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Jupiter and its 7(?) Moons?

bluemac

By bluemac
in Observing - Planetary

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bluemac

bluemac

Posted
Posted

Hi all,

Had a good look at Jupiter last night through my new telescope, and was quite surprised when I managed to count seven easily visible points of light around his mighty disk. Am I right in thinking that these extra three are more moons, or are they more distant stars? I've attached a hastily noted sketch of roughly what I was seeing, and from it you'll see that the most distant point of light on the left seems to be on the same plane as three of the Galilean Moons. I should probably also point out that the three extra points of light seemed to focus perfectly along with the other moons, and all seven were easily seen through different combinations of lenses/eyepieces.

As you can tell, I'm convinced that they are more moons - I just hope that someone can confirm this for me. So did anyone else notice this last night, and might they be able to tell me exactly what it was that I was seeing?

Cheers!

Matt.

post-21689-133877666031_thumb.jpg

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Stu

Stu

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Posted

Pretty sure they will be background stars I'm afraid. All the others are much more faint and not visible in amateur scopes.

I would check on stellarium for the positions of the ones you saw to verify it.

Stu

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

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bluemac

bluemac

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Amazing ! ..

Ive found someone who's Jupiter drawings are worse than mine ;):D

Jupiter always looks best with lots of field stars :p

JJ..

Oi!

I saw two good bands on Jupiter itself, I'm still yet to see the GRS though I'm not sure if it's me/my scope or that it's simply not visible at the mo.

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John

John

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I've seen the GRS with my 120mm refractor on a couple of nights over the past few weeks. It's surprising how often it is "around the back" of the planet though :p

It currently looks like a pale oval embedded in the southern half of the South Equatorial Belt.

4 Jovian moons are my max as well though. Saturn has more moons that can be seen in modest apertures - I've seen up to 6 Saturnian satellites with my 10" scope.

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Charon

Charon

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Seven Moons or Four Moons and three stars does not matter really, what does matter is the experience, I have only managed to observe Saturn twice so far due to various reasons but on those two occasions the sights were amazing.

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todd8137

todd8137

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Posted
The Great Red Spot is hard to see. I was told last year that it couldn't be seen right now but I don't know when this will change.

Isabelle

hi isabelle get a neodymium filters you will soon see better bands and watch the red spot pop out at you ,and the bands will have more definition and more of them and you will see the poles even better it changed my view of all planets and its great on the moon as well

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