The more you look the more you see.

[surfindogg]

They say the more you look the more you see. Well that certainly seems to be true for me when it comes to Jupiter.

 

Over the last couple of weeks, with my renewed interest, I have managed to get out on four clear nights and on all of them I turned to Jupiter. The planets fascinate me, they are the most tangible objects in the solar system for giving a sense of our place in the cosmos. When I got my first scope, an ETX 105, the first thing I looked for was the nearest of the gas giants. With such a marvellous goto system though it is all too easy to jump from one delight to another and with the impatience of youth, spend all too little time looking at one thing.

 

Saturday night was clear and the seeing turned out to be the best of the four nights I had been out. I set up my APL 80, which is a Japanese 80mm achromat identical in all respects to the Vixen 80/910 f11.4 of 1980s vintage. Only when I sat down to get going did I realise I had no finder fitted! The bolt that had held the WO finder foot belonged to the rings I recently sold to a member here on SGL - oops. Undeterred, I used the tops of the rings to sight along and using my 32mm TV plossl, I soon had Jupiter in the middle of the view. 

 

I had the Polaris mount set up in Alt/az mode and as long as the scope is balanced, it works brilliantly. The slow motion controls still work so manual slewing is also possible. The only difficulty is staying on target when changing eyepieces but the Baader 2” - 1.25” click lock adapter makes that much easier.

 

I popped in the Baader Hyperion zoom and went up in magnification. Four moons were visible to the left of the planet, bright yellow pinpoints and two cloud bands clearly visible. After a little while I popped in the UO 7mm ortho and for the first time, began to see definite texture in the NEB and SEB. As the seeing varied this rippling became more or less apparent and I swapped to the BCO 10mm to see what difference that might make. I am so glad I saved this one from a recent eyepiece cull as it gave the best images of the night. For an hour or more I stayed on target, occasionally swopping eyepieces for comparison but I kept going back to the BCO. After a while, I realised I was also seeing colour towards the bottom of the disc - another first.

 

Before I packed up I spent a good half hour on the moon zooming in and out with the Baader zoom, which is great fun. Even with the UO 7mm ortho there was only a little CA unless I wandered to the limb and even then it was not too bad to spoil the view. It became a bit swimmy at 130x though. The APL 80 is a great scope with sharp optics and I am very pleased I added a GSO two speed Crayford focuser, although the original R&P is not bad. 

 

All in all, a really enjoyable night - went to bed tired and happy.

[todd8137]

Hi sounds like a all round good night ,I find at least thirty minutes per target is plenty but the more your eyes adjust the more you see great write up 

pat

[laudropb]

Very nice report. There is no doubt the more time you spend viewing Jupiter, the more you will see.

[Jimtheslim]

Nice little write up, certainly cements my desire for the 10mm BCO.

I am currently looking at Jupiter a lot and spend almost all of it at around 100x mag with my 12.4 Meade Plossl. I occasionally change up to the 6.4 when the seeing gets good but you definitely loose some of the detail. With the 12.4 I can clearly see dark areas at the southern edge of the NEB and a clear, lighter, stripe running through the SEB. The darker areas in the NEB I assume are stormy areas of darker cloud, they certainly seem to transit across the planet at around the same speed as the GRS. Although I can just about make out the polar regions with the 6.4mm, it does not show me them as clearly defined along with the temperate belts which can be made out with the 12.4mm.

I think it might be your 15mm BST I have been eyeing up on ebay, any reason you want shot of it?

[surfindogg]

1 hour ago, Jimtheslim said:

Nice little write up, certainly cements my desire for the 10mm BCO.

I am currently looking at Jupiter a lot and spend almost all of it at around 100x mag with my 12.4 Meade Plossl. I occasionally change up to the 6.4 when the seeing gets good but you definitely loose some of the detail. With the 12.4 I can clearly see dark areas at the southern edge of the NEB and a clear, lighter, stripe running through the SEB. The darker areas in the NEB I assume are stormy areas of darker cloud, they certainly seem to transit across the planet at around the same speed as the GRS. Although I can just about make out the polar regions with the 6.4mm, it does not show me them as clearly defined along with the temperate belts which can be made out with the 12.4mm.

I think it might be your 15mm BST I have been eyeing up on ebay, any reason you want shot of it?

Thanks Jim and some great info for things for me to look for next time.

It might have been my BST - it just sold this morning. The only reason I put it up for sale was that it simply wasn't getting used. I mainly use the Baader zoom, I have three TV plossls and the two orthos. [Oh, and an Antares W70 25mm and a Swan 20m clone] Plus a TV2.5 Powermate - well worth the money. The BSTs are nice eyepieces, I found them a little soft towards the edge compared to the plossls but that is what you might expect. I decided to sell off things that weren't getting used to put towards a Giro Mini mount. The BCO is very slightly softer at the edge than the UO 7mm but well worth a try. I had it up for sale but the offers I got on what I was asking were too low to let it go, I am glad I kept it now. I might get a couple of more premium wide filed eyepieces in the future if funds allow.

Cheers,

Andrew.

[YKSE]

Excellent post

These inexpensive orthos reeally shine on the Moon and planetary

[Jimtheslim]

41 minutes ago, surfindogg said:

Thanks Jim and some great info for things for me to look for next time.

It might have been my BST - it just sold this morning. The only reason I put it up for sale was that it simply wasn't getting used. I mainly use the Baader zoom, I have three TV plossls and the two orthos. [Oh, and an Antares W70 25mm and a Swan 20m clone] Plus a TV2.5 Powermate - well worth the money. The BSTs are nice eyepieces, I found them a little soft towards the edge compared to the plossls but that is what you might expect. I decided to sell off things that weren't getting used to put towards a Giro Mini mount. The BCO is very slightly softer at the edge than the UO 7mm but well worth a try. I had it up for sale but the offers I got on what I was asking were too low to let it go, I am glad I kept it now. I might get a couple of more premium wide filed eyepieces in the future if funds allow.

Cheers,

Andrew.

ah well, 15mm wasn't exactly what I was looking for but was considering it for a medium power. Basically I just get amped up to buy things whether I need them or not! Definitely going with the 10mm BCO, hopefully it will barlow well and give me both 2x and 1.5x with the element removed

[surfindogg]

18 minutes ago, Jimtheslim said:

ah well, 15mm wasn't exactly what I was looking for but was considering it for a medium power. Basically I just get amped up to buy things whether I need them or not! Definitely going with the 10mm BCO, hopefully it will barlow well and give me both 2x and 1.5x with the element removed

If I get a chance I will try the BCO in my Powermate and let you know how it does.

[alan potts]

Nice report!!! I always think Jupiter looks a bit odd when the moons are all on one side, it is amazing how many times I have seen this, many more than I would have thought. I too like ortho's but I have to be in the mood for them, I have a collection of BGO's and Hutechs from 5mm upwards.

Alan

[Beulah]

Lovely jubbly; an excellent target at the moment with the bright moon. As I was saying to another SGL member recently, I am getting fabulous results with a well collimated Skywatcher 400p.

Jupiter is pretty captivating because of those amazing moments of atmospheric stillness - you can watch the planet for hours.

[Stu]

2 minutes ago, Beulah said:

Lovely jubbly; an excellent target at the moment with the bright moon. As I was saying to another SGL member recently, I am getting fabulous results with a well collimated Skywatcher 400p.

Jupiter is pretty captivating because of those amazing moments of atmospheric stillness - you can watch the planet for hours.

Quite agree there, I can and do spend hours watching Jupiter.

Your 'well collimated' comment made me smile. I shall repeat my story of looking through Derek's 400p at SGL11 and walking away smugly thinking my Tak was blowing it into the weeds on Jupiter. A little while later I came back for another look.....after he had collimated it...... I think I went quiet then ?. Lovely views!

[cotterless45]

Super report. It's worth just focussing and relaxing to observe. Different eye pieces do give varying results. I usually start off with a 15mm giving x80, just to check out the seeing. Then step up to 5.5mm via a 6mm orthoscopic , a 7.5 and an 8.5mm. The different configurations of glass produce results dependant on the night, under 

clear skies !

Nick.

[SacRiker]

On 5/16/2016 at 03:30, surfindogg said:

With such a marvellous goto system though it is all too easy to jump from one delight to another and with the impatience of youth, spend all too little time looking at one thing.

Sometimes I really wish I had a goto, it would save so much time. But my biggest highs so far have come from just FINDING objects!

[cloudsweeper]

There's something to be said for hunting round for objects, and it's usually a good plan to do a simple sketch of the starfield to check exactly what you're looking at.

But I must admit, GoTo is brilliant, and does save time so you can get on target and enjoy the view.  With good alignment, you soon learn to trust GoTo, although I still like to run the occasional check by testing with a known object, or comparing with Stellarium.

Doug.