Jupiter 05-09 03.30am

[pragmatist]

Drove to Westleton common Suffolk which is a great dark sky sight. It was so warm and there was so much fog about but by 2am it was looking good and finally got to see Jupiter through my own telescope. What an amazing sight and it's incredible how your eyes tune in after a few minutes observing. M42 was looking great even though it's still so low in the sky, can't wait till winter. All in all though Jupiter stole the show and what a sight to gradually see one of the moons appear from it's right limb, incredible stuff. Those blumming deer though can spook you when you are all alone in the back of beyond!

[Mattscar]

Jupiter always steals the show for me, and if you can give yourself atleast 20mins to dark adapt your eyes you will really start to notice a difference.

As for things spooking you, theres a field of cows at the bottom of my garden, which I know are there, but when I was out one night one of them snorted behind me which made me jumo and then spent 10 minutes trying to see it through the hedge with my torch to convince myself it wasnt an orc from lord of the rings.

[cassiewoofer]

Hello Pragmatist, so you were using a C11, what sort of surface detail could you make out on jupiter, and at what mag were you at? I was looking with a home ground 10 inch F6 so I'm interested to compare notes, all I could see was three cloud bands on the surface, one narrower than the other two. Don't know how good the viewing was here but I don't think it was brilliant.

Keith

[pragmatist]

Keith I was using a tele vue delos 17mm which gave me 2 prominent bands and discoloration in the top third with more very faint bands visible at the bottom going in and out of visibility after 20 mins or so of continuous observing. Best views were around 5 am.

[pragmatist]

Correction, it was my 14mm Delos!!