Jupiter Great Red Spot

[Rodman4995]

Hello,

 

I'm a newbie to star gazing . I have an 8" Dobsonian scope for viewing.  Can someone tell me the best time for viewing Jupiter GRS ?  I tried googling but all GRS calculators I could find would not work.  I know the Jupiter Opposition is coming up on Sept 26th and want to start practicing my views now so I can enjoy this closest distance of Jupiter to the Earth in 70 yrs.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Zermelo]

Hello, and welcome to SGL.

Did you try this one?

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/interactive-sky-watching-tools/transit-times-of-jupiters-great-red-spot/

[PeterStudz]

2 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

Hello, and welcome to SGL.

Did you try this one?

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/interactive-sky-watching-tools/transit-times-of-jupiters-great-red-spot/

Thanks the one I use. Works very well for me.

[NGC 1502]

17 hours ago, Rodman4995 said:

Hello,

 

I'm a newbie to star gazing . I have an 8" Dobsonian scope for viewing.  Can someone tell me the best time for viewing Jupiter GRS ?  I tried googling but all GRS calculators I could find would not work.  I know the Jupiter Opposition is coming up on Sept 26th and want to start practicing my views now so I can enjoy this closest distance of Jupiter to the Earth in 70 yrs.

 

Welcome to SGL, as you’ve just found out, lots of folks on here willing to help.

Your 8” Dob should very easily show the GRS. Best not to use too high a magnification, smaller and sharper beats bigger and fuzzier.  I often use 150x, just a suggestion of course.  Great views of Jupiter can be had, even well after opposition, as long its not too low in elevation.

Ed.

[KevinPSJ]

I use https://stellarium-web.org/ to find jupiter and then zoom until I can see jupiter's cloud deck. make sure you are centered on jupiter so that adjusting the clock forward or backward will keep jupiter in view and then the app will easily allow you to find the time when the spot transits. Rule of thumb seems to be it's about 10 hours between transits - so you may get unlucky and pick a night with no spot visible.

For example I can see right now that tonight (2022-Sept-12) the red spot won't be visible until after 3am on the 13th and it crosses the jupiter "meridian" around 4:30am. However, the following night (2022-Sept-13) it's best placed around midnight.

I had a peak at the weekend coming and 2 am on Sunday morning looks particularly interesting with GRS and a shadow from Io visible