Jupiter detail at last!

[iamjulian]

The forecast of clear skies over the whole country clearly didn't include my little bit of Shropshire. Mackerel skies from horizon to horizon on Friday night so I kept the scope indoors and hoped for better on Saturday night. I wasn't disappointed! I went up the road to my allotment and set up by 8.30pm. The sky wasn't properly dark but a few of the brighter stars were out so without any cooling time I swung the scope at Jupiter. Wow. (I use that word far too much at the moment!) Yes I have seen the photographs in the imaging section, but while I have seen the planet through the scope two or three times before, it has always seemed over exposed - a bright white ball with no sign of any detail. After reading lots of reports from people with similar scopes to me, I was beginning to wonder whether I needed some kind of filter. But tonight I could see two dark bands clear as day. I climbed up through the magnifications but 150x seemed a bit too much, the image not being as sharp. I didn't think I would want a better high powered eyepiece, but I do now!

I am not especially interested in imaging but seeing as I had my camera with me (for wide fields), it seemed rude not to attach it to the barlow and take a couple of frames. This is a single image, 1/20th second. ISO 100. I applied some unsharp mask.

I had a look for Neptune and Uranus and Juno, but couldn't see any of them. I need to improve my star hopping. I can see roughly where I need to be pointing, but then looking through the eyepiece there are so many stars that I quickly get completely lost. By now it was about 10pm and nicely dark. The Milky Way was streaming overhead and I could see it from the southern horizon, right overhead, to about thirty degrees above the northern horizon (which has a bit of light pollution). I wondered whether I could photograph it so I placed the camera (Canon 400D with 30mm lens) on the ground and took fifteen ten second subs (if that's the correct terminology) f/4.5 ISO 800. Each image/frame had just a few of the brighter stars showing, but there was no trailing. I then downloaded that deep sky stacker programme and without understanding what I was doing, just used all the default settings to let it do its thing. It seemed to trail the hot pixels, add some banding, and I got a satellite trail through the centre of the image, but apart from that I was amazed at the detail it brought out from seemingly black frames.

Seeing the Milky Way is always good, but the highlight tonight was seeing detail in Jupiter. I was well chuffed.

[Doc]

Great shots and well done on spotting banding on Jupiter.

If you have skies like that your 150p will show you all the Messier objects and more. Get yourself a good star atlas and a copy of Turn left at Orion and get star hopping.

You won't be dissapointed.

[TheThing]

Nice report and great photos. Jupiter is a real ace when you see the bands like that for the first time.

In addition to what Mick suggests, try a copy of Sky and Telescope's Pocket Star Atlas (you can get it from Amazon). I've found it really helpful out in the field.

[warbster]

"I need to improve my star hopping. I can see roughly where I need to be pointing, but then looking through the eyepiece there are so many stars that I quickly get completely lost."

Totally agree we the above comment, line up the red dot finder where I want, then look through the scope to get baffled .

[oceanheadted]

2 nice photos there, jupiter's a tricky target with a DSLR because it wobbles around so much. Well done with the milky way photo as well, so many stars!

[iamjulian]

Thanks oceanheadted.

I'm not sure how many are stars and how many are censor noise

I've read a lot of people saying how Jupiter jumps around, but I've never noticed it to be honest. Every time I look at it, it is stock still. I've seen some youtube video where planets jumps around - what causes that? If it's atmospheric conditions I must have been very lucky on my first dozen or so trips out with the scope.

[jgs001]

Well done, a good shot of Jupiter for a single frame, and lovely widefield. Jupiter was wobbling like a wobbly ball on my lappy screen last night when I was making an AVI with my webcam. It's the atmospherics that cause it (seeing).