South Park Jupiter

[starguest]

ball.

Once Jupiter had moved to a more favourable position, back I went. Now I could easily go to 200x and get a nice crisp shape. And that's the reason for the title. The effect of Io and its shadow right over the upper belt looked like a tiny pair of black eyes and with the lower belt providing a kind of ultra-wide mouth I was immediately reminded of the way some of the "extra" characters are drawn in South Park.

By now, the Pleiades and Aldebaran with its group had appeared so I gave them a check, always worthwhile. And I was able to get a fair amount of Mirfak and the well populated Perseus. Not quite the contrast with moonless nights but still enjoy exploring the sprinkling.

I finished off with a long look at the moon, which I haven't done for a while. I had been using my binoviewers the whole night and these give a particularly rewarding view here. You can look for a time and if you move away you don't get the "half-blinded" effect. This is maybe down to an 80/20 ratio for using both eyes and the light loss from the BV. The detail resolution is great as 2 eyes worth are feeding the brain. There's a certain "solidity" to the way that crater shadows and edges and raised tops along the terminator are shown.

A decent long spell after so many 1 or 2 hour grabs, or that should be so "few" seeing as it's my 5th outing in 6 weeks!