Jupiter

Considering how much time I spend looking at it I was a little surprised when I realised that I have yet to post a picture of Jupiter. Last night was relatively still and clear and with Jupiter fairly favourably positioned it sat at the top of my list of targets. Usually I stay at the eyepiece when observing Jupiter, there's just so much to look at - distinguishing the different belts and zones, watching the progress of the moons - but this time I used the webcam.

I haven't practised much on Jupiter with the webcam so I'm still trying out different filters and settings. It's a similar process to that which I went through when observing Mars and so far I haven't cracked it when using the 2x Barlow. Here's the best of the bunch from last night:


The main equatorial belts are clear and zooming in a little makes it possible to pick out the Great Red Spot on the South Equatorial Belt (towards the right edge):


All in all, not a bad attempt but I expect something much better once I've had a bit more practice.