[Hitchhiker]

Here are my Jupiters from Thursday morning the 9th February.

These are my first images of Jupiter, and my first images with my new 2.5x Powermate. Seeing was average - Jupiter was distorting quite noticeably on the laptop screen.

After the first image, I did a quick process in Registax and found some onion ring artifacts. I increased my exposure to 1/10 of a second for the next exposures.

Once I processed all the images I found a subtle 'onion ring' effect around the disk. I don't believe it was caused by underexposure but by the distortion of the disk of Jupiter by the seeing. As Registax was stacking I could see the disk 'wobbling' all over the place. I found if I hit the wavelets too hard, the onion ring would appear.

Contrary to my normal practice, I did not collimate my scope before imaging - I think I'm a bit off.

Anyway,no competition for the top guys on IIS, but I had a lot of fun imaging and processing. I love the amount of detail visible on Jupiter even with my inexperience.

For image number 2, I attempted to image just as the GRS was crossing the meridian. I started my exposures at 17:27 UT and finished at 17:29 UT.