Jupiter's Opposition

21st September 2010 is a special day for amateur astronomer like me. Its Jupiter's closest approach to the earth since 1951, and its not going to be this close until 2022. It is the best time to observe the great red spot during the opposition. The opposition of Jupiter happen every year, not like Mars which only happen in every 2 years. Those who missed this opposition should not be upset since we actually cant tell the different between this year and next year opposition.

I already spotted Jupiter last month, and that's the first time I observed Jupiter with my orion XT10. I can tell the Jupiter is so small through my 25mm eyepiece.

On 18th of September 2010, 2days after I come back from Malaysia for summer holiday, I observed Jupiter with anwar, abg rizal and azizul in anwar's backyard, Jupiter is near the opposition, and I can tell' its looks bigger through my eyepiece than a month ago. Before I arrived in Birmingham, I did order Celestron Omni 2x Barlow lens so I can double the magnification of my eyepiece. And Its works really well!!!!However, because of the opposition, I prefer to use my 25mm eyepiece without barlow(Jupiter is already bigger than usual)

Many people said that Jupiter's great red spot can be observed easily using 6inch or 8 inch telescope during the opposition. However, Its kind of hard for me to find the red spot during its transit in 19th September, probably because of the seeing condition. I observed Jupiter and Io transit with abg rizal, and kak ainol that night. It was the first time I observed Io transit and I never observed any other moon transit before and, its beautiful.

While I'm writing this entry, I can see Jupiter from my window where it's just 591518236.68846 km away/3.95405177AU from earth..and my telescope is 194.9km from meT.T