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Jupiter - big moons, little moon


JOC

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So I don't know if it qualifies for 'proper' astronomy, but I just spotted that Jupiter is back at a sane time of night.  I had been driving home from karate and had spotted a fabulous moon rising.   Not havibg the time ( or so I thought) to get out a telescope, I grabbed a set of birding  bins (well its a big target!) Got outside onky find myself thwarted in my own backyard by trees that Luna hadn't risen above yet.  Hmmph!  'Hey!, what's that bright object between the trees - that's too big to be star'.  Bins on - 'its not clear, but I'm certain there are points of light either side of it it's got to be el Jupo back for a while that's cool!  Mmmmm Jupy back, that's worth a better look, but too late to set up the 200P.  Wonder if the Vixen is op to the job......Vixen attached to revamped camera tripod. 1.25" adapter,  Revelation diagonal and after a quick decision the 8mm BST starguider.  Turned out to be practically ideal.  Two stripes, but the moons were great.  About 22:45 I got 4 normally seen big ones, then is there a decent sized one a good bit away from the others further out or is that a different star?  I did see it last year too.  However, what was new was a very clear extra point of light.  Smaller than the others and very much closer to the edge of the planet.  It had to be another moon, and 20 mins later I could no longer see it.  So I think I could have seen as many as 6 moons tonight which is as much as I've seen.  

 

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Sorry to say, but you can only see the four main Galilean moons in normal amateur scopes, the others must have been background stars. These can still be occulted by Jupiter as it passes in front of them.

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Io was occulted by Jupiter at 23:10 last night (SkySafari).  The mag 5 star vLib might just about have been confused as one of Jupiter's moons. I too on occassion have seen "extra" moons which were of course just stars in the right alignment. 

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(NB. Apologies for typos above - was on phone last night)

Oh,well, that's a shame, but at least by asking I learn - OK, 4 moons I saw then, but it was quite a good view even in the baby Vixen - I tried the 5mm Pentax XW, but that was OTT - much harder to get anything resembling focus where Jupiter was concerned.  I seemed to hit a sweet spot with the 8mm BST Starguider, both my telescopes like that one - Jupiter was almost 'sharp' and 'crisp' - which I know is difficult to achieve as it isn't a big rocky lump up there with sharp edges.  After I'd been outside I went to bed and took the setup into my bathroom - the centre horizontal pivoting skylight window isn't the easiest of objects to work around, but I finally got things positioned to have another look - the bathroom is a much warmer place to view.  I hadn't tried it before, there isn't much room and the loo gets in the way!  I also need to work out a way to wedge the window open at certain angles.  With all the lights turned out and at the top of house the view south wasn't too bad, but the window certainly limited what I could see particularly with one hand on it all the time to keep it open.  I did however find the moon up that high as I was above the trees.  With the 5mm Pentax that did come into focus and as the telescope moved minutely as I pressured the floorboards the focus shifted just sufficiently to produce an almost 3D like quality to the sphere so I had quite a good look at the moon too. 

All in all I was pleased with the performance from the baby telescope.  It's fine if I know what I'm looking at, but I don't think I could use it to find specific star or nebula X in vast sky Y as I don't know my way around.  However, as I noted above I don't know if a quick 5-10 minute look up qualifies as astronomy!

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57 minutes ago, JOC said:

However, as I noted above I don't know if a quick 5-10 minute look up qualifies as astronomy!

It absolutely does! With the weather we have, you have to take any chance you get! I once reported on seeing Jupiter out of the window of a plane!

The little Vixen is very capable I’m sure, particularly with good eyepieces. Under a dark sky it will be great for widefield views of the milky way and large clusters/nebulae

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1 minute ago, Stu said:

Under a dark sky it will be great for widefield views of the milky way and large clusters/nebulae

Despite finding out we aren't going to get quite to darkness in the summer I am still considering taking it to Scotland in the summer.  I am going to Great Cumbrae Island and suspect that it might be quite good from a light pollution aspect - maybe to the point of counteracting the absence of complete darkness a bit?

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14 minutes ago, Stu said:

It absolutely does! With the weather we have, you have to take any chance you get! I once reported on seeing Jupiter out of the window of a plane!

The little Vixen is very capable I’m sure, particularly with good eyepieces. Under a dark sky it will be great for widefield views of the milky way and large clusters/nebulae

Yes! I had 5 mins at the back door with my binoculars Monday at midnight looking at Jupiter. Don't care what the neighbours might think. You need to grab every chance you can!

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