A very clear night, marred only by a brilliant waning gibbous moon. Some artificial rainmaking, I suspect, might have cleared the air for the end of the Olympics. At dusk, Venus was clearly visible naked eye about 10 degrees above the horizon in what is normally an impenetrably dense belt of smog (couldn't find Mercury though, about one degree separate). Around 1am, the moon notwithstanding, the Andromeda Galaxy (my last recorded sighting of this was last October) was very distinct with 10x50s. Strikingly, long-forgotten constellations or asterisms were visible to the naked eye. The Great Square of Pegasus, Cassiopeia, the Northern Cross. Very pedestrian sightings for most, but rare to see so distinctly here.
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Sadly cloud cover prevented viewing of this from Beijing. The night began with partly cloudy skies (and remarkably good visibility thanks to recent rain washing away the haze), but by 3:25 am on the 17th cloud was everywhere.
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An unusually clear night, though marred by a nearly full moon. I thought I caught a glimpse of the great red spot close to meridian transit, but Jupiter disappeared behind a tree before I could be sure. Made a cursory effort to see Neptune and failed. While checking alignment on Altair I saw a satellite go by it at 10:10 pm that I deduce to have most likely been an Atlas 2A Centaur rocket body. It was significantly fainter than Altair.
It was nice to see anything in the sky after days of smog. Heavy rain yesterday helped.
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A partial lunar eclipse will be visible in Beijing (weather/haze permitting) before dawn on August 17th. The moon will enter the earth's umbra at 3:36 am when it will be about 20 degrees above the horizon. Maximum eclipse will be at 5:10 am when the moon will be 3 degrees above the horizon -- in other words difficult to see in built up areas. The moon will set while still partially eclipsed. A very early start indeed will be required to catch much of anything.
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Here is a crude sketch of the Aug 1 eclipse, obsevred from Jiuquan, China. It was drawn from memory more than 24 hours after the event, so some poetic license has to be allowed for. Even if not correctly aligned in this sketch (east is upper left of the picture), the streamers were very striking. China will get another total eclipse on July 22 next year, but conditions on the east coast are unlikely to be as good as they were in the Gobi desert for this one. If I get another chance to observe next year I might do a couple of things differently:
1. Pre-program the ETX-90 with the location data before heading off to observe. I found myself in the middle of the Gobi without knowing the latitutde and longitude, which slowed down alignment.
2. Leave plenty of time to set up. I got the sun in target only minutes before first contact.
3. Bring a 32mm lens -- the wider FOV would make finding the sun easier.
4. Look for the diamond ring and Bailey's beads effects. I was looking elsewhere at the very start of totality.
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