Thread: Just Jupiter
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Old 29-03-2005, 01:41 PM
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astro_south (Andrew)
No GOTO..I enjoy the hunt

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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Brisbane
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Nice shot Peter. All the prominent details shown there were visible in my 12.5" at 240x on Friday night, albeit a little fainter in Jupiter's brightness.

Experience is key to seeing features on planets, and this comes from heaps of time at the eyepiece - the longer you look the more you will see. I used to have fleeting looks at a lot of objects during a night of observing, now I find myself targeting a few objects and spending more time with each. During this time I try different magnifications to see what I can tease out of an object. For instance I have had great views of the central structure in the Ghost of Jupiter (Planetary nebula in Hydra). In earlier years I had found this object with low power, acknowledged its bright disk and moved on. However lately I have been spending time with it and adding power makes the "CBS Eye" shape to its central structure stand out. I would suggest those with 12" dobbers and above (and there is quite a few around here) should spend some time with this and see what detail you can see with high power. Also, (hopefully not getting too far off topic) I would be keen to know if those with smaller scopes can see this central structure as well.

An interesting thing was that on Friday night the seeing was very variable, infact Jupiter cycled from a boiling blob to a super sharp image over the half an hour or so I observed it. It was sharp for periods of 2 to 5 seconds and was sharper than I had ever remembered. Not sure if this was an artifact of the image also being so bad that it gave an extreme reference image (for comparison), or whether there is something more physical in the turbulence that the steady air is extremely steady (doubtfull).
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