OK, so I did it.  I stayed up late waiting for Jupiter to come up.  I'm going to be exhausted for work tomorrow, but, wow, what a great night!  Nice clear skies and once the first quarter moon went down I could see magnitude 4.0~4.5ish.

I marked the constellations Delphinus, Sagitta, Aquila, and Sagittarius for the first time.  Jupiter was just blazing in the constellation Sagittarius, so I had to give that one a look first.  (For the record, I have a Meade DS2130 long tube reflector, 5" aperature, f = 1020mm, f/7.9)  I saw two distinct cloud bands on Jupiter, right across the middle, and I saw 3 of the 4 Galilean (sp?) moons.  I used 26mm plossl for 39x and I could see bands.  I jumped up to 159x with a 6.4mm plossl and could see the bands much better!  Last fall when I looked at Jupiter in the west before it went behind the sun, I couldn't see any cloud bands at all.  Too much atmosphere, and too far away, I guess.

Does anyone know when the Great Red Spot will turn our way?

So, I figured while Sagittarius was up I'd look for the nebulas.  I pointed in the general area above the "teapot" spout and searched around.  The first one I found was the Lagoon nebula (M8).  (I wasn't sure which one it was until I verified using Google Sky.)  I could see very distinct nebulosity off to the side from a bright star near the middle and the little cluster of stars opposite.  Very cool.  The Trifid Nebula (M20) was much more difficult.  I searched North of the Lagoon nebula and a bit to the right until I spotted a wisp of nebulosity around a star with another bright star just to the north.  I saw two other stars (verified as HD164637 and HD164402 later using Google Sky) to the north and Open Cluster M21 just a bit further north than those.  Beautiful.  I wish I had more aperature!!!

Anyway, that wraps up another very nice session and now, I must get some sleep! 

Good night.

-StarNerd

Nice report. Thanks for sharing.

Here are the GRS transit times for 2008: http://www.projectpluto.com/jeve_grs.htm#jun

SJS

 StarNerd - The spot will appear when it wants to. I'm not sure what the rotational period of the planet is but it should appear sooner or later.

   Isn't Sagittarius nice? Full of nice bright objects to locate easily to wet your appetite for more! That's the nice thing about stargazing - when you are looking for one object, others are bound to appear just to add icing to the cake. Nice report and hope many more successful nights come your way, Mr Q
 

Hi Mr Q!

I went out again last night and got Jupiter in the 'scope.  At 159x I couldn't make out any of the cloud bands.  It was just too hazy and humid last night.  I'll keep looking every chance I get.  Seems like every time we get a cold front come through the views afterwards are usually good.  I think Jupiter hits opposition July 7th, so it'll be around July and probably most of August too!  I suppose the Great Red Spot will look like a bubble in the southern cloud belt.  I'll get it eventually.  I'll post when I do.

mr Q:

Isn't Sagittarius nice? Full of nice bright objects to locate easily to wet your appetite for more!

I never got familiar with Sagittarius (and other southern constellations, from where I'm at) until recently so it's all new to me.  From my roof I have a nice view to the south and south east (south west is blocked by a big oak tree, however).  Sagittarius is moving into that view earlier and earlier now (I don't have to wait up until 2am anymore, it's there at midnight).  I'd like to check out the Swan nebula (M17) and Eagle nebula (M16) next.  It's a constant fight trying to get through the light pollution, though.  I want to get a nice big 12-inch Dob as soon as I can.

I was checking out the sights in Cygnus the other night too.  I  got NGC 6826 (the Blinking Planetary) and M27 (Dumbbell Nebula).  ngc2438 gave me some tips on a couple more planetary nebulas to check out.

The sky's just chock-full of stuff.

-StarNerd

The Great Red Spot is anything but really great and red right now.... I would say pale orange and fairly unspectacular. Probably not even easy to see in small scopes when you have bad seeing.

Looking myself for GRS tranist times, I ran into that really useful tool halfway down that page:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/3304091.html 

Talking about your mentioned target M16: That's another not so easy target under light polluted skies... Fairly dim. Its neighbor M17 is even brighter than M20 (surface brightness).

Really spectacular, if you have not tried yet, is M11, the open cluster not far from M16. One of the densest open clusters in the sky.

Clear Skies!!