Jupiter: 02 May 2016

[John]

The big guy is looking really good this evening

No GRS at the moment but loads of festoons across the EQ zone, a couple of white spots / ovals in the SSEB, a bright patch or spot on the NEB and some dark bargy type features further north again.

Lovely colours as well

Holding up well at 227x with the 12" dob.

[Special K]

Good going!  I just downloaded an iPhone app Dark Sky Meter.  Not sure how accurate the will be but it forecasts a "7" for seeing tonight.  7 out of 10 hopefully!  Still a bit cloudy here but hope to join in having a look myself over the next few hours.  

[Stu]

Yes he is John, but you've got 8" on me and better seeing by the sounds of it. I can see the festoons, but need the seeing calm a bit for more detail. Colours are nice though as you say. No idea what mag I'm using.... Binoviewer with 25mm eyepieces and a Barlow with several extension tubes, probably x3.5 or 4... Oh, and a GPC X1.7! Around x200 I think! Playing around with kit as always ?

[dweller25]

Yes Jup is looking good, I have been watching it with the 7" Intes Mak - loads of detail as you say and watched IO come out of eclipse.

And while I watched Jupiter an Owl was watching me  - lol

[DarrenH]

I should be out, but I lack the energy to be motivated tonight.

[nightfisher]

I have been viewing this gas giant, took all three scopes out and the mak had been cooling for a good while, this of course showed the best views but my seeing must be a little of as i did not get the festoons and missed IO sneaking out from the edge of the planet, this is my first view of Jupiter this season

[Stu]

That's better, I reverted to the Leica zoom and the views are definitely sharper for planets. It's such a weird thing, the binoviewers are fantastic for solar, much better contrast and detail seen, but they just don't totally work for me on planets. The colour is much better, but the fine detail is not there.

I can't get the white ovals in this scope, but John's 'dark bargy thing' is definitely there ?, plus hints of separation in the SEB?

[John]

Glad you got out Jules

Jupiter is just moving behind our house now so I'm going to move on to other targets deeper in the sky.

I missed Io's re-appearance while I was having a coffee but the rest of the session was very, very good. What was nice tonight was that the contrast and colour of the features held up even after the twilight went from the sky.

The festoons were showing as slate grey / blue compared with the rust of the main equatorial belts and the cream of the brighter zones. Great stuff

Now for some deep sky .....

[chiltonstar]

A nice show, wasn't it! Seeing here was about 4/5, with the best mag x225 to show detail. I always love view of the GRS when it begins to appear at the edge of the disk and gradually creeps round.

Chris