First night Jupiter

[astro_dave]

Managed to get out for an hour last night for my first bit of viewing with my recently acquired 200p dobsonian, had ten minutes of clear skies and a fantastic view of jupiter at about half six

Wow, just wow, I can't believe how good that scope is, I could see both bands and the red spot (I think, it sort of popped out at me a couple of times if you know what I mean) as well as the overall colour differences, orange fading to white and then the both bands with bright white bands outside of them fading to orange again. I was using a Seben 25mm-8mm zoom eyepiece and can highly recommend these if you're a beginner.  Not having to change eyepieces as I zoomed in and made small adjustments to focus in on jupiter was a great help.  For my first go I may have struggled getting up to 8mm without it.  Not having developed the subtle touch needed it also came in handy when I lost sight of it and had to zoom back out and readjust numerous times

I don't have a barlow so it was a bit of a strain on the eyes teasing out the detail but they were definitely there. I was very surprised as well just how much penetration that scope gives you through the clouds.  I managed to lose the target with a heavy touch and went over to the telrad to realign, looked up, and couldn't see jupiter for the clouds that I hadn't noticed had creeped over!

I thought I could only see 3 moons, and maybe one of them was behind it or something,  but a check on stellarium when I came back inside revealed the "star" on the far side of the view was the outer most moon

I'm not sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me or not so can someone confirm something for me please?  I concentrated very hard on the two outermost moons, Gayemead and Io, and I swear I could make out a crescent on each.  From my perspective through the EP the moons went in a line from south west to north east, and the left quarter of each moon was in crescent dark.

Did I really see this? Would I have been able to make out such detail and if so were the shadows correct? I'm pretty positive that's what I saw.

Jupiter's bands followed pretty much the same direction as the moons and were clearly outlined though I'm struggling to recall exactly where the spot was, I think it was on the bottom band on the left hand side. A couple of times the detail seemed to jump out at me.  Gonna have to start doing some sketching I think

I was hoping to get a view at M81/82 but the north sky stayed cloudy as soon as they rolled in and so I decided to have a go at Andromeda instead, but I was unable to locate it.  There are two triangular star formations sitting next to each other with a bright star on top and by the time I realised I was probably looking at the wrong one it was too cloudy.  Seeing Pegasus would have helped but it was obscured by the landscape.

So I got up early this morning hoping to catch a glimpse of the ring nebula but  again, blumming clouds

It was a great first experience though, money well spent!  To think, that all of this amazement has been going on in the heavens my entire life, with me only bothering to look up from light polluted skies at the moon every now and again.  I should have got a scope years ago

Can't wait for tonight!

Fingers crossed for clear skies

[Astro Imp]

Hi Dave, good to hear you managed to get out and have some good views of Jupiter.

You might find this handy:- http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/javascript/jupiter# gives details of moons' transits and occultations.

And this:- http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/3304091.html?page=1&c=y for GRS timings.

Good luck hope you manage some more to-night.

[astro_dave]

Hi Dave, good to hear you managed to get out and have some good views of Jupiter.

You might find this handy:- http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/javascript/jupiter# gives details of moons' transits and occultations.

And this:- http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/3304091.html?page=1&c=y for GRS timings.

Good luck hope you manage some more to-night.

Thanks very much for that Alan, bookmarked

[andyman]

Congrats dave on viewing jupiter....shes a beauty aint she.hope all goes well for tonight....good luck

[astro_dave]

Congrats dave on viewing jupiter....shes a beauty aint she.hope all goes well for tonight....good luck

Cheers mate, she is yeah

[Daniel-K]

good first report Dave sounds like you had a blast. filters help bring out even more detail on the bands. wait till you set up the dob and see a transit in action  that will blow you away too!

[astro_dave]

good first report Dave sounds like you had a blast. filters help bring out even more detail on the bands. wait till you set up the dob and see a transit in action  that will blow you away too!

Half 8 and half ten

I missed it by an hour or so last night. Thanks for the tip about filters, I'm going to pick up a moon filter at some point and will start with that