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Jupiter

mshaid

By mshaid
in Getting Started With Observing

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ronin

ronin

Posted
Posted

Jupiter is around early in the morning. Actually just get above the horizon abour 23:00 - may be a bit earlier as I find Stellarium tends to have a high horizon and not what I ask/set/expect. Lets say midnight lowish in the East.

Mars will be about 18 months away, that is just out of sight.

Not sure about Saturn.

Stellarium says Saturn is below the horizon, Uranus and Neptune are lowish in the West, especially Neptune which is I suspect too low.

So that is it Jupiter and Uranus and Neptune.

Timings depend on the arrangements of the Earths orbit and the planet.

Mars starts to get reasonable in early 2016, best will be May 2016.

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Dave In Vermont

Dave In Vermont

Posted
Posted

Mars is always tricky. The 2003 viewing was truly incredible! But then a dust-storm on Mars washed out the fine detailed views we all had. That's Mars for you! Anytime Jupiter is about is a good time to view it. It never disappoints - from the changes in the cloud belts to the transits of the moons, it's great! Saturn always leaves a new viewer hooked on it! Neptune and Uranus are fun to locate and see their impressive colours - which change depending on sky-conditions.

So keep your eyes peeled. The use of a good star-charting program, like Stellarium, will be a great help to you in showing you what's up in your area each night:

http://www.stellarium.org/

It's free to download and use to your heart's content. Can't beat that price. And easily set to specifically show the sky from where you are.

Clear Skies & Have Fun,

Dave

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O-RICH

O-RICH

Posted
Posted

I've just been outside in the freezing cold to look at her - what an amazing beast. Could see all her moons too. Couldn't stick it out for long cos it was 3 degrees but i saw the 2 brown bands through a barlow but i couldn't make out the red spot.

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DRT

DRT

Posted
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Have a look at Planets Today - it gives you the current position of each planet and lets you fast forward so you can see which planets are closest to us at any given point in time.

For the next few years Jupiter is in the sky in mid winter and Saturn in the summer. We will have a great view of Mars and Saturn in the same part of the sky in mid 2016 :cool2:

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Paul73

Paul73

Posted
Posted

Looked great at 2am this morning!

Download the free Sky & Telescope "Jupiter's Moons" app. That will show you which moons are where and when. It also shows Great Red Spot and Moon shadow transit times.

Uranus and Neptune are both nicely placed evening targets at the the moment. Saturn becomes a very late/early target in March. Mars Will be a nice early evening object from March ish.

Paul

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Grotemobile

Grotemobile

Posted
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Have a look at Planets Today - it gives you the current position of each planet and lets you fast forward so you can see which planets are closest to us at any given point in time.

For the next few years Jupiter is in the sky in mid winter and Saturn in the summer. We will have a great view of Mars and Saturn in the same part of the sky in mid 2016 :cool2:

Thanks for that.Very

good.

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Davesellars

Davesellars

Posted
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Although you can view Jupiter from around midnight however recently I've found it's much better to get up around 4 - 5am as it's considerably higher and the air stability is much improved therefore higher magnifications can be obtained.

Mercury is visible at twilight apparently, however it's very low down so you need to be viewing from a good position to see it.

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Qualia

Qualia

Posted
Posted

From North uk,

When's best time to observe Jupiter? Or other planets?

Which months are better and timings?

Download Stellarium, Mshaid. Ths should help you a lot :grin:

Other than that, in my experience, a 3" will reveal some detail on Jupiter, a 4" a little more and a 10" a whole load more :p . But in all these cases you need time to observe. If you look casually through your scope, have a quick five minute gander, you'll say to me, 'I saw a white-creamy disk with one or two orangy-brown bands on it.'  And yes, that is the first impression we all get, but to go beyond that you'll need to work.

Any scope in my experience will reveal a significant amount of detail but you need to sit quietly for quite sometime, relaxed in a comfortable position and allow your eyes to respond to the faint delicate markings, the subtle lanuage of whisps and desert shades which are present on the Jovian giant.  Visual observing is quite hard work but the more you do it the better you get and the more you will see.

The problem right now is that Jupiter isn't really in a great position to be viewed at a 'decent' time. It's rising around midnight and not in optimum position until around 6ish. If you're still up when it shows itself, have an enjoyable peak, but realise you're having to cut through quite a lot of atmosphere which is going to compromise your viewing experience. Personally, I wouldn't get involved with the mighty planet until a couple of months from now. That is, try to view Jupiter as close to the zenith as possible.

When it comes to Jupiter, good seeing conditions override problems with light pollution and assuming your collimation (if you've a newt) is spot on, the right magnification for Jupiter - as with most celestial objects - is relative to the seeing conditions. So long as the disk is sharp and well focused, we're doing alright. On an average night, Jupiter should easily handle around 160x and on a good night, you may be able to tweak 200x to 250x and even more :grin: .

I've found a light blue filter (Wratten 80a) sometimes helps to bring out subtle band features while others swear by Wratten 11 or 12. Most times, however, I prefer observing Jupiter without any kind of filter although I've read that TeleVue's Planet filter may be a whole new experience.

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