Amateur Astronomer

Best pictures of Jupiter ever

October 9, 2008 on 7:24 am | In Astrophotography |

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.