Ganymede and Jupiter last night....

[chiltonstar]

With excellent seeing last night, I had another try at seeing detail on Ganymede (180 Mak, x190 and x300). I was sure that I could see one or more brighter spots on the disk in moments of excellent ++ seeing.

A quick "aide memoire" shot with my ASI224 colour camera, AS and PShop showed these to be real and to match the brighter albedo patches shown in SkySafari Pro. A shot of Jupiter taken a few minutes earlier, to give an idea of the degree of detail visible - nothing like Astrovani's shots I'm afraid!!

Chris

 

[John]

Very impressive Chris

 

[chiltonstar]

Trouble is, any attempt at planetary imaging and I find I get an attack of aperture fever........ (more photons, more resolution etc etc). Maybe a C30 Edge is the way to go, although I might need a body-building course first!

Chris

[Piero]

That's amazing..! Both the images are beautiful and the details on Ganymede are just wow!

In June I want to try my HR 2.4mm with the 8" dob (500x) on Jupiter's moons.   

[orion25]

Excellent images, Chris. I have a 180mm Mak (and a 127mm, too) but haven't tried to look for any detail on Ganymede. You've got me inspired to try!  I can get defined discs for all the Galilean moons with both Maks, but not much else (I honestly haven't been looking for detail). BTW, did you see the Ganymede transit across the upper limb Friday night? It was awesome!

Cheers,

Reggie

[niallk]

Wow!  Very impressive observing plus images!

The other night I saw Io just on the limb - I could see it clearly as a sharp disk /ball. However, normally I can't see these Gallilean moons anywhere nearly so sharply against the black of space.  I wonder if it is a contrast thing perhaps??  When Io had cleared some distance from Jupiter, I could no longer see it so crisply.  Maybe I should try a neutral density filter or something (15" dob).