Jupiter’s Twilight Farewell

Jupiter
Gas Giant Planet
By Eric Graff

Parks Astrolight EQ6 • 6″ f/6 Newtonian Reflector
7.5mm Parks Gold Series Plössl + 2x Barlow • 240x, 13′ FoV
1 October 2007 • 02:30-03:00 UT

By the 1st of October, Jupiter is slipping quickly into the evening twilight, so I was pleased to make this final observation of Jupiter for the 2007 opposition. The four Galilean satellites are arrayed as follows (preceding to following): Europa (forming a close pair with a 10th magnitude field star), and Io on the west side of the planet; to the east, bright Ganymede forms another close pair with slightly fainter Callisto. Another faint field star lies just beyond these two, masquerading as yet another Jovian satellite.

The cloud belts of Jupiter displayed a pleasing amount of detail. The north equatorial belt is considerably darker than the south equatorial belt, which is split in two by a bright lane. Conversely, the south polar region was more prominent than its southern counterpart. The equatorial region itself was quite bright with subtle indications of the festoon activity which has lately characterized the region.