Jupiter - 9th June 3.45am

[rubbertoebooks]

First early morning viewing session for me, yawn!!! A hardy bunch we amateur astronomers are.

Set my alarm for 3.15am and ventured out to see if I could catch Jupiter.

Spent the evening on the couch as my wife is a nurse and was on a late shift yesterday evening, not even seeing Jupiter would have made up for encuring the wrath of a tired Staff Nurse at 3 am!!!

Set my scope up and put the kettle on to get the scope a chance to acclimitise. It was a beautiful morning , the odd cloud moving slowly across the sky , with the sunrise just beginning to send the sky a red/orange colour in the east.

Jupiter easily found (SE sky) and located in finderscope. I found that my best views this morning where through my 25x eyepiece and 2 x barlow. I could make out the banding quite clearly and four moons which came across as definite spots of light. After checking on Stellarium I'm assuming the four moons on show where , Callisto , Ganymede & Io (close together) and Europa??

Jupiter was an amazing site and I spent a good hour viewing before the view started to disappear as the sun rose. My first ever view of Jupiter and I was not disappointed.

Before finishing I briefly looked at Venus in the east, or half of Venus!! Not very clear , was able to make out the half disc shape but colour wise was giving off a green / red colour??

Just one thing before I go, a complete beginner problem,maybe someone can give a newb a bit of advice. I keep getting confused with N,S,E and W views in the finderscope/ scope and when looking through eyepieces!!!! Sounds like I'm a complete idiot right?

I'm using Starcharts and Stellarium to locate objects , but for some reason when using the scope / finderscope to 'starhop' or move around, I get confused with where I'm going!!!! I'm sure practice will make perfect , but I found even with Turn Left At Orion I'm getting badly confused very quickly!!!

Gotta go, can't believe I've work in a couple of hours after starting my day at 3.15am!!!!

Speak soon....

RTB

[Talitha]

Congrats on your first view of Jupiter! I get disoriented pretty quickly with the mental gymnastics, too... a correct image finder scope and correct image diagonal worked wonders.

[rubbertoebooks]

Thanks for that, I'll look into it.....

RTB

[kniclander]

I agree - I find that a correct image finder (preferably 8 or 9 x50) is crucial for effective starhopping. Correct image diagonal less so (as in, I don't have one ) because often things are in the fOV already or near to it. Also, you'd need really detailed starmaps for starhopping with the main scope as if you can see stars that aren't on the map it's confusing.

jst MHO.

[AlexG]

Good report of spotting Jupiter.

Do a Google search for "Jupiters moons javascript" to turn up a wonderful little online utility to show you what moon is where on any day at any time.

I remember the buzz I got the first time I was watching Jupiter through my telescope and realised after about ten or 15 minutes that I could actually see them moving in or out of alignment.

AG