Posts Made By: Ken Seino

I had an interesting experience tonight looking at Jupiter through my 6" reflector. The sky was pretty clear between clouds but the seeing didn't allow for more than 150x magnification in my location. My views of Jupiter have always looked pretty washed out without much detail in what was visible. Then a band of clouds moved over the planet and suddenly I could see a lot more color and features.

I'm pretty new to astronomy so I was really surprised when this happened. Should I be using filters? I've tried #15 yellow and a moon filter on Jupiter before but it didn't improve contrast at all. I also have #56 green, #21 orange, #23A light red, and #80A blue but I hesitate to use them since I feel like they reduce too much light transmission for my small scope. Any suggestions to improve my views are greatly appreciated!
Ken

Here's a newbie question but I'm curious...

What causes air glow and why would it be more pronounced in one eyepiece versus another. I've had several nights where my Celestron plossls display a significant amount of glow around Jupiter. By contrast, if I use my Celestron SMA, there is hardly any air glow. Does the eyepiece design have as much to do with this effect as atmospheric conditions? Thanks

Ken