Hi Everyone,
Jupiter has provided quite a show the last few months. I have
spent much of my time with the telescope observing the constantly changing
Jovian cloud tops & trying to catch the mutual eclipses & occultations of the
4 galilean satellites (these mutual events occur over a period of a few
months roughly every six years).
The Great Red Spot (GRS) is now reasonable prominent, appearing visually
as pale salmon pink oval. There is a lot of activity around the spot. The
portion of the South Equatorial Belt (SEB) following the spot is very
turbulent with a lot of small ovals which seem to change shape & form daily.
A portion of the South temperate belt (STB) is quite dark & distinct around
the longitude of the GRS. On the opposite side of the planet to the red spot
there are some dark barges in the North Equatorial Belt (NEB) & some dark
belt segments in the northern hemisphere. The equatorial zone is very active,
with fine festoons & wisps visible under good seeing conditions. Digital
imaging reveals some fine structures including a small jetstream spot which
tracked along the southern edge of the SEB until it got to the Great Red Spot
hollow in early April, where it skirted around the red spot. In the southern
hemisphere there are some nice white ovals in the S. Temperate region which
have been changing form & position - these show up well on images, but are
tricky to see through the eyepiece.
Since early February I've been regularly imaging Jupiter using a Toucam
webcam. I still haven't found time to put together a web page of my Jupiter
images, but most of my recent images are now accessible on the International
Jupiter Watch page, along with those of other observers.
Here are direct links to some of the better image sequences, which show some
of the features described above;
22-23Feb03: GRS & SSTB ovals. Some structure is visible in the Great Red Spot:
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/IJW/current_images/jph030223.jpg
27-28Feb03: Ganymede & Ganymede shadow transit. Ganymede is much darker than
the other Galilean moons, so it appears quite distinct when crossing the
equatorial zone. Again the GRS is well placed on this sequence, along with
turbulence / ovals in the SEB following the spot:
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/IJW/current_images/jph030228.jpg
21-22Mar03: The portion of the SEB following the Great red spot is more
quiescent than in the previous image, but the equatorial zone is very active.
Note also the dark belt fragment in the Northern temperate zone:
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/IJW/current_images/jph030322.jpg
23-24Mar03: Three of the SSTB ovals ( visible to the south of the Great Red
Spot) appear to form a triplet:
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/IJW/current_images/jph030324.jpg
29-30Mar03: The opposite side of the planet to the Great Red Spot. Both
equatorial belts appear double. In the NEB, a dark barge is visible:
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/IJW/current_images/jph030330.jpg
30-31Mar03: The GRS is moving onto the disk & a lot of fine detail is
visible, particularly the festoons in the equatorial zone. The Jetstream spot
is just visible on the S. edge of the SEB preceeding the red spot, this
subsequently passed north of the GRS along the edge of the Red Spot Hollow in
mid April.
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/IJW/current_images/jph030331.jpg
The main IJW image page is accessible through the following link . There are
many excellent images by other observers here, which show far more detail
than my own images.
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/ijw/current_images.htm
Best wishes & clear skies,
Jason Hatton
