So, we were able to watch Jupiter last nigh!!!
Conditions seemed to be poorer than yesterday — I barely saw Hercules and with great trouble found M13 to show it to my wife. I also found that RA and Dec handles do not work very well — it’s time to use screwdriver.
M13 wasn’t very well — only smooth spot, no stars at edge. I think it is caused by light pollution, because under good sky 120x and even 90x should be good enough (correct me if I’m wrong).
By 2:30 Jupiter floated away from edge of building and surrounding trees. I tried to use finderscope, and found it to be completely misaligned. But with 24mm eyepiece I found it and then switched to 15mm with Barlow lens (BL) and then 10mm with BL.
With 10mm+BL ocular I clearly saw darker stripes and brighter stripes above and below darker ones. Picture wasn’t as bright as with 15mm+BL, but with latter I clearly saw a chromaticism around Jupiter (side effect of Barlow lens). We saw all 4 Galilean moons.
When packing oculars, I found Moon filter installed on 10mm ocular!!! That’s why Jupiter was darker (but not too dark), and that’s why I saw stripes better and saw no chromaticism. Perhaps, Moon filter is not the best thing for Jupiter observation, but Good Enough(tm).
Tags: astronomy, jupiter, moon filter
