Amateur Astronomer

Best pictures of Jupiter ever

In my little 4 1/2″ and 8″ telescopes, I can see anywhere from three to five stripes on Jupiter on a good night.  A friend said he saw the big red spot when he was over the other night, but either he has way better vision than I do or he was full of it.  Either way, nothing I could ever see from my telescopes would even come close to what the 8.2 meter telescope in Chile was able to capture!  I find it amazing that they could get a picture like this, but that the resolution is high enough that can see objects as small as 180 miles across.  It’s hard for me to imagine 180 miles as being ‘high resolution’, but I guess when you’re several light-minutes from the object you’re observing, that really is a sharp image.

Sites for backyard astronomers

I’ve been blogging for years and one of the functions of my blog is as a backup memory for web sites.  Why should I try to remember something when I can easily post it to the blog and have it available any time I want?  Plus it saves my memory for the important stuff, like remembering the next piece of hardware I want to buy. 

My friend Micheal knows I have taken up astronomy and sent me this page, 15+ Sites for Backyard Astronomers.  I’ve checked out a few of the sites mentioned, but most of them were new to me.  I’m a little surprised that Google Earth’s Sky made it into the list but Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope didn’t.  I’ve used both and I’ll honestly say I’m a bit more impressed with WWT then Sky.