Jovian Jewels

[Sunshine]

Tonight I have had a night of fantastic seeing, Jupiter was my one and only target simply because it was a sight to see and my eyes could not be pried. Jupiter presented details unlike anything I have seen, no kidding! no shimmering or under water effect allowed for super fine details I never saw, before. Among them was tiny white circles in the SEB like a string of pearls chasing the GRS, in my dumb sketch below (can’t sketch worth beans) they are represented as dark spots but they were white, even the north temperate belt was an easy feature to spot. On the NEB I could clearly see dark wisps coming off the edge of the belt, there were three, one large and two smaller ones. Within the NEB and SEB themselves I could see the finer strands which these belts were made of, details within them which eluded me, in the past. Wow what a difference an extra inch of aperture makes, combined with great seeing.

Pentax 3.5 XW 300X magnification 

Edited December 22, 2023 by Sunshine

[RT65CB-SWL]

Nice sketch! 

[Captain Scarlet]

Fantastic

[Highburymark]

Good stuff! It’s always interesting how different objects respond well to different scopes and apertures. Having owned refractors from 60mm to 120mm, and Maks/SCTs from 4” to 8”, I think a 5” apo is very hard to beat on Jupiter. I know the very best Cats like Mewlons and some Maks can deliver exceptional planetary views, but Jupiter through my TSA-120 is in a different league to my old C8 Edge, for example. I like sharp, high resolution optics (including planetary eyepieces) to really draw out detail on Jupiter, and 5” apos often seem better matched to prevailing seeing conditions than less precise, larger scopes. I also love trying higher powers when seeing allows - even on Jupiter. A few occasions a year, I get up to 300x and above as you did - it’s not always ‘empty magnification’ when you can resolve small Jovian surface features. Hope that one day I’ll get to experience an FS128 myself.

[Sunshine]

1 minute ago, Highburymark said:

Hope that one day I’ll get to experience an FS128 myself.

Your TSA120 should provide just about the same views as my 128, 8mm isn’t a huge improvement and your 120 being a fine triplet would pretty much level the playing field. One thing I would love to do is have my 128 and a TSA120 side by side, I don’t think there would be much difference, really.

[Highburymark]

2 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Your TSA120 should provide just about the same views as my 128, 8mm isn’t a huge improvement and your 120 being a fine triplet would pretty much level the playing field. One thing I would love to do is have my 128 and a TSA120 side by side, I don’t think there would be much difference, really.

That’s what I’d expect too. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons Tak hasn’t replaced the 128 with a 5” fluorite doublet. And if they were to produce a (for example) FC-125DZ, it would no doubt be in the same price bracket as the TSA-120. The business case doesn’t stack up.
Still, it would be an interesting comparison - I think both scopes are about as good as it gets within their market niches.

[dweller25]

Good drawing @Sunshine, here is an image taken with a 7.5” Newtonian at roughly the same time for comparison….

[JeremyS]

Great sketch @Sunshine 👍🏻

[Sunshine]

14 minutes ago, dweller25 said:

Good drawing @Sunshine, here is an image taken with a 7.5” Newtonian at roughly the same time for comparison….

Thanks, in your image I highlighted the string of pearls I noticed at the eyepiece, as though they were following the GRS, these were very pretty and well defined. These are features I have never been able to spot, before.

Edited December 23, 2023 by Sunshine

[Sunshine]

3 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Great sketch @Sunshine 👍🏻

You are too kind 😂

[Sunshine]

Does anyone else here use a camera rotator on their Tak scopes? it’s something I always thought about for my 102 but just couldn’t justify the $500 plus for. My 128 came with one and I find it fantastic for rotating the diagonal. But I also have a Baader click lock on there which is redundant but its what allows me to connect my 1.25 diagonal, i need to see if there’s an adapter from camera rotator down to 1.25 diagonal. Somehow I feel there is too much going on there, extra weight, if I could have the diagonal on the rotator by way of a ln adapter I could do away with the click lock.

Edited December 23, 2023 by Sunshine

[niallk]

Great report!  It's fantastic to get good seeing on Jupiter 👍👍 Nice sketch too - and interesting to compare to an image on the same night - I always go browsing for images to see how much I saw

Edited December 30, 2023 by niallk

[josefk]

hi @Sunshine - on different scopes i'm a user of either a baader click lock alone or baader CL and "integrated" camera angle adjuster and use either to achieve the same end of rotating the diagonal to an ergonomic angle (i'm often at the side of my scope rather than behind). I really like that the CAA is a foolproof/accident proof way of doing it as there is no chance to drop the diagonal out (especially a heavily loaded diagonal) when hands are cold and the brain isn't working at full speed. I'm not sure i prefer the CAA so much that i would spring for one as an "upgrade" but like you i definitely appreciate the one i have.

On the weight topic - i could weigh both for you if you want but i'm not sure the simplest assembly of Tak bits to step the CAA down to either 2" or 1.25" is lighter that the Baader CL.

Nice Jupiter obs & sketch BTW.

[Sunshine]

2 hours ago, josefk said:

hi @Sunshine - on different scopes i'm a user of either a baader click lock alone or baader CL and "integrated" camera angle adjuster and use either to achieve the same end of rotating the diagonal to an ergonomic angle (i'm often at the side of my scope rather than behind). I really like that the CAA is a foolproof/accident proof way of doing it as there is no chance to drop the diagonal out (especially a heavily loaded diagonal) when hands are cold and the brain isn't working at full speed. I'm not sure i prefer the CAA so much that i would spring for one as an "upgrade" but like you i definitely appreciate the one i have.

On the weight topic - i could weigh both for you if you want but i'm not sure the simplest assembly of Tak bits to step the CAA down to either 2" or 1.25" is lighter that the Baader CL.

Nice Jupiter obs & sketch BTW.

Thank you! I have a scale and can weigh the individual bits, but as you mentioned it may not be much of a weight save if I change out the baader click lock for whatever Tak bits it will take to bring the CAA down to 1.25. It may be 6 of one or half dozen of another 😁