Astronomy magazine contributor and longtime imager John Chumack had some luck spotting the
new Jupiter impact site from his home in Dayton, Ohio, July 24, and he was nice enough to share his account with us:
Even though the seeing sucked, and the sky was full of thick haze, I was able to capture the impact mark on Jupiter.
I shot these images with my ToUcam PRO II webcam attached to my 6-inch f/8 cave reflector from my front driveway last night.
Unfortunately, the neighbors’ trees block my view from my backyard 10-inch scope, with little time to capture it between about 11 p.m. and 2:30 a.m., so I dug out a small portable 6-inch scope to shoot it from my front yard.
I Stacked 643 frames out of 1800 in Registax. North is up in the images.
You can see the Great Red Spot (GRS) on the right edge of the first image (above) and the Little Red Spot (LRS) on the second image (to the right), just above the dark impact mark. Surprisingly, it is very noticeable in small telescopes.
I’ll have to try again with my DMK Firewire camera and a bigger scope when the sky is clearer and more stable!
Thanks, John!
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Photos credit: John Chumack