Jupiter details - 23/11/10

[george7378]

After another night of amazing 240X Jupiter observations, I feel the need to report what I saw. At around 19:30, I was able to see the NEB with at least three festoons cutting into it - one was particularly prominent, with a large peninsula of whiter cloud cutting into the belt. The others were very easy to see too, with one very close to the big one, and another further along the belt. The belt itself showed some great texture when the seeing settled, and I could see very subtle areas of light and dark brown cloud in there. Also visible was the south polar hood with some nice darker spots covering it - they were only really visible in good seeing when it momentarily graced me. There were some nice subtle streaks visible around the rest of the light areas of cloud, and the disc showed some beautiful overall areas of texture and cloud contrast when the seeing was good. Later, at around 21:00 I first saw the GRS, which showed itself on the limb of the disc, and as the big festoon rotated off the disc, I saw the bright orange defined oval approach the central meridian. By now, thin clouds were covering the planet, and the optics were dewing up again making details harder to pick out. The views were amazing - I guess we live for the times when the air settles down and makes us feel as if we are looking at an astro-photo - I just adore looking at cloud details like that for real.

[DarkerSky]

Excellent report George! Well done on getting NEB details as crisp as you did. It is a beautiful feeling when the air stays still and all those minute details pop out, even if it is only momentarily.

I was out too, but a bit later on than yourself - between 21.30 to 23.00. My seeing was moderate to poor, so didn't enjoy the best of it tonight in my locality with patchy clouds plaguing viewing at times too

The GRS was an interesting feature tonight. Even though it was approaching the preceeding limb I did get a sense that it was fainter and less well defined at the edges than in previous obs. It also seemed to be surrounded by a large area of lighter material that seemed to disrupt the STB. Will be interesting to compare agianst what others have seen and against any photos from the same time tonight