Watching the moons of Jupiter

The past few years many astronomers round here haven't had much luck weather wise. Clouds held many of us back, frustrated. I used to be awake in the night at 2-3am to water the horses and would check out my favourite view of the year, the Milky Way Star Cloud in Sagittarius in July. If you look hard enough you can also see a fork in the Milky Way at Cygnus.

I own a Meade ETX 125 scope and was quite active with it even n bitter winter a few years back. Saturn and Jupiter are always fun to see. 'Each planet moves across the sky night by night and over a period of time we can observe rings and moons. You may be aware that Jupiter has four moons: Callisto, Io, Ganymede and Europa.

I grabbed my scope tonight in a silly attempt to try some photos. It was harder than I thought and I was too disorganised. However I took a manual look at Joop and noticed a dot on its right side. Yep a definite dot. A check on the web Java pplet proved I had just seen Io, the volcanic moon of Joop in front of the disc! For someone who thought they had a shit scope this is quite a revelation.

By Jove as they say.

I know how ya feel.
I met some Stargazers with telescopes back before the turn of the century, and they were out to view something. One of the guys I was speaking to sighted in Jupiter and said "1, 2, 3, 4 moons. Take a look.". Sure enough, they were there, in such clarity! Could see the Redspot also. Bought me a telescope the following week. Viewed Saturn and the rings and moons.
I will go out now with Binocs to see Joop.
Take care,
space

Whadya buy? Mat-Cas, Schmidt, reflector or refractor? my Meade is looking a bit old now but does its job.

(sorry to name drop tech terms above there for outsiders)

You didn't notice my disclaimer. It was before the turn of the century. I actually don't remember.

With my 10x25 binocs,
I could see Io i think at 4:30 from clock central Joop. Is this correct?
Going to take a spotting scope now.

Checked it out with the spotting scope.
I could see 2 moons at 4:30 and another at 10:30. I think I am missing a moon.
Take care,
space

Space the missing moon was right in fron t of the disc of the planet! That's what got me excited! I'd never seen that before!

These are the four moons that were discovered by Galileo. Jupiter does in fact have a lot more moons than that - currently 63, according to Wiki.

That's cool. Just wondering though - could it be that what you saw was not Io, but the scar left by the recent impact?

Jupiter has such clarity now, it's amazing. I got my Meade ETX60 earlier this year but since I only use it from my window which is facing south west, I couldn't see it till July/August. The sight of the moon around it is amazing. Saturn, well, my telescope is so small I only see the rings as a dash across a small dot. Maybe you can tell me how to see the milky way, I'm a noob :-)

You need a really dark sky for a start, so you'll need to get well away from big towns etc. Try it on a night with a new moon or before/after the moon rises/sets.

Allow your eyes ten minutes or so to adapt well and just look up. You should see a band of faint stars right across the sky as you look through the main disc of the galaxy. It is a wonderful sight although I've only seen it a few times!

It may not be a good time of year to see it really well as the sunset time is still fairly late.

You need a good 45 minutes out there before your eyes become fully dark adapted. An hour before your session take out your scope and leave it in the open air to cool down so that it equalises its temperature, otherwise small air currents inside the scope will give you that wobbly image.

If you have the Autostar and a 505 cable you can download Dr Clay Sherrods Autostar Tours from the Weasner Mighty ETX site which is a huge resource for the ETX. I spent a year tracking the Messier Objects using his guides. I've blogges about it here.

Good luck.

PS Frau Tea: The dot wasn't the recent impact found by that Australian astronomer, that is far harder to see and needs say a 10 inch to see I reckon. Mine was def the moon of Io which was in front of the disc of Joop. Did you know its volcanic and gives off amazing (I think) energy rays which our earth travels through? And that radio astronomers listen in to its sounds uing the Radio Jove Project?