Jupiter

[Herakles]

At last ! I finally got to see this giant. My location ( 55*N ) does not help with stuff that is low in the sky . Last night I saw Jupiter was about to clear a tree line to the rear of garden. Grabbed the C80, set up in the living room ( lights out of course ) and opened up the patio doors and waited.

Now GOTO in a living room is not an option , so it was the Old Galilean Manual technique that was employed . Worked well ! Used a Baader Zoom ( 8mm - 24mm ), 24mm to get him in FOV then stopped lens down to 8mm.

Wow !!!! Four moons nicely lined up. Callisto , Io ,Ganymede and Europa.

In the EP it was ( as seen left to right ) Europa,Ganymede,Jupiter,Io and Callisto.

At 8mm I could just about make out some banding. A full moon last night impeded it a fair bit sadly.

I tried a 2x barlow w/ a 10mm but it was a bit hazy and moving fast.

Hoping to use the 200mm reflector on the 22 July ( new moon ) .

Just really chuffed that I have now saw him with my own eyes.

Pete

[JamesK]

Congratulations... I'd love to see it in a scope. And you gotta envy those guys living in places near the equator... planets must pass right over-head. And they don't get this massive summer astro-dark drought. Anyway, congratulations again on seeing the banding and moons. I know Jupiter is male, but I always thought of it as a "her" befoore I found this out, perhaps I'm just culturally ignorant!

[Talitha]

Well done, Pete! Try to see the GRS, or a shadow transit of one of the moons... or catch a moon slowly peeking out from behind Jupiter after being occulted by him. Lots of fun (yeah, i'm a geek, lol).

[Herakles]

James , try putting the 10x70's on a tripod if you can , heck ,even handheld ( tho wibbly wobbly ! ) you should still see some Moons.

Thanks Carol, def' looking forward to getting know this fella better over the coming (impending darker yippee) months. Can't wait till I see it thru' the 200mm.