Jupiter - 7 September 2012

[DarkerSky]

Another fine early morning. A bit of a chill to the air and a light-moderate breeze. Great sky clarity with Orion up in the SE and the waning moon high up close to Jupiter. Popped out my 12" scope to cool. Jupiter was the target this morning. Got this sketch in average seeing AIII:

12" x192 magnification

Neodymium filter

04.05 UT - 04.55UT

System I: 246 degrees

System II: 156 degrees

The pale GRS was moving onto the disc in the SEB. It was difficult to seek out any detail in the storm system, although I did manage to glimpse what appeared to be an offset lighter zone to the storm on its preceeding side. The area around the GRS seemed really distrurbed. A slim arc of material seemed to curve part way over it and also interact with material close to the STB giving it a shaded appearance above the GRS in the STZ. Similar was seen below the GRS with an enhancement of the banded area running through the EZ.

On the preceeding side of the GRS the SEB seemed to curve out into a high shoulder of darker material that then curved down around the bottom of the storm with a distinct darkness to it as it ran underneath the storm and out to the following side. On the following side itself the SEB was distinctly split into two components, darker in the north than the south. On the preceeding side the shoulder of darker material seemed to slope down and merge into the rest of the SEB.

The NEB is broader than the SEB and now distinctly split into two components. The southern component is the darker and more complex with an uneven border with darker areas, two of which seemed to push into the EZ slightly. Near the preceeding edge of the planet the NEB seemed to fade out a bit on its southern boundary in a large but indistinct bay.

The northern component is thinner and less intense in darkness. it was observed as running fairly evenly across the planet this morning.

The other feature of note was a darker area on the NTB at the same longitude as the GRS.

[Eddy_J1]

Nice sketch, it was really interesting to read exactly how you saw it.

[Mike73]

Interesting to see the difference between this and yesterday's observation Seb.

I managed to crawl out of bed early but thick fog had the better of us down here.

Pic is from an hour ago with the fog bank rolling past us.