Had excellent views of Jupiter last night from my light polluted backyard. For the first time ever I watched one of the moons (Io) transit the planet! What I’ve been missing out on! I hadn’t realised they happened so frequently. The best part was when Io ended its transit and emerged out of the planet – what a fantastic sight! It was like the planet was giving birth to a moon
Found it very difficult to spot the shadow at first amidst the glare of the planet and thought it must be too small for me to see. When I first saw it I thought it was a speck of dirt on my optics being so tiny! But then over time I saw it move. As the night went on I found it easier to see. Was that due to better seeing conditions, me seeing better, or a combination of both? I think the later. I’m learning
I’m still using the EPs supplied with the scope and found that I had to keep Jupiter centred in the eyepiece for the best views, once it moved to the edges I lost resolution and it became too blurry to see really well. I guess once I get setup with some better quality EPs I won’t have that problem, at least to the same extent. Found barlowing my 25mm was the most comfortable to use.
I found the utility on the Sky & Telescope web site excellent for finding out the times of transits:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/obser...ml?page=1&c=y#
I’m just wondering how a neutral density filter would go for viewing the transits as it might cut down a lot of the glare but still allow the shadow to be visible. Anybody used one? I have one for my camera so I might hold it in front of the eyepiece to see if it helps. I’m thinking about getting one for the scope for viewing the moon.