Heart Attacks and Moons

I had a minor heart attack today when I got an R.S.V.P. in the mail. When my daughter and I did the seating arrangements for the wedding, we squeezed everyone perfectly into 9 tables. On top of that, the R.S.V.P. said: 2 or 4. Really? 2 or 4? What kind of response is that? I couldn't find them on our table cards and they were not marked with a "T" on the original list so just as I was looking over everything, I finally saw the name and saw that we had already sat them as 4. Apprently they had verbally responded to my daughter. What a relief.
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Saturday night I took out my 5" telescope. I love astronomy but because of our location there is not a lot to see here. We're on the side of a hill, there are trees all around and there is an abundance of light pollution. But after reading about Jupiter making its closest pass in 47 years, I had to try. Jupiter is big and was easy to find without a telescope. It looks like a huge bright star. It rises in the east, southeast and goes straight overhead. After a lot of positioning and changing of eyepieces, we finally got a great view through the telescope that looked like this:

That's Jupiter with its moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. It will be near the moon for the next couple of days. I don't have the proper equipment to photograph through my telescope, so I found that picture on the web, but that's exactly what we saw. If you have access to a telescope, try to get a look at Jupiter, especially on the 22nd when a faint Emerald disc will be nearby. That will be Uranus. Also on the 22nd will be a Harvest Moon. It's a great skywatching month, but watch out for mosquitos.