Jupiter Observation Session 04/05/2018

[Dave1]

Well tonight guys I have managed to get out and do some observing on Jupiter, which actually got me very excited because it has been awhile since I observed the planets. I used my Vixen P-80L F15. I used most of my eyepieces. In the end I narrowed it down to 3-4 that where getting regular use. They were 8mm Brandon, 9mm Huygens, 12.5mm Ortho, 15mm RKE. The eyepiece that got the most use by a long way was the Edmund Optics 15mm RKE. 

8mm magnification 150x

9mm Magnification 133x

12.5mm magnification 96x

15mm magnification 80x

I could quite clearly see the North and South equatorial belts. I at times could just make out the great red spot. At times I thought I could see the North temperate belt. Viewing was variable tonight, with some details becoming more obvious when the seeing conditions improved. I could see all 4 moons. I thought the seeing conditions tonight were pretty bad. The disc appeared pretty washed out, I expected to see more from an 80mm telescope. Maybe that's just me. 

Dave

[Stu]

Nice one Dave, lovely scope too

Seeing was pretty rubbish the other night, and detail hard to come by, it sounds like yours was perhaps a little better but not much. I would expect you to be able to see the GRS quite easily with your scope under good conditions. That said, it transited at around 11pm and would have been getting harder to see towards the limb by around 12,30am this morning.

Keep trying on other nights and hopefully you will catch some better seeing.

[Dave1]

Yes is a lovely telescope, I like it a lot. Tonight was its first use on a planet. Yes definitely will keep attempting. I want to see what this scope is capable of Having said that I can't wait to get my Skylight 4" F15 mounted and used on a planet, need to get a dovetail for it first!

[MarsG76]

Nice report.

Jupiter is one of those planets where night to night (even hours to hours) it can change dramatically to the amount of details you can see. Even in my 14" dob, there are time where Jupiter looks nothing more than a yellow fuzz blob, but than there are other times where Jupiter has so much fine detail with in the atmosphere, its almost photographic, down to the white spots on it, structure and shading in the polar regions. Its just one of those things where you need to see a few times to actually know how much detail your scope is capable of showing you.

[chiltonstar]

Good report! I had about an hour of clear sky, so I went back to Jupiter (180 Mak) to see if seeing had improved compared with the night before (see Stu's post!).

With the GRS in mid-transit, the view was exquisite, with a lot of belt detail and the GRS a pretty peachy orange colour. Even so, there were little interludes where the "swimming pool wobbles" set in with the atmosphere and the view turned to mush. Viewing towards the zenith (39 Boo and other doubles) the seeing was stable and near textbook perfect, with stable diffraction rings around stars and Airy disks close to theory. Shows that height above the horizon is all important, every little helps, and a very good reason for migrating south for the Mars season....!

Chris

[Stu]

1 hour ago, chiltonstar said:

Good report! I had about an hour of clear sky, so I went back to Jupiter (180 Mak) to see if seeing had improved compared with the night before (see Stu's post!).

With the GRS in mid-transit, the view was exquisite, with a lot of belt detail and the GRS a pretty peachy orange colour. Even so, there were little interludes where the "swimming pool wobbles" set in with the atmosphere and the view turned to mush. Viewing towards the zenith (39 Boo and other doubles) the seeing was stable and near textbook perfect, with stable diffraction rings around stars and Airy disks close to theory. Shows that height above the horizon is all important, every little helps, and a very good reason for migrating south for the Mars season....!

Chris

Great stuff Chris, feels like ages since I’ve had a really good view, where the detail really hits you.

[Dave1]

7 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

Nice report.

Jupiter is one of those planets where night to night (even hours to hours) it can change dramatically to the amount of details you can see. Even in my 14" dob, there are time where Jupiter looks nothing more than a yellow fuzz blob, but than there are other times where Jupiter has so much fine detail with in the atmosphere, its almost photographic, down to the white spots on it, structure and shading in the polar regions. Its just one of those things where you need to see a few times to actually know how much detail your scope is capable of showing you.

Hi yes, Jupiter definitely is one of those planets that can change from moment to moment. Generally as the night went on, I felt the views got a little better. I was out from about 11:30pm to 01:45am. From using my Planisphere, I think the best time to view Jupiter last night when it was at its highest about the horizon was 03:00am.

Something I failed to mention last night. Was the Huygens 9mm 0.965" actually surprised me every time I used it. To the point it would be hard pressed for me to pick out which was better between the Brandon or Huygens. I will wait for a night of good seeing and do a comparison. 

 

[Dave1]

2 hours ago, chiltonstar said:

Good report! I had about an hour of clear sky, so I went back to Jupiter (180 Mak) to see if seeing had improved compared with the night before (see Stu's post!).

With the GRS in mid-transit, the view was exquisite, with a lot of belt detail and the GRS a pretty peachy orange colour. Even so, there were little interludes where the "swimming pool wobbles" set in with the atmosphere and the view turned to mush. Viewing towards the zenith (39 Boo and other doubles) the seeing was stable and near textbook perfect, with stable diffraction rings around stars and Airy disks close to theory. Shows that height above the horizon is all important, every little helps, and a very good reason for migrating south for the Mars season....!

Chris

Thanks for the compliment. Glad you got good views. Ah well you see I'm already down south, as in Dorset south. There are some really good places for dark sites down here. Although I do most of my observing from the garden.

Dave

[chiltonstar]

1 minute ago, Dave1 said:

Thanks for the compliment. Glad you got good views. Ah well you see I'm already down south, as in Dorset south. There are some really good places for dark sites down here. Although I do most of my observing from the garden.

Dave

I was thinking a bit further south........Provence/Andalucia/Sicily south for example, to make a significant altitude gain.....Somewhere driveable, as my 180 Mak is not exactly handluggage.

Chris

[Dave1]

Aye! That is further south than me! Should make for some good viewing from there! 

[chiltonstar]

44 minutes ago, Dave1 said:

Aye! that is further south than me! Should make for some good viewing from there! 

Yes, my instinct is that to make it worthwhile, a gain in 10 degrees or so in altitude is desirable, which means going to N. Spain, Rome or further south. Long drive though. Dorset would be less than 0.5 degrees from here (Oxford).

Chris

[mark81]

hey, good report there, yea last night was great, such an improvement on last week. I managed to see the two belts with my ST80 which was great. looks like tonight may be even crisper!

enjoy!

[MarsG76]

10 hours ago, Dave1 said:

Huygens 9mm 0.965" actually surprised me every time I used it. To the point it would be hard pressed for me to pick out

The name of the game is to be adaptive to the current seeing.... the best piece of glass to use at the time will change so I guess it might turn out that there is no single best EP.

 

[Dave1]

Observing report 5/5/2018

So I started my observing tonight at 21:30PM and finished around 02:30AM. So with the previous night not being the greatest seeing conditions. I decided to take two telescopes out. I took out the Vixen P-80L and my Skylight 60mm F16.7.

The seeing conditions were better than the night before. I started out the evening using the Vixen. I swapped over to the Skylight. Most of the night I stuck with the Skylight as I didn't see any more details in the Vixen over the Skylight.

The eyepieces I used with the 60mm was 6mm Ortho magnification 167x

                                                            9mm Ortho and Huygens magnification 111x

                                                            12.5mm Ortho magnification 80x

                                                            15mm RKE magnification 67x

The eyepiece that I used the most was the 12.5mm Ortho, this rendered up some good images. The definition and contrast appeared better in the 60mm. I could quite clearly see NEB and SEB. I saw NTeB towards the north east on Jupiter. I could very faintly make out SSTeb at times. I at times thought I could see details particularly in SEB and NEB. Seeing was variable so that came and went.

I also witness Europa transit Jupiter.

Although if you read my previous comments on two other threads in reference to Jupiter, you will see I wasn't quite sure what I was seeing, as it was my first transit. So I saw Europa enter onto the Jovian disc. Throughout the night I kept seeing a black dot every now and again over the southern region of Jupiter. I keep thinking, what was it? As it shouldn't be there? I didn't think it was possible to see the shadow with such a small instrument. I witnessed Europa come out the other side of the Jovian disc. So unconsciously I watched a transit! Thats probably my first full transit! 

Dave

[Stu]

2 minutes ago, Dave1 said:

I didn't think it was possible to see the shadow with such a small instrument.

Excellent stuff Dave. The shadow events are such high contrast that I’m not surprised you managed it in the Skylight. I have done similar with Tak FS-60 and WO 66mm scopes. It’s a challenge but very rewarding to get so much out of a small instrument.

[Dave1]

Planetary Observation Report 06/05/2018

So yesterday, I drove down to a point to meet up with fellow Stargazers down in the Purbecks, to a car park that is high up and not to far from the coast. It gave magnificent views, in all directions. I arrived a little before everybody else agreed to arrive. There were surprisingly still quite a few people around. With it still being daylight, and it being magnificent weather, I chilled out in the car, listening to music, enjoying the views. So as it turned to dusk, I sometimes averted my gaze upwards to see what was in the Sky. I saw a bright planet between South and West. Well at the time I didn't have a very good sense of direction, so I didn't know which way was which! Then as time went on Jupiter came up in the East. Then it dawned on me, with both planets in the sky, that the planet between South and West must be Venus! So I leapt out of the car to set up my Astro gear.

So I took two telescopes, yes you guessed it I took the Skylight 60mm F16.7 and I took my Vixen Orion P-80L F15. As I was going with the sole intention of really viewing the planets, I took eyepieces that ranged from 15mm to 4mm. The eyepieces were 4mm Ramsden, 4mm Ortho, 6mm Huygens, 6mm Ortho, 8mm Brandon, 9mm Huygens, 9mm Ortho, 10mm Plossl, 12.5mm Ortho, 15mm RKE.

One thing I will tell you is in my telescopes the Huygens are at no disadvantage at all. In fact sometimes they render up very good images when seeing conditions allow. Last night the Brandon certainly earned its keep putting up some wonderful details. I didn't use the 4mm eyepieces, I did use the 6mm eyepieces. I did a comparison of both telescopes on Jupiter. Both telescopes put up some wonderful images, again I felt the 80mm didn't have a distinct advantage over the 80mm, even though the seeing conditions were good tonight, and at times a lot of detail was given up.  

Eyepiece magnifications for 80mm F15

4mm magnification 300x

6mm magnification 200x

8mm magnification 150x

9mm magnification 133x

10mm magnification 120x

12.5mm magnification 96x

15mm magnification 80x

Venus

So I started to set up the gear and the other fellow stargazers arrived. We soon got to viewing Venus. With Venus being quite near full disc couldn't really see much detail. Mainly displayed as different shades of yellow.

Jupiter

Then I turned my attention to Jupiter, well SEB and NEB were nice and clear, this is a very good sign compared to Friday. Could quite clearly see NtEB, this time I could see NtEB clearly all the way across the Jovian disc. I could also see StEB again as a very fine line across the whole Jovian disc. At times I could very clearly see structured details in NEB and SEB. The details I could see were dark circles in the belts, dark concentration, in the way of oval. 

At times I was treated to being able to see the much more subtle belts, NNTeB and SSTeB. I could just make out some details in the zones in between the belts. The details I could see in moments of good to very good seeing were festoons. When I next get an night like this, I will really scrutinise this detail, to see if its festoons or Garlands, Wisps, or Tall.

Or course I was treated to magnificent views of the GRS, which is always captivating. I of course observed this for quite sometime.

The spectacular part of observing Jupiter last night was watching Ganymede transit Jupiter, and actually being able to see the moon and the shadow, and watch it go across the Jovian disc! I watched it enter onto the Jovian disc over the North polar region go across the disc, and exit the Jovian disc.

The seeing was that good last night at times I was able to use 6mm eyepiece ( 200x ) in the 80mm scope to reveal a lot of detail, which is 0.4mm exit pupil. My most used eyepiece was probably the 8mm Brandon.

Saturn

So Saturn is also up in the night sky, I did spend some time on Saturn, however its up quite late and I think I will give Saturn more scope time next month. I could just make out the Cassini division and I could see one colour band on Saturn's disc. The angle of Saturn to earth is very good at the moment, and the ring is very obvious, my telescope renders this up very sharply. 8mm was my preferred eyepiece on this planet too.

Mars

Mars was up really late, and to low to the horizon to get decent views. Give it a month and things will be quite different. Even though that was the case. I could make out light red and dark red on the disc, and even a white region. I will not attempt to name it, as I can't be sure of any of the details, it really was that fuzzy.

 

Dave

 

 

[Dave1]

Well guys I got out for a couple of hours tonight with my Skylight 60mm. 

So tonight the eyepieces I had with me was 6mm Huygens, 8mm Brandon, 9mm Huygens, 10mm Plossl, 12.5mm Ortho, 15mm RKE. The eyepiece that offered up the most detail in tonight's seeing conditions was the 10mm. I'm not going to list the magnifications, you can see that from the previous posts. 

Tonight I could see SEB and NED, at times when the seeing conditions improved I could see NTB. I could also see details in NEB and SEB.  In SEB I saw a dark concentration in the form of a oval in the belt. At times I thought I could see two dark concentrations in the form of ovals. On the edge of SEB, tonight I noticed a difference in colour, towards the edge that faces south tropical zone, the colour seemed to fade. 

In conclusion I think my eyes are becoming more trained, accustomed to viewing Jupiter. I'm starting to notice finer details. 

Dave

 

 

[Mrastronomer101]

Honestly I think the seeing was just very bad that night. I have observed Jupiter with a 60mm telescope and managed to see its cloud bands and its 4 moons. Or a higher apeture telescopewould get around that.

[Dave1]

I'd be very surprised if you could see all of the cloud bands and belts..But then you are in America and not the UK.

[Stu]

Excellent reports Dave, you're certainly getting the best out of the scopes and seeing some excellent detail. Some of this will be better seeing conditions, and some, as you say, will be you building experience of ‘how’ to look.

I love the Purbeck peninsula, I used to go camping at Downshay Farm regularly and has some wonderful observing experiences both there and also near St Aldhelm’s chapel. Nice memories. If you search on here you will find some of my old reports.

[Dave1]

Thanks Stu, yes I think its a mixture of both too. 

I will find your old reports out and give them a read. It always fascinates reading other people reports. 

[Dave1]

Jupiter Observation Report 13/04/18

So tonight I did a comparison of two telescopes, whilst observing Jupiter. I compared my Towa 80mm F15 to my Vixen 80mm F15. This is just one of many observations I will do with these two telescopes. To give them a fair chance. Tonight for me though the winner was the Towa. It had better contrast compared to the Vixen. I could see more detail as a result of the better contrast in the Towa.

The seeing conditions tonight were not great. Jupiter at times seemed to dance, shake. At times the details would come and go. There were moments of good seeing. NEB, SEB, were clear all night. At times I could see quite a lot of structure in them, in the way of colour tone difference, within those two belts. At times when the seeing was good, I got a glimpse of NTB, and STB. I couldn't see the GRS. I saw the colour tone difference more easily with the Towa on an far more frequent basis. It became quite apparent early on with the contrast difference between the two telescopes. All 4 moons were obvious tonight.

Dave

[Dave1]

Jupiter Observation session 17/05/2018

So tonight I went out, with my Skylight 102mm F15. Before I took it out I adjusted the collimation just a bit. Seeing conditions were good tonight. Contrast between the belts and cloud bands was very clear. Transparency was good, and heat in the atmosphere was low. So no Jupiter dance!

Tonight at times I went as low as 9mm eyepiece which is 169 magnification, as the seeing conditions allowed.

So I could quite clearly see NEB, SEB, NTB, and hints of STB. I could see detail in both NEB and SEB. What not be able to describe what exactly.

I really enjoyed tonight's session. I definitely need to get some dew control in place though!

I'm going to start sketching, to help record what I see, and to further develop my vision.

Dave