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A few weeks ago I wrote about a new storm on Jupiter named Oval BA. Although it’s not really named after me or my website, it’s still pretty cool. Hubble released the image above of the new storm just today. Go to that link (or some of the others on the HST site) and take a look at the images for context. To give you some idea of the size of this monster, you could dunk the whole Earth into it. Jupiter is amazing; it can operate on some truly incredible scales.
Incidentally, Jupiter is now rising earlier every night, and by 10:00 p.m. it has cleared my neighbor’s trees. The other night I pulled out my ‘scope (with my friend Fraser Cain, who runs Universe Today) and just missed Io, one of the bright moons, going across the face of Jupiter! I’ve watched that happen before, and it’s very cool to track it happening (it takes about 3 hours for Io to cross Jupiter). You can see the moons easily with just binoculars (a tripod helps), so now is the time to start watching the King of the Planets.’
May 4th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
Is this subject “spot” a son of The Great Red Spot?
By Jove! me thinks Hubble has got something still going for all of us hobby and professional astronomical students…
May 4th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Jupiter’s spots certainly make our most powerful tropical cyclones look like a winter draft.
May 5th, 2006 at 6:37 am
I’m just wondering, Is anybody thinking of appling that shot of the littl’ spot to ceramic tiles? I reckon that would be cool.
Ivan.
May 5th, 2006 at 6:42 am
Phil:
and mentioned that you have your own scope. So tell us, what’ve you got? There may well be nascent amateur astronomers reading this who want to know. Perhaps you can help steer them away from those department store scopes which poison astronomy for many would-be astronomers.
Glad you did a write-up on the Bad Astronomy Spot (AKA Red Jr
BTW, your old instrument while you were here at UVa, the 26″ Clark Refractor, is slated to be restored to it’s 1800s appearance this summer. The linoleum on the dome room floor is to be ripped up this weekend (starting on National Astronomy Day) with work continuing next week.
Richard B. Drumm
Vice President
Charlottesville Astronomical Society
May 5th, 2006 at 8:47 am
There may well be nascent amateur astronomers reading this who want to know. Perhaps you can help steer them away from those department store scopes which poison astronomy for many would-be astronomers.
So do you have a problem with those affordable refractors with the “450x magnification” on the box along with all the color Hubble shots? (Just kidding of course)
I know what you mean. I started out when I was 12 years old with one of those black and white 60mm Tasco wobble mount refractors. I actually lost interest after a few years with that since I got tired of aiming above the planet and letting if fall down so I could view it. *bleh!*
I got back into it again back in about 2001, and it’s been downhill with many nights of no sleep since then! hehe!
So back to the Jupiter topic. I’m finding so far this season that Jupiter is too low to get any good images of it. It won’t get much higher until we get on the other side of the solstice I figure. Maybe summer isn’t such a good planet viewing time after all since it’s so low. Frustrating since summer we have sligtly less clouds than winter here in Seattle!
Tom
May 5th, 2006 at 9:53 am
Hey Congrats on your new Son, uh, spot!
Could picked a better name tho …
May 5th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Any chance of the two red spots merging?
May 6th, 2006 at 8:15 am
“What’s your favorite plant? Mine’s the sun..its like, the King of Planets” –Will Ferrel as Hari kari
June 29th, 2008 at 7:35 am
I wonder if anyone has speculated on whether or not either or both red spots might just disappear one day. The Big red spot has been going on for quite a while. I don’t think there will be a “Space Odyssey” event.
Perhaps in a few centuries they will be gone, cause they cant go on forever.