Thursday, July 21, 1994

From several rungs up the ladder, I peer into the eyepiece and gaze at Jupiter. At first, I don't see anything except a white disk. But having read earlier in the day that telescope viewing takes a practiced eye, I don't panic. I just keep looking until I start to see some details. First, the equatorial zone shows up as a light stripe across the middle of the planet. That somewhat darker stripe above it and the other one below it would be the equatorial belts. I remember what I have read about telescope orientations and assume that this telescope will invert the image. Therefore, in looking for those southern comet impact spots, I devote most of my scanning to the uppermost pole of the planet. Before long, I begin to discern a darkened area near the top pole. It is by no means distinct, just a fuzzily defined roundish region that appears to be a shade or two darker than its surroundings. I keep looking, trying to keep my eyes relaxed, half expecting it to disappear. Yet as my eyes adjust, I begin to see more and more contrast. It's still just a darker shade of gray, but by now I am convinced that I really am seeing a spot!

Rumor has it that another spot is just coming around the edge of the planet. After some study, I recognize it as a slight black indentation in the curve of the sphere. (I verify this with Bob, the telescope's owner and builder.) In less than a minute I am descending the ladder to allow the next person to look. But it was enough time for me to experience the rewards of waiting patiently for the details of an object to become discernible. I will have to try that with my own telescope.

After that first sighting, I feel elated. For six days I have been obsessed with the desire to see those comet impact sites firsthand. Somehow I always "knew" that it was going to be possible for amateurs to see them. Now, through an unbelievable combination of luck and determination, I have finally seen them with my own eyes, through a telescope. If I see nothing else all night, if I go home without even managing to find Jupiter in my own spotting scope, I will still be content that I came here tonight. I urge my father and brother to get in line and look through the big telescope, and eventually they comply.

I try to capture Jupiter in my own telescope. But no sooner do I see it in the sky, when it disappears before I can locate it in the finder scope. Or I manage to get it in the finder, but then it fades into the clouds before I can locate it in the main spotting scope. Then I have to start all over again.

In the meantime, I keep hearing excited exclamations from other astronomers nearby. Drawn by the excitement and the chance to see something new, I make frequent side trips to neighboring telescopes. I want to sneak as many looks as I can before this window of opportunity closes. After a handful of peeks through larger telescopes, I've seen enough pale "eyes" on Jupiter to form a lasting impression. I have gotten what I came here for. I am seeing the impact spots while they are still fresh. I begin to feel blessed.

It soon becomes apparent that we have all been blessed. A window of clear sky opens up around Jupiter. The wisps of clouds lined up on either side of Jupiter finally clear it. Now that I have had a chance to look at Jupiter through some of the larger telescopes, I can turn my attention back to seeing Jupiter in my own spotting scope.

With the intermittent cloud cover gone, it is much easier to capture Jupiter in my telescope's finder. Another astronomer examines my spotting scope and notices that the finder is off-center. He kindly encourages me to center the crosshairs so that the image in the finder will be at the center of the image in the main scope. Up until that point I have been too intimidated to try it, but after some bumbling attempts I finally get it right. This helps enormously in making the transition from sighting Jupiter in the finder to sighting it in the scope. I locate it at low power (33x), then switch to medium power (100x).

It is still difficult to focus at medium power, but at least I can track the planet now. My skills at using the fine tracking adjustments have increased with each passing day. I get it focused and centered as best as I can, then switch to high power (200x) by adding the Barlow lens. Amazingly, I easily find Jupiter again. But when I try to focus my scope, it jiggles too much, and I lose the planet. With my finder now properly centered, I am able to recapture Jupiter without having to revert to a lower power. However, the difficulties I am having with tracking it and focusing it are overwhelming, and once again I revert to making frequent trips to neighboring telescopes while the window on Jupiter remains open. About every ten minutes or so, someone calls out that the next spot is coming into view, and identifies it by name. I don't want to miss anything, so I am constantly bouncing back and forth between my telescope and the other telescopes.

I get many fine views of Jupiter through the big telescope situated right in front of me. Like many other large telescopes at the Jupiter Watch, this one is homemade, probably a good six feet long, with a ten-inch aperture. It's distinctive in that its "tube" is square in cross section rather than round. Essentially, it's a long, narrow box with a polished wood-grain finish. Its owner, Jerry, explains how the box can be separated into two pieces for easy transportation. I must confess that, upon first viewing this boxy scope, I had thought it among the most humble of the homemade telescopes. But once I get a chance to look through it, I change my mind. This telescope is so solid and so finely-balanced that when Jupiter moves out of view due to the Earth's rotation, I can recapture it just by nudging the telescope box slightly downward and towards me with my hands. It has just the right weight and balance to be easy to control with gentle pushes and pulls. This is in sharp contrast to my own telescope mounting, which tends to make angle adjustments in unpredictable, erratic jerks. The focus adjustment on the boxy scope is also smooth and accessible, allowing each viewer to adjust the focus to suit his personal needs. On my telescope, adjusting the focus normally results in violent shaking of the image, often to the point where I can't adjust the focus and see the results at the same time. On Jerry's telescope, as with many of the other large telescopes, I can adjust the knob and watch the image slowly come into focus. It remains perfectly stationary. By the time I leave the Naval Observatory, I will have decided that this boxy scope is one of the most beautiful telescopes that I have ever seen.

After half an hour or so of nearly uninterrupted Jupiter watching, we are all feeling blessed. The window has held! Moreover, Jupiter shows no signs of clouding over anytime soon. There are still clouds hiding much of the sky -- indeed, they are hiding a nearly full moon that would otherwise be flooding us with unwanted light! But the hole in the clouds around Jupiter has become immense. We are experiencing a meteorological miracle. Who could have predicted a few hours ago that a huge gap in the clouds would generously position itself right over Jupiter this evening, even as a veritable armada of clouds shielded us from the moon's harsh light? No, we are incredibly fortunate, and everyone rejoices at how easy it is to see the spots in their telescopes. "This is better than Halley's Comet!" one astronomer enthuses.

The longer the window holds, the greater the proportion of time I can afford to spend with my own spotting scope. After many fruitless attempts to focus it at high power, I yank out the troublesome slow motion control mechanism in desperation. That component seems to be the primary source of the extraneous jiggle that I am experiencing while focusing. Without the slow motion control, it becomes just barely possible to focus on Jupiter at high power without losing sight of it altogether. Jupiter still doesn't stand still when I try to focus on it, but at least now it is jumping around within my field of view.

I do my best to adjust the focus at high power, but I find it inconvenient having to stop and wait for the scope to settle down every time I turn the focusing ring. I decide to take the advice of old-timers and work at medium power instead. Medium-power viewing is often better than high-power viewing because the light is more concentrated. The image also drifts out of view much more slowly. I remove the Barlow lens, and that puts me back at 100-power magnification.

At the lower magnification, with the slow motion control removed, I find it possible to bring Jupiter into focus. But without a fine-tuning device, tracking the planet becomes much more challenging. I have only the tripod handle to use as a positioning tool, and I'm not used to its idiosyncrasies. It's tough adjusting for Jupiter's vertical motion, because the tripod arm seems to drift a little after I stop moving it. That drift is enough to take Jupiter completely out of view if I don't plan for it when I reposition the handle. However, horizontal adjustments have become quite simple.

I adjust the focus until the whitish circle that represents Jupiter is as small as it can get. How marvelous that all four of the Galilean moons are visible tonight! Last night I saw three; the night before, two. I connect the dots between these moons to draw an imaginary line corresponding to the equator across the tiny planetary disk. And now I simply gaze through the telescope, relaxing my eyes and waiting for features to appear.

After a while, I see a wide white band along the equator. I am seeing a feature on Jupiter for the first time in my own telescope! I am elated. My scope isn't useless after all; it was just my eyes that needed adjusting. Perhaps in time I will be able to see the spots, too. I keep trying, and sometimes I even think I imagine seeing them -- towards the bottom of the planet, since my spotting scope does not invert images. But I suspect that I'm just reading too much into the natural shading that occurs down near the pole. I start peeking through other telescopes again, this time for comparison with my own telescope. In one of the other telescopes, I see the darkest impact spot that I have seen yet. But I still can't convince myself that I'm seeing it in my own scope.

The clouds start edging in toward Jupiter again. Pretty soon, it will disappear behind them. An astronomer calls out that the big Fragment G impact site is coming into view. A family member reminds me that we haven't looked through any of the Naval Observatory telescopes yet. I have been so thoroughly content with what I've been seeing in the smaller telescopes that this revelation shocks me. I had completely forgotten about the big telescopes! One of the larger amateur telescopes near me has been pointed at the moon for the past ten minutes, its owner having defiantly chosen to provide spectators with an alternative object for viewing. There is no shortage of takers. The owner of the boxy scope is ready to start packing it up for his long drive home. I decide to pack it up, too, and head for the biggest observatory scope in case it's not too late to see the G impact spot through it. Playtime is over. My Dad and brother take my equipment back to the car while I stand waiting at the guard gate to make sure they will be allowed back in. A shift change is taking place. I enthuse over our luck with the weather and the views we had of Jupiter, and I urge the freed-up guards to go up the hill and look for themselves.

Reunited with my father and brother, we ascend the hill again towards the telescope buildings. As we stroll up the walk to the 26-inch telescope, hidden beneath a giant white dome, the clouds are already hiding Jupiter. It doesn't look promising for a glimpse through the big telescope, but that does little to dampen my soaring spirits. Instead of waiting in line for half an hour in order to get one look in one big scope, I have been able to look almost whenever I wanted to into any number of smaller, yet nonetheless capable, amateur astronomers' scopes. I have witnessed the sight of a lifetime many times over in the past hour and a half. What more could I want?

We wait in line for at least fifteen minutes. At last, a stream of people exits and the line begins to move. We enter the building and then the telescope elevator. The elevator is essentially the floor of the telescope room, the room under the big white dome. The floor can be raised up to the telescope so that people can look through the eyepiece. A guide gives a talk on the history of the telescope. It was built in 1878 and is now the most productive telescope for double star research in use today. Unfortunately, a look at Jupiter now seems doubtful. I feel sorry for the people who have just arrived for the 9:30 viewing. A number of them haven't seen Jupiter at all yet. It looks as if they aren't going to. A few people leave the room and the elevator's weight limit capacity (about 35 people) is met. The elevator is raised, and we ascend towards the eyepiece of the great telescope, hoping against hope. The guide talks some more, the roof trap door is opened, and a handful of us keep vigil on the clouds, looking for Jupiter. But it is in vain. Eventually the trap door is closed, the floor is lowered again, and we all filter out.

Once outside, we notice a bright star low in the sky. Could it be Venus this late? I wonder. They should have let us look at Venus instead of nothing! "Let's try the other telescope," I suggest. "Maybe they'll let us look there!"

We walk back to the twelve-inch telescope building, which happens to be the one facing the field with the amateur astronomers. We join a handful of curious Japanese tourists for an elevator ride up to the fifth floor, but find no telescope. Evidently it has closed for the night, wherever it is. We eyeball the books and shirts and memorabilia for sale on the second floor, then descend the dramatic staircase to the entrance hall.

We hover there a short time, looking at exhibits, then head out the door. By now, we are all set to go home, but as we amble down the front steps, we see "Venus" again. "Let's go talk to the astronomers!" I suggest. "Then we can find out for sure what it is and get a look at it. We might as well do that while we're here."

So instead of heading back down the hill, we start walking diagonally across the street towards the telescope field. Presently, we notice two very bright lights at the near end of the field, just on the other side of the road. "Television crews!" we realize. Two people are standing in the limelight. As we get closer, Dad and I both believe we recognize one of them: David Levy!