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First view of jupiter


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A clear night to my amazement.

Don't like scaring the neigbours by sitting on my doorstep with a telescope, so need targets to be in the gap between my house and next door so I can set up discreetly in the side passage.

And jupiter was just sitting above the rooftops at 1am for my first look.

Four clear moons in a line, one  a little below the others.  Jupiter a yellow disc with hints of stripeyness that kept fading in and out of focus. 

Quite surprised at how small the field of view is and how quickly the planet runs away.  Can also see the limitations of using a camera tripod and mount with a classic refractor. Even though the mods I made have made it taller and more stable and it only takes a few seconds to stabilise, the biggest irritation is aiming the thing. When I loosen the clamps, centre jupiter in the circle, tighten the clamps again, there is enough slop for the scope to move slightly - just enough to either go out of the frame or end up on the edge where it disappears very quickly.  I have no idea whether something like a skytee or an AZ4 is precise enough to avoid this slight shift - it's very frustrating.

Anyway, nice to see the king of the solar system for the first time. Wish it was 4x bigger and twice as contrasty though ;-)

Prinz 660 3" inch classic 1250mm f16.4 with Antares 12.5mm plossl and Celestron x-cel LX 7mm  ( 100x and 175x ).

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Congrats on your first view of Jupiter! Unfortunately, it'll never look any bigger than it already does, but the higher in the sky it is, the more contrasty and stable it will be. Mag of around 175 is about the most suitable for Jupiter (Mars and Saturn can take a bit more)

The skytee does not have this problem at all. It is rock solid with a 660 or Tal100 on it.

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Getting some Sorbothane® pads - used to stop vibrations under mechanical devices like freezers, Amazon has them -and placing under the legs of the tripod will keep vibrations down to under 1 second. Hanging a weight under the tripod also helps stabilize these beasts.

Companies like Orion, Celestron, etc. sell ready-made anti-vibration pads. But a set of 3 has gone up to $60US over here. And that's ridiculous! Making your own with Sorbothane-pade from Amazon is MUCH less £'s. I glued 2 together and put 'em in a small plastic-bag to keep them from picking up dirt and small stones.

Congratulations on bagging Jupiter!

Dave

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