Jupiter 18 July 07

[MrEd]

Some members of the Worthing Astronomical Society and i

took advantage of the rare clear evening on July 18.

We have an observatory housing an old 12" f5.5 Newtonian housed at windlesham

public school in west Sussex.

Observations of Jupiter commenced about 22:00 BST.

a 9mm Orthoscopic (my personal fave type of EP for planets) was used giving us 200x (approx)

this was ideal as seeing was not great but improving. also attached was

an 80A light blue filter.

The belts were interesting, The North equatorial belt (NEB) was very dark and prominent.

The South Equatorial belt was 'banded' or 'split' from other seasons into 2 or 3 strips.

About 22:30BST a festoon was seen in the center of the NEB this slowly moved from Right to left as the evening went on. The festoon was dark in colour (but colour was difficult to identify) and it appeared

to loop out from the NEB towards the equator.

22:45 again on the NEB a large white oval had moved onto the disk on the right limb.

this was confirmed by another member and was much larger than any white oval i have seen in a few years.

(has anyone else seen or imaged this?)

23:00 on the SEB a small irregularity was observed. at first it looked like a transit shadow on the center of the SEB. The only problem was that is was orangy red in colour and not black. This kind of eliminates the transit theory. We presumed it was cloud activity but failed to clearly identify the feature.

by 23:15 the planet was getting difficult to observe from our site.

All in all a very impressive Jupiter this season despite the weather/altitude.

If any of our observations can be confirmed or not pleas feel free....

Ed Sampson

[Astroman]

Good report, Ed. Just shows what an extra 2" of aperture does as compared to my 10".

I haven't seen the white oval yet, but I believe the orangy red spot is Red Junior-a large storm of the same color as the GRS. This storm is the same size as Earth and nearly collided with the GRS this spring.

[Trevor]

Hi Ed

Nice report,

Only just read Graham’s Email about Wednesday, house sitting for the in-laws.

Trevor.