The Ordeal

I started this morning by setting up the scope outside and turning on its fan to run all day; wanted that mirror to be in perfect thermal equilibrium by night fall. . .fourteen hours of fan action should do the trick.  At this point the sun is less than ten minutes away from setting and Jupiter is what I have been looking forward to observing.  Why?  Because it will be visible and positioned wonderfully for observation most any second now plus it won’t be dark enough to view DSO’s productively until nearly midnight.  Midnight usually finds me sound asleep and no doubt it will tonight also.  But I am heading out the door as soon as this posts to grab probably what will be the first of three brief observations of the planet over a perhaps a ninety minute time frame.  And you know what?  The few minutes which these observations will at most total somehow justifies the ordeal.