Got another nights slightly hazy viewing in. Was watching some dodgy movie on TV and poked my head outside about 9.30 to see some sky above. Again a bit of high haze but about 10:00 pm Jupiter appeared above eastern treeline. This is my worst aspect, directly above the city lights. and it was at about 40 degrees. It was veiwable with the 20mm wideview and barlow was vaguely acceptable, could make out the equator band but not much else. A bit later when it had climbed managed to get some better viewing, more stable and the 12 mm barlowed let me have a little more. No GRS but Ganymede, Io and Callisto all nicely lined up at about 1, 5 and 10 Jupiter diameters out.
Image below done on Paint Shop Pro 6. Difficult to keep it as I saw it and not add detail that I didn't see but that is pretty good although the planet colour might be a bit intense. Alignment is as I saw it.
Best viewing ..?
4 Aircraft, 1 satellite and 3 meteors. We're almost directly under the flight path of aircraft coming across from Aust. We're about at the point when they put the handbrake on to start the turn loop down to the airport and you can hear the engine note change as they take thrust off and start the flaps sliding back.
Had a look up through zenith and found a 'new' fuzzy high NW but the high haze was gathering and it was getting very hard to position and locate. Went inside about midnight.
Woke up this morning to high cloud cover.
The movie was rubbish ...
Auckland 27 Sep
A good representation of the eyepiece view.
