Great Jupiter Tonight, 28th March.

[Peter Drew]

Made a marginal decision to go out tonight, so glad I did!, Stellarium showed no transits and for some reason no GRS, just a close conjunction of a couple of moons to look forward to. I had spent some time recently gradually sorting out the collimation of a recently bequeathed 20" F3.5 Dobsonian and basically wanted to see if I had really nailed it. The first view revealed that the GRS was indeed in view, the seeing was excellent and the collimation was good. For about an hour between 10pm and 11pm I was treated to some of the best Jupiter detail I've seen, all of the white and dark spots, festoons , swirling GRS wake and the deep colour of the GRS itself, many of which tend to give me difficulty to be honest were plain to see. Although the conditions were good enough to support 300x with a Nagler zoom set at 6mm, the best consistant views were with a 11mm TV Plossl, an 8mm or 9mm would probably been perfect. I will never again doubt the ability of a good set of large fast optics to give excellent planetary images. A very happy Easter bunny. 

[Peter Drew]

Edit.  28th March. (Senior moment!)

 

Now sorted Peter ?. 

Stu

[John]

Great report Peter !

No clear sky here, unfortunately but your report helps lift the gloom

Jupiter clearly resolved with a really large scope must be a really impressive sight. My astro soc has an 18" dob which is hardly used at the moment - my intention is to change that situation soon

[Davey-T]

By the time I realised the sky was clear the GRS was long gone, had a look through 10"SCT and seeing was the best this year by far, pity there were no transits to video as the last one I tried was rubbish

Dave

PS: 29th now

[Knighty2112]

Great views of Jupiter too where I live as well tonight. Saw Io and Europe nearly disappear into each other. The GRS was just sliding round the planet when I started to view, so never saw too much of it. Got a great view too of M81 & M82 later on after I'd soaked up enough of Jupiter. 

[scarp15]

The surface was quite lively last night with good periods of seeing. I too could discern those white festoons and dark barges, emergence of the GRS, working between 120X & 240X, using my VX8L. Hope for more nights like this soon.

[Stu]

Sounds pretty spectacular Peter, when the seeing co-operates there's no doubt that aperture does deliver the resolution to see very fine detail. Cloudy here so no chance to see anything unfortunately.

[bish]

Sounds like a great night. Even in my 10" the detail amazes me on those rare very steady nights. I'm out now but the seeing is fairly poor.