Jupiter My First Sighting
Due to the number of houses around my small garden it has been hard to find some of the planets which only rise a little over the horizon, as a lot of the time I just cannot see them. But on Friday 1st June I actually managed to get my first sighting of Jupiter.
Using my K9 lens I could just make out the markings and bandings across the planet, I also tried then using my 2x barlow lens with it, but I could not make out much more detail. I think my next pruchase will have to be a good quality barlow lens and a 4x or 5x lens to try and improve my night viewings.
Anyway, I was also amazed to make out three stars in a horizontal line around Jupiter, after looking this up in the Collins Skywatching Book (ISBN 0002200287) they are in fact the Galilean Moons of Jupiter, of which there are actually four moons, but sometimes you cannot make out all four moons as one may be in front of Jupiter.
It amazed me the first time I saw it, and it is good to see it still does it for people 🙂 You might be interested in my latest post about Jupiter at Psychogeeks.com.