Jupiter orbits the sun via an ecliptical path around the sun which takes roughly 12 earth years for a full orbit. In fact experts believe if Jupiter was 80 times larger than it already is, it would be regarded as a star. The planet has a very similar layout to that of our sun as its atmosphere is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium, the clouds of Jupiter are regarded as being really cold, hitting temperatures as low as -143 degrees Celsius whilst it’s surface is said to be as hot as 24,000 degrees Celsius, which is actually hotter than the surface of the sun. This in turn will make it one of the easier planets to spot when you get your telescope out. This is because Mars’ maximum angular diameter is 25.1 whilst Jupiter never appears smaller than 29.8. What’s interesting about Jupiter is that even though Mars can come really close to earth when orbiting the sun, Jupiter will always appear larger than it. At its farthest Jupiter is roughly 600 million miles away from Earth whilst at its closest it’s roughly 400 million miles away. It’s approximately 143,000 kilometers (about 89,000 miles) wide at its equator. It’s what regarded as a gas giant and is actually so large that not only would 1300 Earth’s fit inside it, in fact every planet within our solar system would be able fit inside it too (crazy I know!). Jupiter is the 5th farthest planet from the Sun and is also the largest celestial object (not including the Sun) in our solar system. What Equipment Will You Need To See Jupiter?.Can You See Jupiter Without A Telescope?.Throughout the rest of this post, I’ll be going over the more technical aspects of locating Jupiter along with some cool sights to see look out for when observing this big red gas giant. Secondly you’ll need a decent sized telescope with a 6″ aperture plus to be magnify your system for the finer details and lastly you’d need an eyepiece that preferably allows for a 180x magnification to observe Jupiter and its moons’ at its best. That’s where this article comes in, with the aim of explaining how you can see Jupiter with a telescope and unsurprisingly, it’s not as complicated as you may think.įirstly, you’ll require software like Stellarium or the database from a GoTo mount to locate Jupiter. I guess it doesn’t matter really matter all that much but, if you’re here right now Jupiter’s swirly atmosphere, the huge red spot and of course all the moons orbiting the planet from Ganymede, Europa, Io (and its 76 other moons) are things you’re more certainly looking to explore. When you think of our solar system and the idea of observing it, I’m sure the first celestial entities that come to mind are the Moon, the Sun, Mars and likely Jupiter afterwards right? This means we may make a commission if you purchase an item using one of our links* Ganymede-the largest moon in the Solar System, and larger even than Mercury-was visited last month by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, the first to photograph it for 20 years.*This post may contain affiliate links. These four largest of Jupiter’s 79 moons are known as the Galilean satellites because they were first spotted by the astronomer Galileo Galilei from Italy in 1610. How to see Jupiter’s moonsĪny pair of binoculars with 7x or 10x magnification will give you excellent views of its four Galilean moons-Ganymede, Europa, Callisto and Io. Only a telescope-any size-will afford you a glimpse of the brown-orange-pink bands in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Jupiter at opposition is a great chance to point binoculars and telescopes at the gas giant. MORE FROM FORBES See 7 Jaw-Dropping New Photos Of Jupiter Taken This Week By NASA's Juno By Jamie Carter How to see Jupiter at its best That geometry means that Jupiter’s disk will appear to be 100% illuminated as seen from Earth. When Earth passes between a planet and the Sun astronomers call it an opposition.
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