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Despite the Moon, Jupiter, SN2014J & Mars


John

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Great seeing conditions here tonight although the Moon is very bright of course at 99.8% illumination and just below Mars. I have my 12" Orion Optics dob out tonight.

Jupiter looked very clear and well defined and I just caught the latter stages of the transit of the Great Red Spot earlier. Some interesting light and dark elongated features were embedded in the north equatorial belt rather like barges of a sort. 

While the Moon was still behind a conifer I thought I'd see if I could find M82 against the rather bright sky and after a little search I managed to pick it out. Applying some magnification (177x - William Optics XWX 101 degree eyepiece) I could still see the supernova SN2014J shining faintly out of the galactic haze. Must be around magnitude 13 now I reckon. 

While waiting for Mars to rise above the roof tops I had a peek at some favourite doubles. Iota Leonis was nicely split at 318x. Quite a close pair with the primary at 4.1 mag and the secondary at 6.7, a brightness difference that adds to the challenge of prising them apart. No problem for the 12" though.

Mars now well in view and showing some excellent detail and contrast, again at 318x (Pentax XW 5mm) despite the big bright Moon close by. Some of the best views this opposition so far and more to come I hope :smiley: . N poler cap is sharply defined and appears to have some dark edging. Syrtis Major is near the western limb and a number of other dark features are showing quite complex shape arcing across the southern hemisphere of this little red world. Another dark angular block of territory is positioned just south east of the north polar area. Back out for now more I think ..... :smiley:  

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Hello John,

I've just popped in from garden here in Plyouth myself, scope away in shed now. My last look was Jupiter with 3 moons . Now you sound like you know your way around the skies that more than I do. What 'scope are you using tonight?

Tim

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Great report.  The last few times I've observed Jupiter, I have also noticed a greater number of large, relativly prominent, elongated dark spots in the N.E.B.  I think "like barges" describes them perfectly.

On Monday night the NEB was showing some large festoons at about 2130 UTC. They seemed really dark, but if I watched long enough you could see them trailing in to the lighter middle band.

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