Is Jupiter's Spot visible?

Question

I was looking threw a telescope idk what kind but it's kinda old, anyways, and theres this one planet idk if it's venus or Jupiter or what but its lk to the far right of the full moon, but wen i look at it threw the telescope up close theres a black spot at the far right of the planet

i think it's a planet? maybejsut a big star... but anyways is it Jupiter? and the spot?

Answer 1

That is definitely Jupiter that you are looking at.  I didn't know that the spot would be visible with a home telescope, but from your account it sounds like it is.  Cool!

Answer 2

the black spot may have been the shadow of one of jupiter's moons. i watched ganymede transit a couple of weeks ago, with a tiny black spot of a shadow following it. it was really cool.

you've seen photographs of jupiter, so you know what teh great red spot looks like. in a telesscope its subdued, more a salmon colour. but its still there. it too is really cool.

Answer 3

Some nights when you look at Jupiter, you might see one of the Gallilean moons in front of Jupiter.  What you will see is the shadow of the moon on Jupiter.  It looks like a tiny sharp black dot.

You might also see the Great Red Spot.  It doesn't look red and it doesn't really look like a spot either.  To me, it looks more like an absence of stripes.  The light gray stripe sort of disappears and seems to go around the great spot.  Very exciting!!

Answer 4

Hi egj -

That was certainly Jupiter, and the spot is visible. In fact, I saw it the other night through my scope. But the spot these days appears to be lighter than the surrounding cloud bands, not darker. What you may have seen - if you have a decent scope - was the shadow of one of the Galilean moons as it passes in front of the planet. That looks like a dark spot.

ADDED:

I am convinced that what you saw was indeed Jupiter. Depending on the quality of the optics in the scope you were using, the dark spot that you saw on the planet was probably either:

1. A slightly fuzzy view of the cloud bands that race over the face of the planet. These are normally fairly easy to see. Did you see any dark horizontal stripes across the planet? If not, then the spot was probably these cloud bands as seen through a slightly out of focus instrument. That's easy to do..

2. A shadow of one of the four largest moons of Jupiter. Did you see the moons? If so, how many did you see? If it was less than four, then one of the moons may have been crossing in front of Jupiter and casting it's shadow on the cloud tops on Jupiter itself.

By the way, if you did see the dark horizontal bands, then the Great Red Spot would have been visible as a slight bulge with a small, lighter colored, oval spot in one of the dark bands. Depending on the type of scope you have, top right sounds like a likely place for it (it spins around the planet completely once every 10 hours)

Answer 5

Jupiter is the bright star in the southeast at sunset this month. It does have one large red spot, and some smaller spots, but none of them is black. However it also has 4 large moons that can easily be seen with a small telescope, and those moons frequently cast their shadows on Jupiter, and those shadows look like tiny black spots on the disk of Jupiter. Sky and Telescope magazine will tell you the times when such shadows can be seen. I have photographed them a few times. See the source.