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Subject: Re: [M]: RE: OBS: LX200 Not too sure!
From: Paul Goelz
Reply To: mapug@shore.net
Date: Tue Oct 14 04:01:11 1997

At 11:30 PM 10/13/97 -0400, you wrote:
>>BTW, what about the description of the moons of jupiter? The dark center
>>would seem to indicate an out of focus condition.
>
> First of all, is how I'm quoting these messages really messed up? I'm
>doing it with cut/paste and putting those greater than signs in. I don't
>know if my mailer auto-quotes for me, so if I'm quoting somethign that is
>quoted above please tell me. It'll make all my messages easier to read.
> To respond to the last post, yes, those moons were just the outlines of
>white. And brighter toward the planet, then fading away on the dark side of
>the moon. So, you've seen something similar?

Well, first of all, your quotes look fine. However, I'd bet your mailer
will do it for you without you having to manually put in the > signs!

Second, what I have seen is a "star" that drifts through the FOV. In
actuality, it was a geosynchronus satellite. Good scopes can resolve the
Gallilean moons to tiny (very tiny) discs. Your description of the moons
of Jupiter indicates that either the scope was not focused or there was
something wrong with it, or both. But in any case, they should look
either like pinpoint star images or very small discs. They should NEVER
have dark centers or be unevenly illumiated. What kind of scope was it?

Paul Goelz
Rochester Hills, MI
pgoelz@eaglequest.com