The jovial joy of Jupiter !

[cotterless45]

Opposition on the 9 th of May and presenting a sometimes challenging target. Jupiter has so much to observe with its quick rotation, features change over the course of a night.

There's colour with the brown belts, drama when the southern belt took a year off in 2010 and the dance of the moon's. Even a small scope will show Ganymede as the largest. When they or their shadows appear on the surface , the dance gets a bit wilder ! Add to this the varying appearance of the GRS from light pink to dark angry red .

The belts with their barges, festoons and ragged edges add to the scene. Probably for clean icy beauty , you can't beat Saturn with wide open rings, but a constantly changing scene return to Jupiter, under clear skies !

 Here's a few scrawls ,  helps relax the eye. Newts are planetary killers ! There must be other fans out there !

Nick.

[Knighty2112]

Nice write up Nick.  Yes, when conditions allow then Jupiter always make a great target. Very rarely dos it fail to deliver. Managed to see the GRS very easily when seeing steadied down late last night, and could also make out quite a few of the belts and other features too, especially some dark festoons in the NEB above the GRS. Colours where very vivid too. Managed some nice first  images too last night too, although I was too late to image the transit I did see it very well visually before I did my imaging of Jupiter. 

[Pig]

Great write up Nick..... Jupiter is a little like the Moon in the sense that we take them both for granted due to their relative ease of observing and thier frequency within the night sky, yet the most detail we can see from our vantage points are perched on these two wonderful objects. I have been fortunate enough to watch two of Jupiter’s moons transiting thier parent over this weekend ? even if I didn’t realise it with IO ?

[David Levi]

Yes, my Newtonian delivered some of the best views that I have ever seen of Jupiter last night. Amazing, since I've been complaining about how bad the views have been this year so far. The Northern Equatorial Belt had some great festoons along it's southern edge and the South Temperate Belts showed as several pencil line bands.

[Alan White]

Nick, what great notes, wish I was as diligent.

Jupiter is indeed such a joy to observe and like others have said a frequent target.

This year its been very mushy and low and badly placed for my observing sessions, until last night,

I was blessed with windows of amazing clarity and watched the transit, saw the GRS properly and smiled a lot.

The owl in the small wood behind kept me company, hooting approval and then the foxes joined in, 

the joys of astronomy, just love it, worth the wait and cloud sometimes.

 

[wookie1965]

Inspiring as usual wish I could get out there.

[Alan White]

1 hour ago, wookie1965 said:

Inspiring as usual wish I could get out there.

You will my friend, you will.
Backs recover in time and we adapt our observing expectations to suit.
 

[niallk]

11 hours ago, cotterless45 said:

Newts are planetary killers ! There must be other fans out there !

+1 

When conditions are right, my 15" gives really nice views - I had a memorably beautiful view of a shadow transit with Io as a little 3D coloured ball as it crossed the limb one night: the disc of Jupiter was stunning, with hints of detail within the GRS.  There are moments that literally take your breath away.

Yeah, I hear that fracs are better...

[LukeSkywatcher]

Love watching Jupiter. Its so dynamic. I once watched it for a full rotation. Seeing the Moons dance around and change position. Great.