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Observing Jupiter


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As I'm telescopeless til Christmas, I'm still enjoying finding my way around the sky with my binoculars. Tonight has been quite breezy and so I thought I'd have a sweep with my very old but trusty 10x50 binoculars (they were my Grandad's, then my Dad's and now mine!).

Jupiter is up and quite clear here at the moment, and I was very pleasantly surprised with what I could make out - a bright disc with two moons either side at an angle that were quite clear and identifiable. The first moon on the left side of Jupiter was further out than the other three, and despite a bit of a shaky view, I was able to watch for a good few minutes before an odd patch of cloud hid them again.

In certain parts of the sky, a great many stars were visible, and it has been a thoroughly enjoyable half an hour just, you know, finding things!

If I can have this much fun with nothing more than a pair of binoculars, I can't wait to use a telescope in earnest!

The most rewarding thing is having set my location etc in Stellarium, it's really quite cool to locate objects easily. Finding my way around the sky is certainly becoming easier and a lot more fun.

I just wanted to share this, simple as it may be!

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Great report, and thanks for sharing your views with us! :D

Do you know what kind of scope you'll be getting? I'm also wondering what kind of binoculars they are. It's fantastic that they're being used by three generations of your family, what a great heirloom. :)

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Great report, and thanks for sharing your views with us! :D

Do you know what kind of scope you'll be getting? I'm also wondering what kind of binoculars they are. It's fantastic that they're being used by three generations of your family, what a great heirloom. :)

I'm looking at getting a Skywatcher 150PL as it seems around the best buy for my budget and seems to have been well recommended here. The binoculars are Carton Opticals and are around 40 years old and still working perfectly! I have promised to pass them on to my daughter when I've finished with them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, tonight is quite clear here and inbetween nipping in and out of the house to check the NFL scores, I wanted to have a look for something that another member, BobinKy, recommended having a sweep for. He suggested that the Coathanger formation, which I'd never heard of! He also gave me 'directions' on how to find it.

Not having much confidence in myself, I had a look for it on the Stellarium program first and worked out where I needed to look.

On my third attempt (there were far more stars to be seen than I expected), I managed to find it, quite large in the binoculars, and just like an upside down coathanger! I think I've just got more of a buzz from actually finding it than anything else, and the best part is it's easy to remember where it is.

It's also kind of surreal when after looking at it on the computer screen and then finding the real thing!

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