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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.