What ep and filter do I use to see the red spot, using an 8" dob? I cant find any surface color.?

Question

What ep and filter do I use to see the red spot, using an 8" dob? I cant find any surface color.?

Answer 1

use a high power eyepiece on a night with very good seeing conditions.  I have a 10" dob with a focal length of 1200mm, a 10 mm eyepiece will show banding in the clouds for me but that is usually as high of a power as I can go due to seeing conditions.  If you can get away with it, try a n 8mm eyepiece with a 2x barlow.

A blue filter will bring out the red shade in objects, I use a #80A medium blue with decent results.

And lastly, and probably the most obvious, the spot needs to be on the side of Jupiter facing us.  I have not how to go about this apart from actually seeing it in your scope.

Edit:  I could see it last night right after the sun set with a 24mm eyepiece barlowed to give me 100x power using no filter.  It was a bit more detailed at 170x power but that was pushing the seeing conditions at the time.  And the spot was more of a pink than a red, look for a distortion in a cloud band to find it.

According to all the guys from my astronomy club last night the best time for good seeing is right after sunset.  Make sure it is not over a building or house when you are viewing it, those produce so much heat distortion that they really make seeing any sort of detain other than the brightest cloud bands difficult at best.

Answer 2

In addition, you can use this Sky and Telescope web page to predict when the GRS is visible.  You'll have to register.  But that's free.

I've not made the effort to see the GRS, and have not been lucky enough to see it by chance.  Shouldn't it be visible half the time?  They say that the contrast isn't very high these days.