jupiter: The gas Giant
of years and is still going
strong today. It is possible
Of all the planets that
to see the GRS as it rotates
orbit around our Sun there
around the planet. There is a
are two that are easily visible
calculator predicting when
and are fascinating objects
it will be in central view on
to view. These are, of course,
the Sky and Telescope site
Saturn and Jupiter. Of these
at
www.skyandtelescope.
Jupiter is prominent in our
com/observing/objects/
night skies at the moment.
planets/3304091.html.
At magnitude -2.06 it is the
Other features that can be
third brightest thing in the sky
seen by the amateur are the
after the Moon and Venus.
main Northern and Southern
Currently Jupiter is in the
Equatorial Belts, and the two
constellation
of
Gemini
polar regions. The Great Red
forming a triangle with the
Spot can be distinguished
bright stars Castor and
Pollux. As the sun sets Jupiter
Jupiter moon transit.
Photo: Damien Peach on a night with good seeing.
With a larger telescope the
is the first ‘star’ to be seen in
the core of the planet. Assuming you
temperate belts come into
the darkening skies to the
east. As the night darkens further were not crushed by the extreme view as do some of the white ovals.
It is actually quite easy for an
and the other stars pop into view pressures you would eventually find
Jupiter reigns the heavens as it a point where you would float.
amateur astronomer to capture
slowly transits from east to west.
Jupiter is mainly hydrogen images of Jupiter with a modified
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the (around 90%) and helium by volume webcam. I tried this myself on
sun, and is the biggest in the solar in the atmosphere, with other an old Microsoft webcam. The
system. As an indication of its size it elements appearing in the interior. conversion cost about $15 and the
has around two and a half times the It is speculated that the core of the results were almost as good as my
planet could be metallic hydrogen.
Jupiter has 67 known moons,
but of these there are four that
are easily visible in binoculars or a
telescope. These are the Galilean
Moons of Io, Europa, Ganymede
and Callisto. These are seen strung
out in a line orbiting the planet.
Sometimes the moons pass in front
of Jupiter. This is known as a transit.
The moon is difficult if not impossible
to see when this happens, but the
Photo: NASA/JPL
Jupiter from a webcam.
Photo: Mike Barrett
shadow of the moon can be clearly
mass of all the other planets added seen transiting the surface. Damian $200 dedicated planetary camera.
together and it’s surface area is Peach managed to capture a The image of Jupiter with Callisto
122 times that of Earth. It is currently fantastic image of Jupiter with two a