Observation Report - Jupiter

[AEAJR (Ed)]

So I’m sitting with the “old lady” watching the tube. Around 10:30 pm I peek outside and see my buddy Jupiter is hanging out, high as a kite.

I announce that I am going outside to hang with my buddy Jupiter. My wife reminds me that it is 30 F degrees with a breeze and that I am going to freeze. I tell her not to worry that me and Jupiter like to hang when the he is high and the moon is not around. When the moon is there she wants all my attention and I really want to focus on Jupiter to see what he has to show me. You know me and Jupiter are about as close as we have been in a long time but I have a feeling we will drift apart after this week.

She sighs and changes the channel, sending me off to see Jupiter and my close buddy Orion XT8i, a real long sorta tubular type. Doesn’t say much but likes to show me things.

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Dressing up for a night out - I put on a pair of sweat pants under my jeans. T-shirt, long sleeve T shirt, hooded sweat shirt and coat. Baseball type cap (the brim blocks the street lights when I am at the eyepiece). Insulated winter golf gloves. Hood up.

==========================
3-4-2016 10:55 pm

Sky appears mostly clear with some light cloud haze apparent giving things a glow in the eyepiece.
Temp approx. 30 degrees F with a 3-5 mph breeze. Cold!
Target: Jupiter, 4 days from opposition
Orion XT8i used manually.

Planet/moon configuration . . . . O All observations are as seen in the eyepiece.

================
Celestron 1.25” 8-24 zoom – at 24 mm/50X two main bands were visible, the moons were bright and overall the image was clear and sharp.
Rotate to 12 mm, 100X - main bands visible and a hint of a top polar band or darker region. Image is still sharp but getting some focus drift due to atmosphere and suspected cloud veil. I could not see the thin cloud veil it but the glow from Jupiter suggested that there was some haze in the air.

Rotate to 8 mm, 150 X - main bands are strong but image is not holding focus well. A lot of drifting in and out of focus. With patient watching, the top band/polar region can be seen to be darker but image does not hold sharp for more than a second at a time. Eyes watering/tearing. Eye floaters are very evident as I try to tease out the visual detail with the focus dial.

=============
Note: As the image was not focusing well above about 150x I decided to use the time to run a comparison by swapping eyepieces and barlows around, working in the 90X to 150 X range to see if there was a combination that would provide a significantly better image than the rest. This was a test and validation of the conditions as well as a comparison between eyepieces and barlows. This was done with a combination of Explore Scientific 2” 70 degree eyepiece, GSO 2” 2X barlow, Daytson 1.25” 2X barlow, Meade Super Plossl 9.7 and 6.4 mm single FL eyepieces and the Celestron 8-24 1.25” zoom.

================
Swapped in Meade 9.7 mm plossl. 124X. Image of similar quality to the zoom at that setting. Focus drifting but I can catch enough good image to observe the planet.
Added 1.25” 2X Daytson barlow with 9.7 mm Plossl, about 248X. Could not hold good focus.
Tried 6.4 mm Meade plossl, 187X. Too much focus drift. Did not like the image.

============
2” GSO 2X barlow/ Celestron zoom
Best image around 18 mm/9 mm equivalent. Higher than that and I can’t get things to focus well at all.
The 9.7 plossl, no barlow, was just slightly better than the barlow/zoom combo. This seemed to give me about the best, most useable image of all. However I think I was starting to get some thin cloud veil as I could see clouds approach in the distance.

====================
Meade 9.7 mm with filters
56 filter – green – the filter cut down some glare. The filter seemed to bring up the ring at the top pole slightly.
82A filter – very little color. Image enhanced by reduction in glare.
82A with Zoom – This shows very little color impact from the filter. I adjusted till I found the image I liked, around 12 mm. Similar enhancement of the pole ring. I think the main benefit of this filter was to reduce some of the glare around Jupiter.

================
2” barlow with 25 mm Explore Scientific 70 degree, 96X – Wide view is nice. Image quality slightly better than the zoom at 12 mm but not dramatically so.
Around 11:50 the cloud veil was becoming noticeable. I looked up and there were thick clouds coming that would cover Jupiter in minutes so I called it a night.

===================
Note: There have been occasions where I could get Jupiter over 240X with focus drift that was not as significant as tonight. With Jupiter in opposition in 4 days I will continue to focus on Jupiter for the next week or so, hopeful for better seeing conditions. And I would LOVE to see the great red spot. It will be evident 3/5 between 10 and 11 pm. I will try if the sky is clear.

[Tropo-Bob (Bob)]

Living in tropics, it's hard for me to image it being so chilly!
Nice report.

[Bombardon (Eugene)]

What an interesting report, Ed and we worry here about a few mozzies or humidity. It is always good to try out your oculars and combinations can result in many surprises. I had my best night yet but visitors at the eyepiece in my back garden taking a tour of the jawdropping and should I say gourmet items in the sky! They loved it, and who am I to complain, the long, lone hours with howlng dogs passing owls will always be there and the grteat cosmos will wait.... Thanks for sharing. Eugene

[AEAJR (Ed)]

March 5, 2015 - Target Jupiter - looking for the great red spot. There were some light cloud bands that came and went. They did not interrupt the session.

10 pm to start.

I spent most of the evening with the XT8i and the Celestron 8-24 for 150 to 50X

I was able to get an acceptable image at 150X. I tried a variety of filters and finally settled on #12 which imparts a yelliowish tone to jupiter. This gave me the best view of the cloud bands.

I do believe I saw the GRS but it was not as prominent as I had hoped it would be.

Session complete around 10:55 pm.

[75BC (Brendon)]

Great report Ed. Jupiter is a favourite of mine. It was the first thing I looked at when I got my first real scope about 12 years ago.
I admire your dedication with the 30 deg F temperature too. I start to complain about anything under 15 deg C.

[AEAJR (Ed)]

With Jupiter in Opposition tonight and close to us I figure I should focus on it for a while. Total I probably have about 7-8 hours of observation with Jupiter over the last two months.

I have been a little disappointed that the seeing has not been better. I am having trouble getting it over 150X. Or, perhaps the atmosphere is not as clear as I think it is.

[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

Yes, now is definitely the time to focus on Jupiter. Were you able to catch the the double moon transit last weekend?

We had clear skies for the event on Friday evening. Unfortunately, seeing was only 3 out of 5 and transparency 6 out of 7. So, the transiting moons, Io and Europa, were not visible, but the two shadows were quite clear. Plus we had the bonus of a clearly visible GRS transiting at the same time. Quite a sight.

There is another double moon transit this coming Friday 11th (eastern Australia). No GRS unfortunately.

Steve

[AEAJR (Ed)]

I have seen single moon transits but did not see the double, or did not recognize it.

About a month ago I had Jupiter at 250X with no problem. If drifted in and out of focus but not so much that I could not observe. These two times if I got above 150 the seeing was awful.

Perhaps this weekend I can get a better view.

[CAAD9 (Adam)]

Originally Posted by Tinderboxsky

Yes, now is definitely the time to focus on Jupiter. Were you able to catch the the double moon transit last weekend?

We had clear skies for the event on Friday evening. Unfortunately, seeing was only 3 out of 5 and transparency 6 out of 7. So, the transiting moons, Io and Europa, were not visible, but the two shadows were quite clear. Plus we had the bonus of a clearly visible GRS transiting at the same time. Quite a sight.

There is another double moon transit this coming Friday 11th (eastern Australia). No GRS unfortunately.

Steve

Hi Steve,

I had a great view through my 10" pusher last week, I mostly observed at 231x magnification (13mm t6 in a 2.5 x Barlow). Seeing wasn't great, but I actually could see the first of the 2 moons to emerge from the planet disk for about 30 minutes prior to it emerging from in front of the planet. At first I got over excited thinking maybe I was seeing one of the white spots (those white coloured storms like the GRS), but it was the moon and I stayed with it until after it had crossed the planet edge completely. Very nice to see. Was that Io?

I personally don't mind observing at high magnification. I know the view will be crap for 20-25 out of the 30 seconds before the inevitable dob nudge, but the 5 seconds of clear viewing is soooo worth it!

Anyway, there is cloud about, it won't be perfect tonight but it's a double transit. It's gotta be looked at.

This week I'm going to drag the 14" out. It does the dob nudge on its own and does so far more delicately than I can with the 10" so longer time with good viewing. It would be nice if I could tell it the true fov of my eyepiece so the nudging interval could be stretched out. Oh well, can't have everything.....

A

[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

Hi Adam,

I hope you are successful with the double transit. It is about to happen here but we are completely clouded out. At least I saw last week’s one.

I will be interested to hear how you go.

Steve.

[raymo]

I'm having the worst Jupiter observing season that I have ever had in my
60+ years in the hobby. I wait for it to get near it's highest, but have not had one night this season so far worth the bother.
raymo

[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

Originally Posted by raymo

I'm having the worst Jupiter observing season that I have ever had in my
60+ years in the hobby. I wait for it to get near it's highest, but have not had one night this season so far worth the bother.
raymo

Much the same here too Raymo. We have had a summer of poor seeing and a lot more coastal cloud than normal. But no rain unfortunately making for a much dryer summer than normal.

I have not managed a Jupiter session in excellent seeing yet for this opposition.

Steve.

[CAAD9 (Adam)]

Originally Posted by Tinderboxsky

Hi Adam,

I hope you are successful with the double transit. It is about to happen here but we are completely clouded out. At least I saw last week’s one.

I will be interested to hear how you go.

Steve.

Steve,

Sorry it took me so long to respond. Busy weekend and busy week.

It was great, the GRS was plumb in the middle at the start just as the first moon ( Io I think ) was about to ingress with Europa about an hour behind.

My brother in law arrived just as I finished the 2 star align on the 14" goto. We mostly observed at 317x. We spent the next 2 hours marvelling at the dynamism of this planet. You can really tell how fast Jupiter spins on its axis. The detail in the wake behind the GRS is just awesome. We also saw a prominent spot on the north equatorial band, from memory it was on a meridian east of the GRS . I meant to look up what it was after, but like I said its been busy.

It wasn't perfect, we had to observe between the clouds but they were fast moving so never covered J for too long. Seeing wasn't the best. But heck, it's been such a crap observing year so far it was just great to be out there. Moreover the BiL and I are both patient observers, so even in poor seeing you'll will have moments of good seeing and those views were spectacular! The 14 aids that by being a tracking scope it does a very subtle dob nudge.

At some point we wondered what the view in a smaller scope would be like. So... why speculate?

I dragged the 10" pusher* out at about 11. From then on we were able to swap observing through both tubes. Through the ten we were obliged to view at 200x.

At 200x the view was more consistent but the moments of great seeing at 317x were really good. It was fun to compare.

It was the BiL's first ever double transit, and only my second, so very satisfying we could make that happen.

One last point, we kept io in view for about a third of the way after ingress. after that the contrast became too low to see anymore. We shut up shop 30 mins after Europa crossed in front of the planet.

Awesome night. In some ways it was good that it was partly cloudy because that kept us from going to the dark sky sight and that meant we just focused on Jupiter the whole time. At the dark sky spot the temptation to look at DSOs is too much.

Cheers

* I move the 10" pusher on one of those hand trolleys you can get at bunnings for $24, without having to ever disassemble anything. It literally takes me all of 2 minutes. Stark contrast to the laborious process with the bulky 14"!

[AEAJR (Ed)]

I have yet to see the GRS. Not sure if it is there and I am not recognizing it or I have looked at the wrong time.

I have had little time this week. Maybe 2 sessions of 10 minutes each with binoculars. See the planet and spot the moons and that is it.

hopefully I will get some clear sky this weekend.

[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

I enjoyed reading your report Adam. You had a very productive session by the sound of it, despite some passing cloud.
We appear to have similar observing strategies. Inparticular, patience at the eyepiece waiting for those moments of extraordinary seeing conditions. These moments are a true revelation, as you well understand.
You have done better than me with an Io transit. I don't think I have been able to observe Io past about 20% across Jupiter.
I am a keen chaser of events in which motion of celestial objects, in what looks like a static sky, can be observed. Jupiter with it's four moons is one target, but there are many others. These include all sorts of occultations, conjunctions, comets, Minor Planet oppositions and so forth.

Cheers

Steve.

[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

Originally Posted by AEAJR

I have yet to see the GRS. Not sure if it is there and I am not recognizing it or I have looked at the wrong time.

I have had little time this week. Maybe 2 sessions of 10 minutes each with binoculars. See the planet and spot the moons and that is it.

hopefully I will get some clear sky this weekend.

Yes, it can be an illusive target. I find the best plan is to armed with a table of transit times for the GRS. Because it is moving so quickly (one full orbit about every nine hours) and the best opportunity for observing it is near mid transit, there is only a window of about two hours each orbit to observe the GRS. Your chances of seeing the GRS are quite low if relying on random observing times.

Steve.

[AEAJR (Ed)]

Observation Report - Jupiter 3-17-16 10:15 pm to 10:50 pm New York

Orion XT8i used manually. Celestron 8-24 zoom, Meade 9.7 and 6.4 Plossl, Meade 60 degree 4.5 mm

Tried a variety of color filters. Also a Crystal View ND Moon filter. Transmission rate is not marked but compared to my 25% Orion moon filter I would guess 40 to 50% transmission.

All reports are as viewed in the eyepiece.


Came home from my RC Flying club meeting. The sky was clear and Jupiter was bright. We are going to have clouds and maybe even snow the next few nights so I wanted to grab some time if I could.


Seeing was better than I have had it in a while. I even had my neighbor come over for a view of Jupiter and the Moon.


Moons . . O . . (note: for some reason it removes the spaces so that it is not showing what I typed)


Saw two main cloud band stripes, fainter stripe at the top and shaded area at the bottom pole.


Seeing was such that I was able to get up to 266X with the 4.5 mm eyepiece with reasonable focus drift. This is the best seeing I have had in a month. And as the evening progressed the seeing improved.


I went through a variety of color filters. In the 82A and the 12 I thought I saw a hint of the GRS but was not sure. I tried different eyepieces with different filters. Finally with the 4.5mm and the Crystal moon filter I was able to confirm the GRS on the top main cloud band slightly to the left of center. Later, using Stellarium, I confirmed the position and that this was the Great Red Spot.


Seeing the GRS was my main objective for the evening so mission accomplished.


Having my neighbor come over was a real bonus. I spent an evening with his two sons and his daughter but neither he or his wife have been over to look. I showed him Jupiter at about 125X so that he could see the stripes and the moons without them moving through the eyepiece too quickly. He also looked through the 9X50 finder. He liked that too.


Then I moved over to the moon and put in the 8-24 zoom. I had him line up the moon in the finder. That was exciting for him and he stayed on the finder for a while as he liked the view. Then he moved to the main eyepiece at 24 mm, 50X. Got a very appreciative sound. They I turned up the zoom to 8 mm, 150X and got a BIG WOW! Love that zoom.


Overall a very enjoyable session.


Now, off to bed. I have to work tomorrow but I will be dreaming of cloud bands and moons and that great red spot.


Clear skies my friends.

[Bombardon (Eugene)]

A Great effort, Ed and its great when everything works and you had mission accomplished. It always adds to the pleasure when you can share it with visitors viewing for the first time. Sleep long...you deserve it

[CAAD9 (Adam)]

Ed,

Congratulations, I well remember the thrill and the doubts of the first GRS sighting. And DR Stellarium is the same way I confirmed my first one too.

And yeah for you in a reflector the GRS will be at the top of the top band.

Well done for sharing the scope with your neighbour. And last but not least, you have no idea how exotic worrying about snowfall sounds to us in Australia. Perhaps Steve in Tasmania ( thank you for the kind words btw) gets snow, but I can assure you Brisbane has not seen any for 10,000 years.

In terms of seeing the GRS, Steve is absolutely spot on, you need to know when it's facing your side of the world. Otherwise you're just doubting your eyes all the time.

Anyway, I'd better get back to my son's fifth birthday party.

Cheers all.

[CAAD9 (Adam)]

Originally Posted by Tinderboxsky

I enjoyed reading your report Adam. You had a very productive session by the sound of it, despite some passing cloud.
We appear to have similar observing strategies. Inparticular, patience at the eyepiece waiting for those moments of extraordinary seeing conditions. These moments are a true revelation, as you well understand.
You have done better than me with an Io transit. I don't think I have been able to observe Io past about 20% across Jupiter.
I am a keen chaser of events in which motion of celestial objects, in what looks like a static sky, can be observed. Jupiter with it's four moons is one target, but there are many others. These include all sorts of occultations, conjunctions, comets, Minor Planet oppositions and so forth.

Cheers

Steve.

Thanks Steve,

Yes, i agree about celestial motion. I once took a photo of Saturn that was totally overexposed and it's a rubbish shot in all regards but one, by over exposing I lucked into capturing 3 Saturnian moons that traced an arc parallel to the main ring. Gave me goose bumps.

Anyway, we are getting clear skies here in Brisbane because a full moon is coming.

But I will not be defeated! my plan for tonight is to get up at midnight, pack the 10", the hand trolley and some eyepieces and drive to Weivenhoe Dam. It's our city's main water reservoir north west of Brisbane. I should be set up in time for moon set by around 2 am. Trick is that the public picnic area I'm heading to is locked by 6 pm, so I will have to heave everything over a stone wall and walk to the edge of the lake. I need to go there in particular because tonight I'm hunting northern Messier objects that never rise above 15 degrees in altitude for us here.

My primary targets are: M106, M94, M63 and M53. The bonus targets are M109, M101 and M102(not always recognised as a Messier in nth America).
107,98&40 will be below the horizon by moon set.

I'll be hunting low anyway, so it'll be touch and go. But I'm at 95/110, let's see if I can crack the tonne tonight.

Clear skies.

A