Jupiter, 26th June, 9:45pm - GRS central

[dweller25]

No jet stream overhead so should be a nice sight with a little daylight helping contrast

[F15Rules]

Thanks David, will try the Maxbrights with the FS128 all being well?.

Dave

[Littleguy80]

The viewing is stunning. I have Jupiter at 300x with lots of detail on view   

[dweller25]

Jupiter is looking good- a lot of activity in the NEB and the GRS is quite orange

[Littleguy80]

6 minutes ago, dweller25 said:

Jupiter is looking good- a lot of activity in the NEB and the GRS is quite orange

There’s large festoons in the NEB right below the GRS. Blue/grey colour to them. Agree that the GRS is distinctly orange. I can even start to see detail appearing in the GRS itself. Best I’ve ever seen Jupiter!

[dweller25]

Lguy80 - what scope are you using ?

[Littleguy80]

The GRS almost has an eye like appearance to it. Darker orange in the centre, the lighter around it and then back to darker orange around the edge. Stunning!

[Littleguy80]

1 minute ago, dweller25 said:

Lguy80 - what scope are you using ?

10” SkyWatcher dob with various orthos from 7mm down to 4mm

 

[dweller25]

5 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

10” SkyWatcher dob with various orthos from 7mm down to 4mm

 

Good scopes those - had to sell mine ?

[Littleguy80]

Just now, dweller25 said:

Good scopes those - had to sell mine ?

I’ve only had it since Feb but it’s been awesome. Sorry to hear you had to let yours go  

Just clouded over here. Looks like this may fall into short but sweet category of sessions!

[Stu]

Looking lovely here too, seeing much better than the other night. GRS distinctly orange, three very nice festoons dropping down from the NEB. There is a dark feature on the northern edge of the NEB between the two largest festoons, don’t think it is a barge.

The thin band trailing behind the GRS is clear as are the two pale bands within Northern and Southern Polar regions. There also seems to be a thin band down the equator which the festoons join up with.

Moons also nicely spaced two either side. Best views I’ve had this apparition. Lovely.

A little while ago, a plane departing from Heathrow passed right through the fov, making me jump and trashing the seeing completely, took a good five minutes to settle down again.

[Stu]

12 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

The GRS almost has an eye like appearance to it. Darker orange in the centre, the lighter around it and then back to darker orange around the edge. Stunning!

Sounds amazing Neil! I’m at about x200 with the binoviewers but that is beyond my little 4”  

[Littleguy80]

1 minute ago, Stu said:

Sounds amazing Neil! I’m at about x200 with the binoviewers but that is beyond my little 4”  

Best I’ve ever seen it. I dropped back down 170x with your old 7mm Meade RG Ortho. That seemed to draw the extra detail out. From first look I knew it was going to be good. The sky was just so steady. 

[dweller25]

A great start but Jupiter and the Moon are now Orange (clouds) and detail on Jup has gone

Time for bed said Zebedee ?

[Stu]

22 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

Best I’ve ever seen it. I dropped back down 170x with your old 7mm Meade RG Ortho. That seemed to draw the extra detail out. From first look I knew it was going to be good. The sky was just so steady. 

Nice  

Extra resolution from the aperture will make the difference even at similar powers. Sounds like your scope is working very nicely  got that collimation nailed!

[Stu]

9 minutes ago, dweller25 said:

A great start but Jupiter and the Moon are now Orange (clouds) and detail on Jup has gone

Time for bed said Zebedee ?

Shame. I’ve packed up now. It did seem to drop off in the end but perhaps only temporary. 6 am start so bed for me too!

[JOC]

Oh to live in a house that doesn't go to sleep when the news finishes.  I came home from karate read above and thought 'I might have a look at that'.  By the time I had found bins to check it wasn't behind anything silly and had ran up Stellarium I came in from the lounge to find the house locked up for the night by my parents, and mutterings being made about not wanting waking up once they fell asleep.  No viewing for me ?

[dweller25]

50 minutes ago, Stu said:

Looking lovely here too, seeing much better than the other night. GRS distinctly orange, three very nice festoons dropping down from the NEB. There is a dark feature on the northern edge of the NEB between the two largest festoons, don’t think it is a barge.

The thin band trailing behind the GRS is clear as are the two pale bands within Northern and Southern Polar regions. There also seems to be a thin band down the equator which the festoons join up with.

Moons also nicely spaced two either side. Best views I’ve had this apparition. Lovely.

A little while ago, a plane departing from Heathrow passed right through the fov, making me jump and trashing the seeing completely, took a good five minutes to settle down again.

Brilliant observation Stu

[GavStar]

I’m a bit disappointed I was late to this (due to watching Argentina play football ?), but I managed to get a short session on Jupiter this evening.

I used my grab and go setup ? - TEC160FL on the Panther TTS. Initial views were disappointing (compared to our club night last week) but I think this was due to the scope needing to cool down. The GRS wasn’t as prominent tonight for me.

However, it was a worthwhile session since I got to try out my mark v Binos on my tec for the first time. Pleasingly they a) came to focus comfortably with the 2.6x gpc and pan 24s and b) gave markedly superior views to mono viewing with my Pentax XW 7mm (broadly similar 150x mag).

The cloud bands were better than last week - several on view. But I did feel the GRS popped much more last week with better clear separation from the main cloud band and also found the 3 festoons sharper last week as well. 

Unfortunately it looks like I missed the best of the seeing today...

[Stu]

6 hours ago, GavStar said:

Unfortunately it looks like I missed the best of the seeing today...

I suspect that is the case Gavin, or that GRS was a way past the meridian by the time you observed? It was certainly much better for me that last week, sort of the opposite of what you are describing ie more stable, GRS more prominent and the festoons much clearer.

Glad the binoviewers were a success though, I have finally managed to get my head around using mine for planetary and it is much better, I see the detail and my floaters are much better controlled, still there but manageable. I suspect floaters aren’t and issue for you with the addition aperture?

[F15Rules]

I got the FS128 out (I must find a name for her, "the FS128" sounds so 'clinical') at10pm.

I roughly aligned with Polaris (enough for a short session), removed the manhole cover dewshield to speed up cooling, and put in the Maxbrights with a pair of 25mm Parks Golds and lined up Jupiter in the finder.

In the main scope I was immediately able to achieve very sharp focus natively with no Barlow, and even a couple of seconds' view showed several features..However, the image was very small at just c x42, so I decided to insert a WO x1.6 Barlow in front of the bv's, which I think would give me about x125 ( about 3x native). I turned the RA drive on to keep the planet centred...

It took me perhaps 3 or 4 minutes to find and install the barlow, (I had to replace the 2" T2 nosepiece on the front of the bv's with a 2"-1.25" click lock reducer and 1.25" -T2 nosepiece into which I threaded the barlow).

In that short time, a huge bank of mist rolled in from the North Sea, and even the almost full moon disappeared cimpletely from view!!

And that was that.

I left the scope out for half an hour in the hope that the mist would clear, but no go - it had rolled in for the night, after a cloudless sky all day????..

Really disappointing, as I could see with that one tiny peek that the conditions were very steady..If only I'd gone out 10 minutes earlier.

Hey ho. Great to hear that you guys got some super views though, well done! Til the next time?!

Dave

 

[Saganite]

That is really bad luck again Dave.

I have enjoyed stunning views for three nights, of Jupiter and Saturn, with Andromeda of course !

 

[dweller25]

2 hours ago, F15Rules said:

I got the FS128 out (I must find a name for her, "the FS128" sounds so 'clinical') at10pm.

I roughly aligned with Polaris (enough for a short session), removed the manhole cover dewshield to speed up cooling, and put in the Maxbrights with a pair of 25mm Parks Golds and lined up Jupiter in the finder.

In the main scope I was immediately able to achieve very sharp focus natively with no Barlow, and even a couple of seconds' view showed several features..However, the image was very small at just c x42, so I decided to insert a WO x1.6 Barlow in front of the bv's, which I think would give me about x125 ( about 3x native). I turned the RA drive on to keep the planet centred...

It took me perhaps 3 or 4 minutes to find and install the barlow, (I had to replace the 2" T2 nosepiece on the front of the bv's with a 2"-1.25" click lock reducer and 1.25" -T2 nosepiece into which I threaded the barlow).

In that short time, a huge bank of mist rolled in from the North Sea, and even the almost full moon disappeared cimpletely from view!!

And that was that.

I left the scope out for half an hour in the hope that the mist would clear, but no go - it had rolled in for the night, after a cloudless sky all day????..

Really disappointing, as I could see with that one tiny peek that the conditions were very steady..If only I'd gone out 10 minutes earlier.

Hey ho. Great to hear that you guys got some super views though, well done! Til the next time?!

Dave

 

Oh no Dave - that's bad mother nature luck.....

I thought it strange how my views dropped off very quickly with both Jupiter and the Moon looking very orange, until I found out Saddleworth Moor was on fire ......

 

 

[GavStar]

4 hours ago, Stu said:

Glad the binoviewers were a success though, I have finally managed to get my head around using mine for planetary and it is much better, I see the detail and my floaters are much better controlled, still there but manageable. I suspect floaters aren’t and issue for you with the addition aperture?

Yes floaters no issue with the larger aperture and bigger exit pupil. But as you say, in addition, the detail on the cloud bands was much clearer with binoviewers than mono...

[F15Rules]

1 hour ago, dweller25 said:

Oh no Dave - that's bad mother nature luck.....

I thought it strange how my views dropped off very quickly with both Jupiter and the Moon looking very orange, until I found out Saddleworth Moor was on fire ......

 

 

Hi David,

Great satellite view..I think I was very unlucky last night..We are about 14 miles inland from, and due west of Skegness and so right near the dividing line between clear sky and pea soup! I don't remember seeing sky conditions change so quickly before, even in the Lake District!

The fire on Saddleworth Moor looks bad, and was also visible from space..Let's hope no one will be hurt.

Dave