2018-05-29 - Wow! my very best Jupiter observation

[N3ptune]

Wow I'll remember Jupiter from 2018, that a great opposition it was.. that planet is truly our friend.  I had another observation of the same face last night with similar quality has the day I drew that sketch, not has sharp but very impressive, It's because we are closer to it inevitably.

 

 

[MarsG76]

3 hours ago, N3ptune said:

Wow I'll remember Jupiter from 2018, that a great opposition it was.. that planet is truly our friend.  I had another observation of the same face last night with similar quality has the day I drew that sketch, not has sharp but very impressive, It's because we are closer to it inevitably.

 

 

Excellent news... now it's time for Saturn followed by Mars to rule the skies and draw in our eyeballs.

[N3ptune]

Yess! absolutely, I looked at Mars only once in 2018, last week. When I was back from my dark spot at around 1:00, I installed my reflector at home a second time just to look at Mars, it was incredible. There were many surface shades visible with my 8" aperture inside the fairly large disk of course. 

This is my log of it, not a very elegant sketch and it's only approximative (the eyepiece view observation was way better) but it will show at least 2 major dark spots, mostly in the middle. (I don't have a clue about the name of these features yet!)

Has for Saturn, nothing yet, I wait for an opportunity to point the telescope at it!

[MarsG76]

5 hours ago, N3ptune said:

Yess! absolutely, I looked at Mars only once in 2018, last week. When I was back from my dark spot at around 1:00, I installed my reflector at home a second time just to look at Mars, it was incredible. There were many surface shades visible with my 8" aperture inside the fairly large disk of course. 

This is my log of it, not a very elegant sketch and it's only approximative (the eyepiece view observation was way better) but it will show at least 2 major dark spots, mostly in the middle. (I don't have a clue about the name of these features yet!)

Has for Saturn, nothing yet, I wait for an opportunity to point the telescope at it!

Yes it is quite big... I think it's already bigger than last opposition and it'll still get bigger... apparently the biggest we'll see it is between mid July to mid August... of course peaking on 27th July...

 

[MarsG76]

5 hours ago, N3ptune said:

Yess! absolutely, I looked at Mars only once in 2018, last week. When I was back from my dark spot at around 1:00, I installed my reflector at home a second time just to look at Mars, it was incredible. There were many surface shades visible with my 8" aperture inside the fairly large disk of course. 

This is my log of it, not a very elegant sketch and it's only approximative (the eyepiece view observation was way better) but it will show at least 2 major dark spots, mostly in the middle. (I don't have a clue about the name of these features yet!)

Has for Saturn, nothing yet, I wait for an opportunity to point the telescope at it!

I just hope that the mars global dust storm doesn't eventuate.

 

As for Saturn... have a look and spoil yourself... it's nearly at the optimum viewing distance from earth... I've already had plenty of great views of Saturn, details and features and 5-6 moons around it...

[N3ptune]

I had a first look at Saturn last night @MarsG76

But I could not see any moons around it.. it's funny I always forget to look for the moons? they are much fainter then those from Jupiter. 

This is my sketch from Saturn, I tried it at different power but since it was so low at the time I looked at it, no special features were visible especially at the beginning (around 21:45 Montreal time) where the planet was at about 8 degrees elevation from the ground.

Later it got higher a bit, over 10 degrees, then some cloud shades were starting to be appear with a 9mm eyepiece but still nothing too obvious and nothing in the belt. The resolution of the shape itself, the planet and the belt, this was quite satisfying, well defined, a bright beige shape with a good overall sharpness @ 111x.

High power were useless like the orthos 7mm, 143x, 6mm 167x, 4.7mm 212x all blurry.

My favourite views of Saturn last night were with my large 34mm, 29x. I always find it very pleasant to spend some time looking at the planets with my wide field low power eyepiece.. I find the view quiet it's hard to define.