Mesmerising Jupiter

[Stu]

I’m definitely in Mrs Stu’s bad books this morning having stayed out for another hour, after saying I would be 15 mins! 😬

I was using my FC100DC on my Vixen GP2 mount, recently acquired from @Franklin. Very nice and smooth it is too. I more often use AltAz mounts, but in the past have enjoyed single or dual axis driven EQ mounts for their quick setup and simple tracking. During lockdown, I would often track the Sun through the day, then swing back round to view the Moon in its early phases, really enjoyable.

I wasn’t optimistic last night given the poor seeing earlier on, but the Jetstream must have shifted as it improved significantly later. I had some quite mesmerising views of Jupiter; observing for longer than I have all year. Plenty of detail to be had, including belts in the temperate zones, and a slightly darker centre to the EQ zone on the Eastern side. Earlier on, there had been a distinct dark knot in the NEB and several nice festoons hanging down into the Equatorial Zone. My eyes aren’t particularly sensitive to colour in the scope, but I felt there was a blue grey tint to the EZ due to the festoons, and the NEB/SEB were a pale orange colour.

Best of all was the transit of Ganymede which I watched from before ingress to around transit. It was very low down, barely on the disk, so it stayed bright against the limb darkening. All the moons appeared as tiny disks of different sizes; it must be an optical illusion but I always think the moons look bigger when set against the planet, Ganymede certainly looked quite big.

On John’s suggestion, I hunted down Uranus. I always find EQ mounts much trickier for star hopping, but actually it went quite well. With the bright Moon, there weren’t many stars around even in the finder but I found my way to it using SkySafari which does make life very easy. Uranus showed as a tiny disk, essentially grey to my eye but perhaps with a hint of pale green? Interesting size comparison vs Ganymede ie 3.8” to 1.8”.

I know this is the planetary section but I’ll just stick a couple of other notes in here. The Moon looked much better later on too. In particular, Schröter’s Valley was very nicely illuminated, the rille itself etched into the surface and very sharp. The walls of Aristarchus showed their varying bands of light and dark shrine and I could see some detail on the floor too. Four or more Plato Craterlets were an unexpected sight too.

Finally I had a quick look at Orion. The trapezium was nice, though seeing was a little more jumpy in that direction and down lower than Jupiter. I caught E but no sign of F. Sigma Orionis I haven’t seen for a long time, and the faint fourth component showed clearly.

It was chilly by the time I finished. Crocs were not the best choice but I didn’t find it too bad. There is a hard frost this morning though. The skies are clear still, so I may have a go at these sunspots in a while.

[The60mmKid]

Anyone who spends hours sitting in Crocs in November looking at Schröter’s Valley is so much more than a "telescope owner." Thanks for the enjoyable report!

[RobertI]

Great report, glad you got some good seeing. 👍

[ObscuredView]

Crocs !! That’s crazy👍