Jupiter & GRS transit, in the frost 30.11.23

[josefk]

What a fabulous night last night in the frost at minus something or other. Shame it was a "school night" because it felt like conditions were really superb.

I spent the best part of 90 minutes in a 2.5hr session observing only Jupiter and it was the best i've seen it in my 85mm scope. Really tantalising and interesting NEB/SEB "detail" while the GRS transited the middle quarter. Wonderful.

Here's a rough attempt at capturing the view - 3 sketches in the field and two tidied up this morning. For the starting sketch i made the mistake to try for too long to capture what i could see and so there is quite a bit of rotation error in it i think. I must remember to go much quicker (10-mins per thumbnail) in future.

Observation with an 85mm refractor and ortho' eyepieces 5mm, 4mm and 3.3mm. 5mm and 4mm  also with the Tak 1.5 extender for magnifications in the x135...169 range. 

Though NEB and SEB were showing lovely "roughness" or "ropelike" twisting the features were mainly large and darker-on-dark. i didn't see any small barge like features nor any light-on-dark pale ovals except, there was a medium small prominent dark area preceding the GRS seen straightaway and i had the feeling this was more visually prominent after the GRS transited the mid point.

[Nikolai De Silva]

Nice sketches👍

[woldsman]

Great post. I also observed last night (my, it was cold!) & the GRS and apparent band break were very clear from the Cotswolds in an 80mm f11 refractor. Your fingers must be frost-proof!

[josefk]

10 minutes ago, woldsman said:

Great post. I also observed last night (my, it was cold!) & the GRS and apparent band break were very clear from the Cotswolds in an 80mm f11 refractor. Your fingers must be frost-proof!

Thanks and cheap sheepskin gloves! I find them better than even quite technical mountain gloves or mitts for the kind of on-off-on again routine with astro. highly recommended.

[dweller25]

Excellent drawings, I was out at 20:30 with the 4” and was just about to start drawing when it clouded over ! so thanks for sharing your sketches 👍

 

[josefk]

You've got to move pretty fast @dweller25 in more ways than one. 😉