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Jupiter and others


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Lovely quiet morning on 18th November, out early with the new telescope. A real change to the frustrating previous night of strong winds and trying to locate anything through brief gaps in the cloud. The wind had vanished, replaced by silence expect for a hooting owl.

Spotted a bright shooting star, leaving a clear trail, originating from Leo. First view of the Beehive too, which didn't need any searching for even to the naked eye.

First view of Venus in a scope. Dazzlingly bright half disk.

First view of Jupiter in a scope. Cream coloured disk, with the colour especially obvious after an out and back comparison with brilliant white Venus. Two obvious darker parallel horizontal bands either side of the equator, spanning across the whole disk. Less obvious darker region around the South Pole. Less obvious thinner third band spanning the disk north of the equatorial bands, with a darker or thicker section in the west spanning a third of the disk. A small number of shorter more circular thicker or darker areas became visible in the northern equatorial band after some time. Four moons visible, balanced in a straight line, two leading the planet, and two trailing. It was low in the sky, and the scope doubtless hadn't cooled down enough, but I'm excited to see it improve over the coming months. A real treat though.

The view was so good, it didn't even occur to me to look for poor old Mars.

Both planets viewed in 10mm for 120x mag.

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Great job for your first telescopic view of Jupiter.  It took me years to see some of the features you recorded: North Temperate Belt and Barges in the North Equatorial Belt!  You should have no problem (with good seeing) observing festoons and plumes hanging off of the North Equatorial Belt.  The Great Red Spot will be no problem (when positioned well), and you may be able to pick out white spots in the South Polar Regions. 

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Great job for your first telescopic view of Jupiter.  It took me years to see some of the features you recorded: North Temperate Belt and Barges in the North Equatorial Belt!  You should have no problem (with good seeing) observing festoons and plumes hanging off of the North Equatorial Belt.  The Great Red Spot will be no problem (when positioned well), and you may be able to pick out white spots in the South Polar Regions.

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement. I would honestly be thrilled to see the Great Red Spot one day. I remember reading about it as a kid with fascination, and it's one of the top few things in space I'd love to see with my own eyes. Temporate Belts and Barges are new to me, so I'll need (yet another) trip to Wikipedia. Maybe it was beginners luck, although in fairness it's another case of maybe not exactly seeing something, but more sensing that something is there (if you know what I mean!). Hopefully we'll all get some cracking views in the coming months. :-)

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You really did do very well for your first Jupiter observation, you may not have known exactly what you were looking at but you took your time and looked at each part of the planet individually and took your time which is exactly what anybody observing our solar system should do.

Theres no magic EP or filter, its all about patience and time behind the EP.

Jupiter is constantly changing and you will notice different things happening throughout the apparition so it pays to learn a bit about the planets surface (or what you see!), the link below should help you ID what you are seeing next time the clouds clear. :)

http://www.astrosurf.com/cidadao/jupiter_obs.htm

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...you took your time and looked at each part of the planet individually and took your time which is exactly what anybody observing our solar system should do.

Thanks for your reply, particularly having just seen your timely and excellent latest sketch/report on Jupiter this week. When I started, I was amazed at what I could see (meaning which objects I could locate in the sky), but I've really learned in the last month or so that it's also amazing what can be seen when you slow down and really spend some time on one object. If not for folks like yourself on this forum, I wouldn't have learned this by now, and wouldn't be enjoying the hobby as much as I am. Really appreciate it.

Thanks for the link too, which was excellent reading on the subject, and keep up the good work on the sketches too :-)

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Super report Paul :smiley:

Jupiter is such an interesting world, the surface features change all the time and you never quite know what you will come across next. You have identified and described some nice details during this session.

If you can spot the "barges" the Great Red Spot should be no trouble at all when it's on our side of the planet. It usually has some accompanying features such as the hollow that it sits in on the S edge of the S Equatorial Belt and pale vortexes that seem to follow in the wake of the GRS as it rotates around the planet.

Plumes and festoons are also often seen traversing the pale Equatorial Zone. Most often these seem to eminate from the N Equatorial Belt.

Never a dull moment at Jupiter :smiley:

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