One of my best nights yet

[JulianFR]

Two milestones for me tonight, making it one of the best nights so far in my short observing 'career'.

First, I finally found the Andromeda galaxy though my telescope (I've found it through my 17 x 50 binoculars a couple of times). I still had to search around where I thought it should be for a while with the 24mm ... I nearly gave up again. But then there rivers, quite clearly.

In some senses not that impressive as a grey smudge ... But for me breathtaking as I started to take in its scale beyond the central blob/core. I switched to the 18mm but couldn't really see a lot more detail.

My main disappointment was that I could not distinguish the satellite galaxies M110 and M32. Maybe I should have viewed for longer, or tried a higher mag eyepiece.

Then I switched to Jupiter, which was a fine sight in the 8mm, and larger of course, though a little fuzzy and more difficult to focus on with the 6mm. For the second time my new Lacerta micro-focuser was a great help.

I could only see three of the moons (at around 2100) so what was particularly exciting for me tonight was that with the 8mm, at around 2210, I noticed a tiny pinprick of light attached to Jupiter's disc. I switched to the 6mm, in which it was more obvious, and continued viewing as the pinprick slowly moved away from the planet as a distinct moon. I later learned via the Sky & Telescope Jupiter moon app that this was Io. It's the first time I've watched a moon appendectomy behind Jupiter.

The only downer was that when I switched back to Andromeda I couldn't find it again but by then that portion of the sky was pretty much bleached out by a nearby streetlight, so I I'm not TOO disheartened.

Apologies for this long post!

[Paulo83]

Sounds like you had a similar night to me! 

I found what I now believe to be Andromeda for the first time ever through my scope. I expected more but all's I got was a smudge in the sky. Was my first galaxy I have observed through my scope so I was pretty excited.

I've seen Io before, but I was viewing Jupiter at the same time as you tonight so I seen the same thing. When you get to view Io so close to Jupiter, it's a view to cherish. Through my 2x Barlow and 15mm and 12mm eyepieces, I managed to pick out the red spot on Jupiter. That was a first for me.

We both had good nights. Well done mate!

[JulianFR]

Glad you had a good night too. I still haven't located the Great Red Spot so I'm jealous about that ;-) Maybe I need glasses!

[JulianFR]

By the was, my rubbish auto spellchecker changed 'appear from behind' to 'appendectomy' for dome very bizarre reason.

Apologies for any confusion!

[IVAN TAPIA]

Great night, Andromeda was also my first, and the Jupiter just blew me away, good night to all

Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk

[Paulo83]

Glad you had a good night too. I still haven't located the Great Red Spot so I'm jealous about that ;-) Maybe I need glasses!

Just keep observing the planet and you'll notice you start seeing more and more, until eventually you'll pick out the red spot.

Good luck!

[ronl]

If it's clear tonight around 8 30 - 9 00 o'clock the Great Red Spot will

be visible, hope you get to observe it. 

[Astro Imp]

Hi Julian,  Good to hear you enjoyed your night.

You mention that you didn't manage to see the satellites of M31, these two little guys are a surprisingly long way from the main galaxy. With the sky being the way it is at the moment, I assume you have similar conditions to me, the transparency is poor and this means you see less of M31 itself and that makes the satellites seem further away.

Keep at it and you will see them, I've managed it in your scope's little brother.

Good luck and clear skies.

[Paulo83]

Check out the Jodrell Bank/Manchester University website. It lists the best times of viewing Jupiter's red spot throughout January.

Here's the link - http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/astronomy/nightsky/

[itmo]

few notes about your jupiter observation: 

-io was actually in front of jupiter. Had you seen it a bit earlier , you could have seen io's shadow transit jupiter. I followed it almost the whole time and missed the end of transit by a few minutes because i was melting the ice off my secondary.. But I was watching io just when it detached itself from jupiter's surface. 

-If you want to see GRS , the first thing is to google "grs calculator" or something, it will bring you to the sky&telescope grs transit calculator. It will tell you when grs is visible. Last night it was visible a few hours before the io transit. maybe 16:45-ish UTC? 

[JulianFR]

Happy New Year everybody! Thanks for the tips about seeing the Great Red Spot and the other Andromeda galaxies. I'll keep plugging away.

And how embarrassing that Io was actually going in the opposite direction to what I thought it was! You can see why I'm a beginner at this and why I have do many questions.

[itmo]

it's fun to look at a moon shadow transit jupiter. First time I saw that I thought it looked like a dead pixel in jupiter. I moved the telescope to see that the "stain" was not on the eyepiece. Then pondered for a bit and went inside to check stellarium.