Mojo and I had a wonderful night of Saturn, Jupiter and lunar views last night on Colorado Blvd. And the views tonight in Monrovia from 7 - 10 will be just as good, possibly even better! First we aimed both telescopes at the moon, while waiting for the sun to set at 7:30 p.m. and for darkness to envelop the sky. The seven day waxing moon rose at mid-day and set at midnight. It was a night to see the great mare, or seas, which are smooth lava filled basins on the lunar surface. http://www.shallowsky.com/moon/hitchhiker.html I often get asked by people who look through a telescope at the moon "Where is the Apollo 11 landing site" in the Sea of Tranquility, or Mare Tranquillitatis, and this is one of the areas I pointed out last night. Here is where the landing sites are, for you armchair observers. :-) http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ID=804 Apollo 11 is marked with a green arrow with "11" on it. Tonight is the eighth day of the lunar month, and one of my favorite lunar features is best seen tonight and tomorrow night. It's called the straight wall or straight fault. It looks like a hairline crack on the moon surface. One side of the fault is lower than the other, and the wall casts a shadow that stretches the entire 120 km length of this amazing feature. Saturn, lord of the rings will be beautiful tonight, and we should see several of its moons through the telescope. When the air is steady, the features become easier to see. On this map you can see the Cassini division, a dark gap between the outer A ring and the middle B ring in Saturns icy ring system. It takes a moment to see Saturn and take in the view and the details. Sometimes, with fewer people waiting in line for views, our guests feel comfortable staring at Saturn for a minute or two and this is how you can see more ring detail and some of the dark belts and bright zones on the gas giant planet itself. http://stars5.netfirms.com/satnori.jpg Titan, the largest moon of Saturn will be easily visible. Today JPL's Cassini Spacecraft made its closes flyby of Titan. Next week some amazing pictures will be available on the Cassini Mission (which is where I work) website http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm If Saturn is the jewel of the Solar System, mighty Jupiter is king. Jupiter rises in the eastern sky at sunset, so we wait until later in the night to observe it, after we've looked at the moon and Saturn. But once it rises above trees and city buildings, those of you who take a look will be in for a real treat tonight. Jupiter's great red spot, a great anti-cyclonic storm similar to a hurricane on earth rotates onto the visible planet at about 9 p.m.tonight. So from 9 to 10 p.m. viewers will be able to see a disturbance in the darker southern belt of the planet. We'll be sure to point it out. It's not red or bright but at 3 times the size of earth, it's a storm worth watching. All four of the Gallilean satellites, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto will be visible tonight. I like to ponder about Galileo seeing these four moons for the first time over 400 years ago. Here's a sketch showing Jupiter features http://www.shallowsky.com/jupfeatures.html Lastly it was great to see some of you from our list last night, and hope to see more tonight! We'll be repeating our outings in Pasadena and Monrovia for the next two weeks. Weather permitting of course. Jane -- Jane Houston Jones Monrovia, CA 34.2048N 118.1732W, 637.0 feet http://www.whiteoaks.com Old Town Astronomers: http://www.otastro.org