Telescope Reviews: Jupiter's 4 moons

It was my second observing session. My family was over at my place for dinner and I wanted to show my 5 yrs old nephew what Jupiter looks like through a scope. I setup my 6" newt for cooldown in my backyard. After about 40 mins or so, I went out and pointed it to Jupiter, put in the 26mm EP at 27x for a nice view of the planet and its 4 moons.

I invited my nephew and asked him to take a peek. He looked and I explained to him what he was looking at. He said it was cool. I then told him to look up in the sky so I can show him where Jupiter was. He looked up and asked me a couple of questions, which I answered.

Now my sister came out, said she wanted to look at it too. I pointed up in the sky at Jupiter and asked her to take a look in the scope. I told her that she should also see 2 dark bands across the disc and that they were clouds on Jupiter. She saw through the EP for about 40 secs to a minute.
I asked her if she saw the moons and the cloud bands, and she said yes to both. I thought it was impressive for someone looking for the first time to make out the cloud bands.

She then looked up into the sky and said, yes, I can still see them. While pointing her finger towards the planet, she said, "There's Jupiter and there are the moons". I asked her, "Do you see the moons?". She said, still pointing her finger at it, "Yes, there they are, right there, see?"

I though for a second that maybe, just maybe, due to some complex atmospheric conditions, a tunnel may have been created, removing all the earthly light, pollution & atmosphere and created a direct link between the Jovian system and my backyard sending enough light through 390 million miles of space, so my sister could see the 4 moons from my Red/Orange Zone site through her eyes.

Then I thought, naah... Thats not going to happen, not in the next billion or so years. Maybe in the future if there is no atmosphere left on earth... That though got me to thinking, What do the astronauts see from out there? What mag stars can they see from earth orbit? And are they able to see the 4 bigger moons of Jupiter?

Continuing from where I left, I explained to my sister how small the moons were and what she was seeing through her naked eyes were stars. My dad came out next and I invited him to see too. He looked through the scope, then he looked up into the sky and guess what he said?
"Yes I see Jupiter and its moons. They are right there", he said, pointing his finger in that direction.

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6" ebay reflector (temporary scope till I save for a Z10)
green laser pointer
skymaps for charts