Cracking night last night - I've now seen all the planets!

[teh_orph]

After basking in the heat all day yesterday, I took a nap in the evening which involved me waking at 2 am

I live in London and although conditions are normally poor they were initially especially bad. So bad that I thought my scope could have been damaged! They picked up a bit later.

• Anyway, I hunted for the K5 McNaught but the sky was seriously bright from the summer night light and general pollution. So no luck there.
  
• I spotted an Iridium flare.
  
• I had a quick view of Jupiter which was surprisingly high in the sky, and saw all four major moons. Even with my 130p it was impressed how big Ganymede seemed...if only I had more magnification
  
• I had another peek at Uranus which was as ever lingering close enough to Jupiter to make it easy to spot. A pale green dot that still looks like a tiny disc. Very cool to think that it's a massive world.
  
• And then I began the hunt for Neptune. There was a decent amount of summer night light in that part of the sky and finding the guide stars in Aquarius was seriously difficult! After a while I managed to get a lock on λ Aqr and then bravely zoom across to σ Aqr then ι Aqr (the sun was rising) to find Neptune. A tiny little blue disc - def smaller than Uranus - but that completes my tour of the planets
  
• Almost in the same place as Jupiter is the comet 10P/Tempel. Finding the area where this should live was relatively easy yet the sky was much to light to spy it which was a shame.
  
• Back to Jupiter for a better look..and there were only three moons visible! If only I'd known that there was going to be an eclipse! Does anyone know when the next will be? I'm very impressed by the size of Jupiter, since it's such a massive disc in the EP. Need more detail on the bands though
  
• And saving the best for last in this case, the moon. There was so much detail across the middle section, probably the most detailed I'd ever seen it. Breaking out the lunar 100 list I ticked a few more off including spying an Apollo landing site.
  

A very productive night! As I crawl back into bed at 4am my g/f asks me what I've seen and is obviously not as impressed as I was

[dark star]

You had a better night than me. I slept through my alarm and got up at 3.30 a.m. instead of 2.30 a.m.!

Jupiter looked good, I could see some bands but no Great Red Spot, maybe it was on the other side of the planet?

I missed Europa going behind Jupiter, I could only see 3 moons, this was for around an hour, does Europa stay behind Jupiter for so long?

I am curious when people say that Jupiter looks big in their telescopes (unless they have a 16 inch telescope of course!).

I have a 150mm reflector, 1200mm focal length, and use a 7mm eyepiece. This gives around x170 magnification, but Jupiter always looks quite small to me, although still amazing!

I could not see Uranus, I think it was too light,and the moon probably didn't help.

I will try again next week some time, if the skies are clear, and in the meantime read up on when the next eclipses of Jupiter's moons will happen.

[teh_orph]

By big I mean compared to say Mars (recently) or Venus, or even Saturn! The minor planets look like small dots to me and Saturn is just a small-ish disc with edge-on rings. Jupiter by comparison takes a much larger amount of the view port. It really goes to show how large the planet!

How does Jupiter look through yours - tbh I find it much too bright to view. Do you use any filters?

And I think Europa was eclipsed until about 4.30 or so. Anyone got any pics of this event?

[dark star]

As for the size of Jupiter, I think I have looked at too many drawings and images of how it looks through 12 to 16 inch telescopes!

I guess I have aperture fever!

For some reason Jupiter does not seem too bright to me, I don't know of this is because it is low down in the sky at the moment and the atmosphere is dimming it a bit?

I also find that high power eyepieces usually dim the image a bit, Jupiter seemd less bright through my 7mm eyepiece than through the 25mm.

The seeing was quite good last night, with only a bit of heat haze.

If Europa came out from behind Jupiter at around 4.30 a.m. I must have just missed it.

I will try to find out when the next eclipse will happen.

[Totnesdave]

Nice report !

I missed Europa actually 'vanishing' too, I observed it at 3.05 am approximately equidistant between Jupiter and Io, but when I returned to Jupiter at 3.40 am after doing some other observations, it was no longer visible.

Uranus was a nice easy target, the sky lightened rather too much for me to find Neptune though, pesky moon, and the sun started coming up around 3am !

At 1.00 am Jupiter was riding quite high in the sky at the observing site I was at .. but that was due to having a SE horizon essentially down to sea level from high ground inland

The moon was washing things out a lot, and I couldn't stay sharply imaged on the planets beyond about x100 but an 80A blue filter helped a lot with banding on Jupiter. I can't be sure I saw the red spot, but I dimly and definitely saw a spot-like feature rotating slowly onto the south area after 4am-ish

Dave