I had a well drawn out plan tonight. After getting home tonight from class, I would come home, set up and start in Sagittarius and observe some PN's and some open clusters and then I would watch Jupiter starting around 1:00a.m, and then move into Cygnus. Well,l went out and setup tonight around 10:30p.m. and at 11:30p.m. began to do some observations starting with M23 and then moving around. At about 1:10 I took the dob and focused it on Jupiter and brought my 5mm Hyperion to bear with 200x. Skies were good tonight as Jupiter came right into focus and held. I could see two distinct bands clear and sharp at the mid latitudes with hints of other bands to the north and south of these two bands. In the EP I could see the black circle up and to the right on Jupiter and it was clear and distinct. I took a 2x barlow out and pumped up to 400x. At 400x Jupiter would come into focus, hold focus for about 30 seconds and then I would have to adjust. The impact area was equally manageable at this magnification tonight. Finally, after observing for around 35 minutes and recording my observation on a digital voice recorder, I decided to do one last test. I took out my 21mm and 13mm Stratus EP to see how low I could go in magnification and still detect the impact area. At 92x with the 13mm the spot was easily need and observed. I used a 17mm lens I have at 70.5x and the impact area was still easily seen. Finally I tried the 21mm at 57x and though it took me a few moments to identify, because I knew the location and I could see it. This was using a 10 inch dob since I did not want to set up the large one tonight. Most scopes should be able to see this. I hope someone locally got some great images tonight because the skies were good, and Jupiter with this black spot with the four Galilean Moons in the view looked beautiful. I also went and saw Neptune since its been a year and it is quite easy to find. After that I was going to head to Cygnus but down here in Herriman the clouds moved in and that's it. I've put everything away and am heading off to bed. Hope others saw this cool event. On 2009-07-22 03:09, Canopus56 wrote:
Repost per discussion at tonight's club meeting. These are
predicted transit times for the Jupiter comet impact hole in the Jovian atmosphere:
WinJUPOS 8.0.4 (Jupiter), C.M. transit times, 2009/07/20 14:34 Object longitude: L2 = 216.0° + 0.0000°/d * (T - 2009 Jul 19.5) Time interval: 2009 Jul 20.0 ... 2009 Jul 31.0 Only if celestial body is visible Geographic longitude and latitude: -111 00, +42 00 Output format: Date UT (C.M. of System 2, Altitude)
2009 Jul 20 11:56 ( 216°, 24°) 2009 Jul 21 07:47 ( 216°, 30°) 2009 Jul 23 09:25 ( 216°, 34°) 2009 Jul 24 05:16 ( 216°, 13°) 2009 Jul 25 11:03 ( 216°, 27°) 2009 Jul 26 06:54 ( 216°, 27°) 2009 Jul 28 08:32 ( 216°, 33°) 2009 Jul 29 04:23 ( 216°, 8°) 2009 Jul 30 10:10 ( 216°, 30°)
Amateur discovery image Anthony Wesley, Australia, 7-19-2009 http://www.acquerra.com.au/astro/gallery/jupiter/20090719-155537/
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