus will actually 'eclipse' the sun. (NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY OR THROUGH A SCOPE OF ANY KIND) sorry I had to say that for everyones safety. Venus' small size means no one will know it passed in front of the sun unless they have a special solar filter on their scopes (or it may be possible to use pin hole lens projections or reflective projections to make a sufficiantly large image of the sun and see the planet cross it's surface). Maybe a veiwing activity or something could be done by the group.