Jupiter at its best for 2024 - check it out now!

The largest planet in the Solar System as close as it will come to Earth in 2024 right now and it's the perfect time to view and photograph Jupiter. 

During closer approaches when the Earth and Jupiter are the same side of the Sun (called "opposition") it's the 3rd brightest object in the night sky behind the Moon and Venus. 

Jupiter has been known by peoples from all parts of the world since ancient times. 

Viewing Jupiter

With your eyes alone:

Jupiter shines as very bright star not far the constellation of Orion this summer and is inline with Betelgeuse, the deep-red star that forms one of the "shoulders". 

Where Jupiter can be found this weekend (7th and 8th of December 2024) around 10.30pm local time

You won't be able to see any details on Jupiter nor will you be able to see any of the four largest moons*. 

Where the Sun, Earth and Jupiter are aligned during this year's opposition. Illustration via NASA

Binoculars:

With just about any pair of binoculars Jupiter will start to be no longer be a single point of light but start to have a definite circular shape. There's a very good chance you'll also spot as many as four small "stars" spread out either side of Jupiter. 

These are the planet's largest four moons, first definitively recorded by Galileo in January 1609 and independently a day later by astronomer Simon Marius. Marius didn't write about his discovery for time afterwards. While we refer these collectively as Jupiter's Galilean moons, we use the names for them proposed by Marius:

• Callisto
• Europa
• Ganymede
• Io

Each of these moons is a world in itself, with complex geological processes and even oceans. NASA's Europa Clipper mission launched some weeks ago to investigate the suitability of Europa as a place for life. 

Telescopes:

Even a small telescope will start to reveal the darker bands and lighter streaks that run across the surface of Jupiter. What you're looking at are icy cold regions of ammonia and water floating on the planet's atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. With telescopes of 150mm aperture or larger you'll even see a vast storm, larger than the Earth, called the Great Red Spot. As Jupiter rotates every 10 hours, the position of the Great Red Spot will change throughout the night or might even disappear as it heads behind the planet and out of view. 

Eyepiece upgrades:

Solar System planets like Jupiter are ideal astro objects for using higher magnifications. Many telescopes are supplied with a 25mm for wide field views and a 10mm for higher magnification. 

We can help with suggested individual eyepieces to suit you telescope. Another option is to buy a Barlow. This sits between your telescope and the eyepiece and effectively decreases the focal length of the eyepiece, which means it increases the telescope's magnification. For example, this $49 Celestron T-Adapter-Barlow Lens 1.25 inch would double the power of each eyepiece.

Find out more here.

While Barlow lenses are not a perfect solution, they offer an affordable way to increase the range of your telescope. 

Motorised telescopes and taking photos:

 Any telescope with a computerised and motorised tracking mount will make extended visual observing of planets much easier and open up options for taking detailed photos of them as well.

Solar System planets were some of the astro objects that amateur astronomers turned their early digital cameras to a few years ago and they quickly produced images that were far superior to even the best film cameras of the time. 

The reason fairly low-cost planetary cameras can produce such planetary photos is because of a technique called lucky imaging. It you look at the stars at night you'll night they "twinkle". This shimmering of these points of light in the sky is caused by minor disturbances in the quality of the atmosphere. Wind currents, patches of warmer and colder air and other factors means amount of twinkle, or "seeing" as astronomers call it, varies from not just night to nigh but throughout the evening and sometimes even moment to moment.

If you look through a telescope at a telescope at a planet like Jupiter, it might appear to wobble around or be blurry. Then suddenly, the view will be razor sharp for a while and then go back to being a big dodgy. 

A planetary camera attached to a tracking telescope like this Celestron NexStar 4SE doesn't take a single image like you would with your phone. Rather, it takes a video and using software to examine the quality of each frame and then combine the clearer and sharper views captured and discard the less than ideal frames. It then combines them into a single image - with often amazing results.

Celestron NexStar 4SE - more details here.

ZWO ASI678MC Colour Planetary Camera- more details here

Whether you're looking Jupiter with just your eyes, a binocular or telescope or even planning to photograph the gas giant, think about the complex and expansive world above our heads tonight. 

Cheers,

Earl White

BINTEL

5th December 2024

*Yes, there are some folks who claim to be able to see these moons with their eyes along and without binoculars or a telescope. They are just on the outer edge of human visual capabilities under near perfect conditions, so grab a pair of binos or a small telescope and enjoy them.