Henry Rifle Forums

My wife and I took a look at Jupiter thru my spotting scope last night. We were able to see what we think were five of it’s many moons. Pretty incredible to see. I was thinking about Sir Henry and his new telescope. I figure with the openness of his place and that scope plus new camera he is getting a nice view.

We have these landscape lights around the house and they are pretty bright. While out Jupiter watching a couple of nights ago my wife started clowning around with her shadow calling herself Bigfoot. Pretty impressive shadow for a 5 footer. Of course we had all the other lights off that are normally on so the landscape lights were brighter that usual.

Great post! Shadow portraits are always great and your Bigfoot is one of the best. I should try looking at the planets. I watch wildlife all the time. Maybe I’ll post some pictures.

Great post.

The 4 moons you are seeing in a spotting scope are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto and they change position a lot, one night to the next because they are moving very fast. They disappear when in front or behind Jupiter, so on some nights you may only see one or three on one side and so on. There's an app online that will tell you which one is which for any given night. Keep in mind that the moons appear to be specs like stars, but they are all in a straight line either side of Jupiter when you can see them, so that's how you know they are not stars.

By the way, If you have a fairly dark sky, you can even see the moons in an 8x or 10x binocular. That's not enough magnification to show Jupiter as an actual distinct globe, but it's very bright and shines with a steady light. With a spotting scope, though, you can start to see Jupiter as a globe instead of a star. In an actual astronomy telescope with more magnification, you can even see cloud belts on Jupiter and other detail.

The biggest "wow" when I show people the planets though a telescope, though, is with Saturn and its rings if they are seeing it for the first time. The rings are just amazing. I've actually had little kids go around to the front of the telescope to see if someone put a sticker of Saturn on the front.

Great info NCG, thank you. We did see three moons close together in a line on the left of the planet, another to the right and another below about 5:00. I wondered if the two not in the line could have been just stars in the view. I found that my scope on a basic tripod was very shakey and I had to reduce the magnification a bit to steady it up enough to get a view. I was wishing I had a decent telescope.

Yes, if not in a line with those 3, they were background stars. Remember, the planets wander across the sky so you'll see a different stellar background as they move. The very word, planet, means wanderer in ancient Greek. The fact that planets moved among the stars but the stars stayed in place relative to each other is what the planets so special to ancient astronomers. We tend to overlook the fact that ancient astronomers were actually top-notch observers and mappers of the night sky. Anything new or different got their immediate attention.

My wife enjoys reading about ancient man (and earlier) and she is always amazed with the astronomy that was in place centuries ago.

Also, stars appear to twinkle while planets and moons don't.