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Great Red Spot: now on show !

John

By John
in The Astro Lounge

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John

John

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If you have clear skies tonight, now is the time to look at Jupiter and catch the Great Red Spot. It's approaching the central meridian of the planet right now and is looking really well defined with a darker rim around and followed very closely by the adjacent pale spot / patch.

Nice :icon_confused:

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John

John

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The detail around the GRS is outstanding at the moment - a real turbulent mix of light and darker areas. Couple of nice barges in the NEB as well and the one that has recently come into view seems to have a thin pale ring around it.

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Stu

Stu

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Just had a quick peek. DIY got in the way for the rest of the evening but it's lovely and clear out there still and the seeing seems pretty good.

Some nice detail seen, pushed the 66mm up to over x120 or so and it held up well. GRS heading off now but still spotted clearly, plus all the following turbulence. Nice

Had a quick look at m42 too. Trapezium very clear and plenty of detail in the nebula, looked quite bat like with the 'wings'.

Thanks for the heads up

Stu

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John

John

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....Some nice detail seen, pushed the 66mm up to over x120 or so and it held up well. GRS heading off now but still spotted clearly, plus all the following turbulence. Nice....

Good work with the 66mm Stu :icon_confused:

I've managed to spot the GRS with an 80mm but that's the smallest scope I've done it with - and that was when the GRS had a bit more R in it !.

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gdheib0430

gdheib0430

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Yeah think I need to sit down next month an invest in some more eyepieces and a better location...can see jupiter just fine with my 3" reflector, but it came with a 25mm and 10mm eyepice that probably aren't the best...Can only pick out the two main bands and one other to the north...might not have waited for night vision, but there were some darn street lamps across the street bugging the **** out of me.

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Stu

Stu

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Thanks John. Its a lovely little scope and gives surprisingly good views, and levels of detail for something so small. Wish I had been able to at least get the 4" out as the seeing seemed very good but no time and work today

Stu

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ismangil

ismangil

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If you have clear skies tonight, now is the time to look at Jupiter and catch the Great Red Spot. It's approaching the central meridian of the planet right now and is looking really well defined with a darker rim around and followed very closely by the adjacent pale spot / patch.

Nice :icon_confused:

What's the sweet spot magnification would you say? Last night using 133x seems a bit small to spot the grs.

I shall now get a proper eyepiece.

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John

John

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What's the sweet spot magnification would you say? Last night using 133x seems a bit small to spot the grs.

I shall now get a proper eyepiece.

I was using 180x with an ED120mm refractor. Occasionally I can push beyond 200x with Jupiter but most often 150x - 180x hits the mark.

As a feature the GRS is quite large - around 25%-30% the apparent diameter of the disk I'd guess. It's getting good contrast, rather than outright magnification thats the key I feel. I don't use filters on Jupiter but I do need some time for my eye to get "in tune" with picking out the finer details, as the seeing conditions permit.

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Stu

Stu

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I think anything over x100 would be ok. Think I saw it last night with the nag zoom at 5mm which is x76 but mostly was between x100 and x120.

With the 4", I would use x150 to x180, and the mak will cope up to x250 if the seeing allows. Jupiter tends not to handle power as well as Saturn because the features are quite low contrast.

Stu

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Stu_2011

Stu_2011

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Have to agree that it was a good night last night for Jupiter, my little 6 year old daughter was super impressed! The conditions were great with lots of colour and superfine detail coming out. I was viewing at x235 and had no problems at all

Cloud back tonight for me

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