Jupiter tonight

I was just out with my 12" Dob having a look at Jupiter. Tonight is some of the best seeing I have encountered in quite a while. An ideal night for any imagers out there. The warm temperature inside and outside seems to help. It may drop off a bit as it cools down.
The red spot is noticeably quite orange. Some great detail visible on the belts.

That is a nice report, John.

Tonight Tuesday 7th April, Ganymede's Shadow ingresses Jupiter from 21.00 Irish Summer Time.

I am going out to have a look.

Also tonight and tomorrow night, Jupiter is at its nearest stationary point to the lovely red star FZ Cancri. How close? I shall get back to you about that. Then the giant planet starts to move away towards Leo.

Clear skies,
Aubrey.

Jupiter is also close to M44 tonight, get those ultra wide angle scopes and eyepieces out.

Paul

I took out the 10" dob tonight to try out a 30mm eyepiece I have borrowed (horrible!), and had a nice view of the transit in the Speers Waler 10mm and the 14mm Meade uwa + barlow. The shadow was very dark and quite vivid.

Hi all.

1. I had a great Tuesday night observing too with my 6.2 inch apochromatic refractor. At 8.45 pm, I could a strange dark feature on Jupiter. It was the Moon itself Ganymede with the bright Equatorial Zone in the background. Then at 20.59, Ganymede began to appear away from Jupiter's western side. Truly spectacular! At 9.05 pm, a magnitude 2 satellite passed very closely west of Jupiter. I discovered on www.heavens-above.com , it was a military reconnaissance spacecraft USA 186. And then at 10.03 pm, I observed that large black shadow of Ganymede at 167X and 225X.

2. Has anyone turned their scopes on Zeta Cancri recently? For the 1st time ever, I was able to split it into 3 components at 167X; normally I need 225X. Last night was very stable.

3. At 21.32, while I was splitting Gamma Leonis (Algieba) at 112X, a bright satellite called Alos of magnitude passed by -I briefly saw in the telescope.

4. The ISS was magnitude -2 last night as passed through Hydra at 9.58.

5. And finally, La Superba is lovely and bright in Canes Venatici at present. It is even an intense orange at 140X. It is a carbon star and one of the brightest in the entire sky.

Clear skies to all.

Aubrey.

flt158 wrote: Hi all.

1. I had a great Tuesday night observing too with my 6.2 inch apochromatic refractor. At 8.45 pm, I could a strange dark feature on Jupiter. It was the Moon itself Ganymede with the bright Equatorial Zone in the background. Then at 20.59, Ganymede began to appear away from Jupiter's western side. Truly spectacular! At 9.05 pm, a magnitude 2 satellite passed very closely west of Jupiter. I discovered on www.heavens-above.com , it was a military reconnaissance spacecraft USA 186. And then at 10.03 pm, I observed that large black shadow of Ganymede at 167X and 225X.

Aubrey.

I do remember seeing a bright object pass quickly through the field of view of my 8"SCT around 9pm last night. Must be that satellite.